When Jonathan Chan, a third-year student at George Brown College, started his romantic relationship with his former partner, he saw them in the best possible light. He was happy with his relationship and didn’t see anything wrong when he started spending more time with his former partner than his friends.
As time went on, the relationship turned sour. He knew they had to break up for his own well-being. Looking back on the relationship post-breakup, Chan said he realized his ex had a bad impact on his life. He added this realization allowed him to reflect on what he needed in a future girlfriend.
“Love is blind, right? That’s a key saying, so when you like someone so much, you don’t really focus on their negative traits, because why would you really?” Chan said.
After the split, he viewed his former partner more critically. Chan is not alone in feeling less satisfied with his ex after a breakup.
Researchers from Carleton’s psychology department, including graduate student Aidan Smyth, 2019 Carleton alumna Adrienne Capaldi, and associate professor Johanna Peetz collaboratively conducted research on how relationship satisfaction changes over time.
Their study found when people are in romantic relationships, they often view their partners in an idealized manner. This biased view likely allows them to experience greater relationship satisfaction. After a breakup, their views of the relationship often change for the worse.
The Carleton researchers recruited 184 participants in romantic relationships. Half of the participants were undergraduate students of 19 years old on average, and the other half were adults of 35 years old on average. Capaldi and Peetz collected data in fall 2017 and 2018.
In an email, Smyth said the researchers asked participants to describe the quality of their current relationships by filling out an online questionnaire. After four months, the participants were contacted again—26 per cent experienced a breakup.
“At this point, we asked these participants to evaluate the quality of their former relationship, retrospectively, by asking them how satisfied they were in their relationships four months ago, when they were still dating their former partner,” Smyth said.
Post-breakup coping mechanisms
The research had two key findings. The first describes how relationship satisfaction changes after a breakup.
“The results of our study suggest that after a recent break, people recall their former relationships as worse, in retrospect, than they had actually said their relationships were while they were still dating their former partners,” Smyth said.
Smyth said a potential reason for this finding is that being hypercritical of the relationship alleviates some of the negative feelings associated with a breakup.
“If a romantic interest is no longer available, a bias towards seeing him or her more critically might provide some comfort and reassurance, and reduce feelings of regret,” he said.
Chan said reflecting on the negative aspects of the relationship and his former partner provided reassurance for the breakup.
“By reflecting, it helped me get over the breakup and realize that I didn’t do anything wrong, which made me feel like I made the right decision,” he said.
In an email, Peetz offered another potential reason why people report being less happy with their former partner after a breakup, compared to what they had originally felt.
“I believe this effect is due to people’s tendency to view the world in a way that benefits them. This is not only the case in how ex-partners are appraised but also evident in a variety of appraisals outside of the relationship context,” she said.
Peetz used Emily Balcetis and David Dunning’s research on “wishful seeing” as support for her hypothesis. The research describes how desirable objects are seen as closer in physical distance compared to less desirable objects, such as a glass of water appearing close when the perceiver is thirsty, even though this might not be the truth.
Illusions and dissonance of the mind
Cheryl Harasymchuk, a relationship scientist and associate professor at Carleton, explained when relationships are developing, there is uncertainty surrounding whether partners will be together in the future.
She added researchers have found people “exaggerate positive traits of their partner and overlook some of the flaws to get over this uncertain terrain of development [during] the relationship, and these are called positive illusions.”
After a breakup, those positive illusions may not be present anymore partly because of how people react to cognitive dissonance, which Harasymchuk described as when one’s beliefs do not match their behaviours.
For example, if people remember their relationship in a very positive light, they will not understand the reasoning behind the breakup.
“One way [for people] to reduce that unsettling feeling [of cognitive dissonance] is to change their attitude. In this case, they will revise their thoughts about this former person or the relationship and remember it in a more negative way,” Harasymchuk said.
For example, Camille, a student at the University of Ottawa, said she was very satisfied with her former relationship at the time. However, looking back on it years later, she said her view of her partner was most likely idealized.
“When I was in [the relationship], I thought this was it, I thought I was going to marry this guy,” she said. “But looking back, I noticed what was wrong. I don’t know if I … wasn’t being realistic or if it was actually good.”
Camille said her breakup with her former partner allowed her to experience being with a different partner that brought out a better side of her.
“With that first partner, I thought I was a submissive … dependent person, and I thought I liked being like that, but with another partner who allowed me to express myself better and be more open and assertive, I realize I like being like that more.”
Looking through rose-coloured glasses
The second finding of the research relates to the other 74 per cent of participants who stayed in the same relationship over the course of the study.
“People who were still with the same partners also thought that they had been somewhat less satisfied with their relationships a few months earlier than they had actually reported at the time, though not to the same extent as those who broke up,” Smyth said.
“They thought their relationships had improved over the course of the study even though no improvement had actually taken place,” he added.
A potential reason for this finding is people see their relationships through rose-coloured glasses and people like to think that a relationship is improving over time, Smyth explained.
Harasymchuk said she also believes people like to experience growth in their relationship.
“They like to think that their relationship is improving and getting better and better because this signals a way to closeness and connection,” she said.
Harasymchuk added another reason why people may see their partners in an idealized way is because it likely helps them overcome obstacles to maintain a healthy relationship.
“When you have these positive illusions, it serves as a buffer for you to move on and continue with your relationship to get stronger,” she said.
Reflecting on changing relationship views
Peetz said she believes these findings might show that it is common for people’s relationships views to change over time.
“I hope it also leads people to think about what might be the ‘true’ perspective: how one thought at the time or how one thinks now,” she added.
Although changing relationship views might be common, when Smyth learned about the findings from the research, he said he felt a bit unsettled with the thought of biases in romantic relationships.
“The idea that I am probably not as accurate as I would like to believe when it comes to the way that I think about my romantic relationships, both past and present, is a bit disconcerting,” he said. “Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that some researchers speculate that these types of biases may be an important part of a healthy and satisfying relationship.”
In the future, Smyth said he wants to learn more about why these biases are prevalent in romantic relationships and if they are useful for developing new relationships.
“It’s possible that remembering a past relationship as worse than it was is helpful for an individual’s subsequent romantic relationships—perhaps it allows them to let go of the former partner and commit to someone new,” he added.
Although there are new avenues to be explored with this research, Peetz said this project is unique in itself for studying an often overlooked aspect of life.
“This research is important as it adds to our knowledge about what happens after a relationship—an area that’s less well-studied than what happens at the beginning and middle stages of relationships,” she said.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
