How Does A Guy Behave After A Breakup

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Rachael Pace, Author

Rachael Pace

Expertise: Mental health, Parenting

Rachael Pace inspires with motivational articles on loving partnerships. She encourages making room for love and facing challenges together.

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Updated: 13 Oct, 2024

Table of Contents

Hurt is real for everyone and naming those feelings together helps you grow closer and feel seen.
Reactions come from pain and choosing empathy and honest conversation helps you both feel seen and grow closer.
Healing needs time and support and leaning on each other with patience builds trust and sets the stage for deeper connection.

Breakups are unavoidable. When you enter a relationship, you risk not just your trust but also your heart and mind. No matter how good it is, no matter how perfect it may seem – we don’t hold what the future has in store for us.

Sometimes, breakups just happen and we find ourselves confused as to what happened. We all know how girls deal with breakups, right?

However, how familiar are we with the real score in a guy’s behavior after a breakup, and how do they move on?

Related Reading: Worst Breakup Excuses Ever Given by Men

What do guys feel after they break up?

How familiar are we in decoding guy’s behavior after a breakup and how they deal with it? Men are actually harder to read than women especially the guys after a breakup.

It’s not unusual for us to notice the difference in men’s behavior after a break up much more to how they would react to it after a couple of weeks and even months.

Some say that men would be slower to react and will not even cry when faced with this situation.

Some would also say that guy’s behavior after breakup will include rebounds and even lots and lots of booze but the truth is, when he breaks up with you, a man would react depending on how he feels.

Maggie Martinez, LCSW, says

No man is the same in handling a breakup so it can be difficult to predict how someone might react.

It may not make sense to some but for men, it’s how they deal with the hurt but as their egos are important, it may seem a little different as to how women would face the situation.

What do guys feel after they break up with you? or do guys hurt after a breakup? They feel a lot of emotions but due to them being men and masculine, they tend to choose to hide what they are really feeling – sometimes, even with their friends.

Related Reading: 7 Ways How a Man Handles a Breakup

Common breakup reactions of men

A guy’s behavior after breakup will depend on their initial reaction when it happens. Whether they made a mistake that led to the breakup or even if they are the ones who initiated it, men will deal with these emotions.

When do guys start to miss you after a breakup will also depend on how they would first react after the said break up.

Some men immediately feel this along with the need to contact you and make amends but some don’t and would rather opt to different behaviors such as getting depressed or being angry.

What guys go through after a breakup?

Extreme Anger
Confusion
Feelings of failure to one’s self
Intense sadness and even depression
Emotional numbness

Generally, men after breakup will start to feel these feelings in no particular order, some may feel only anger and confusion, some all of these until they find the reason to move on but before they do that, they would of course have a reaction towards these feelings.

Thus, the reason why we see these guy’s behavior after break up.

Related Reading: Major Men vs Women Break up Reactions

Breakup behavior of guys – Explained

Broken Heart Guy Sitting In The Bar With A Glass Of Beer Point Hand Overhead Deep Thinking Concept

It’s not how they move on, rather, it’s how they react to what they are feeling that causes them to:

1. Tell a different story

How do guys feel after a breakup?

Hurt of course, no matter how cool they may seem to be and even emotionless for some, it still hurts.

That’s why some men, when asked what happened will choose to tell a different story like it was a mutual decision or he was the one who dumped her.

2. Be a total jerk

Not to be too harsh here, but what do guys think after a breakup?

They think that they were wronged and hurt and sometimes, it does happen and as they can’t cry it out loud or just ask a friend to listen, some men react by being mean.

It’s like a way to protect themselves from getting hurt again.

He can text and chat his ex-girlfriend mean words just for him to release that pain.

Maggie Martinez further adds,

In cases where you are getting mean text messages or calls from an ex, you should block them. Allowing this behavior to continue will hinder any healing progress.

3. Rebound tactic

Men don’t like it when they would be teased about losing the perfect girl or being asked why he was dumped so in turn; he would rather show a cool not-affected personality that immediately jumps into another relationship to prove that he didn’t experience loss and pain.

4. The reasoning dude

How do guys handle breakups when all their mutual friends begin to ask? Well, another way that men behave is by reasoning.

They may say that it was a mutual decision or he needed to let go of her because she was too needy. This aims to let everyone know that he is strong and was the bigger person to let go of.

5. The blame game

Most of us are familiar with these types of reactions on how guys deal with breakups. We know how some men opt to blame the girlfriend for why the relationship ended instead of admitting that he is just feeling lost and confused.

They would rather blame their exes for why the relationship ended or how she wasn’t good enough for him.

6. The get even game

Lastly, why do guys go cold after a breakup then get mean and get even?

This is one of the things that we commonly see in breakups where the man is too hurt to admit that their relationship ended that he would rather feed his anger and resentment to get the chance to get even instead of moving on. Truth is, he is just in great pain.

Related Reading: How Do Men Get Over a Breakup?

The main reason why they act like this

Just like women, a guy’s behavior after breakup will depend on his environment, the people around him, how he deals with stress, emotional capability, and even his confidence level.

A man who doesn’t have a strong support system or stable emotional confidence will opt to blame, getting even and being totally unfair with everyone.

A man who has a strong emotional foundation will, of course, get hurt too but will rather understand and take his time to move on before getting ready to enter a relationship again.

Maggie Martinez comments,

Men who are able to be emotionally mature will likely surround themselves with appropriate distractions like friends and family to heal.

Love is a risk and no matter how hard it may seem, as long as you know that you have given your all and still, it didn’t work, then you need to accept the reality and even the pain to give you time to finally move on.

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Rachael Pace Author

Rachael Pace is a noted relationship writer associated with Marriage.com. She provides inspiration, support, and empowerment in the form of motivational articles and essays. Rachael enjoys studying the evolution of loving partnerships... Read more and is passionate about writing on them. She believes that everyone should make room for love in their lives and encourages couples to work on overcoming their challenges together. Read less