The Worst Way to Break Up

As the old song goes, breaking up is hard to do. But do some methods of ending a relationship cause more pain than others? This was a main question of a study led by Luca Pancani of the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy, who compared three methods of breaking off a relationship:

1. Ghosting, in which the disengager suddenly disappears without explanation, and ignores attempts at communication by the victim.
2. Orbiting is identical to ghosting, except that the disengager continues to follow the victim on social media after the break up (i.e., watching stories on Facebook), and occasionally reacts to (e.g., “likes”) the victim’s posts.
3. Rejection, in which the disengager directly and explicitly communicates their decision to break off the relationship to the participant.

In order to investigate how people respond to these different forms of break ups, Pancani and his team recruited participants via social media and assigned them to one of these three conditions: ghosting, orbiting, or explicit rejection. The participants then recounted an experience within the last five years in which a friend or romantic partner broke off a relationship with them in one of these three ways. Participants described their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors about this experience in a written text, which was later analyzed for themes.

The results were striking. Pancani and his collaborators found that ghosting, orbiting, and rejection caused different psychological reactions in the participants. In addition, participants experienced their break ups as a process that unfolded in stages, each with sub-themes. An overview of the stages, and how they differed in accordance with the type of break up, is provided below.

Stage 1: Event detection. This involved the victim identifying the disengager’s intent to end the relationship. In the rejection condition, the communication occurred face-to-face, by phone calls, or by text messages. Disengagers’ reasons for breaking up included interpersonal issues and alternative relationships.

By contrast, victims of ghosting and orbiting figured out that the relationship was over when their attempts at communicating went ignored. Orbiting created more ambiguity because of the continued connection through social media, which could spark victims’ hopes for reconciliation. A participant expressed: “Honestly, when I discovered the first signs of orbiting, I felt appreciated, because somehow I know I was still in this person's thoughts, for better or for worse.”

The value of the relationship. Many participants cited the type and length of the relationship in order to make sense of their response to the break up. In all conditions, the degree of emotional investment, day-to-day role, and future plans were important factors. One participant reflected: “I felt lost because, being very close, I leaned on him. I felt him as a point of reference that I suddenly lost.”

Stage 2: Surprise and confusion. Victims attempted to make sense of the break up, whilst feeling emotions such as guilt, anger, and sadness. For those who had been ghosted or orbited, this stage began when they realized that the disengager’s cessation of contact was not situational, but rather an intentional decision.

Unexpectedness and surprise. People experienced greater surprise when they were ghosted or orbited, by contrast to being rejected explicitly. Victims of ghosting often worried about the health and safety of the disengager, who just vanished. One participant recalled: “One day she disappeared, she stopped answering calls and messages. She moved away without saying anything. She left no contact details. At first, I was quiet: I thought she was just busy, then I started to worry, maybe something had happened?”

Uncertainty and confusion. Many victims felt uncertain and confused simply because they couldn’t find a reasonable explanation for the disengager’s conduct. This was less so in the rejection condition, because there was an opportunity for discussion. But for victims of ghosting and orbiting, the lack of clarity was disorienting. The ambiguity around orbiting could also spark heightened confusion. One participant remarked: “I could not explain to myself how it could have ended despite its views/likes [on the social media] were continuing as if nothing had happened”.

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Stage 3: Anger, sadness, and guilt. In trying to make sense of the break up, participants often felt guilt, anger, and sadness as described below.

Sense of responsibility and guilt. Across all conditions, some participants felt guilty and wondered whether they were responsible for the disengager’s poor treatment. This was more so the case with ghosting and orbiting. In the absence of clear information, some victims questioned themselves: “Several times, I thought I had done something wrong without realizing it”. These sorts of self-inquiries were temporary, but still painful.

Unfairness and anger. Participants felt anger in the face of rejection, especially if they saw the reasons for breaking up as unfair. That said, being ghosted was regarded as inherently unfair and stoked anger: “I felt very angry because I found his behavior absurd, unfair, and irrational. [...] I felt judged and condemned without appeal and rights”.

Orbiting also fomented anger. Participants felt “bothered” by the disengager’s social media behavior. One participant shared: “The only thing destabilizing and annoying is feeling his presence on social media."

Loss and sadness. These emotions were quite prevalent among the victims. In the ghosting condition, many felt both sad and lonely. In the orbiting condition, sadness was often experienced alongside anxiety: “I was sad but above all anguished, because I tried to understand the motivation of this gesture, feeling as if I could not give myself peace until I knew it”.

Attempts of Communication and Relational Repair. Attempts at trying to resurrect a relationship varied depending on the type of break up. For those in the rejection condition, participants sometimes refrained because of pride or the belief that the relationship couldn’t be salvaged. Yet with ghosting, attempts at communicating (and which go unanswered) are inherent to the situation. Similarly, some orbiting victims tried to mend the relationship, but ambiguity pervaded:

“On the one hand, [...] you went out of my life without giving me explanations, and now it's not up to you to know what I do, where and with whom. On the other hand, the desire to restore the relationship: each notification of the other person increases the hope of clarification”

Stage 4: Disengaging from the lost relationship and focusing on new investments. The last stage involves acceptance of the break up, and encompasses two processes: disengaging from the lost relationship and focusing on new investments.

Disengagement. In order to fully disengage, participants had to accept that the relationship was over — and diminish the disengager’s value. They stopped trying to contact the disengager, and gave up on the idea that the relationship could be repaired. Ghosting victims reported keeping their distance, and orbiting victims blocked disengagers.

New investments and alternative relations. By the end of the break up process, new friends and potential partners became more central, and served as a kind of replacement for the lost relationship. A participant expressed: “Over time, as the months went by, I learned to take no notice [of the past friends] and I created a new friend group to refer to”.

So what is the worst way to break up? In interpreting their results, Pancani's team argued that ghosting and orbiting can be understood as forms of ostracism, which also evoke feelings of invisibility, surprise, anger, sadness, and resignation. Rejection of any sort is obviously difficult to cope with, but the findings of this study show that having direct communication (and hopefully some compassion) makes it easier to bear.

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