For centuries, the self-sufficient man who shuns romance has appeared as a kind of noble figure. ‘He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune,’ wrote Francis Bacon in ‘Of Marriage and the Single Life’ (1625). ‘Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men.’ For Bacon, romantic relationships (and family) are impediments to a man becoming his best. Ralph Waldo Emerson devoted an entire essay, ‘Self-Reliance’ (1841), to the conviction that a man should stand apart from the crowd. ‘I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me,’ he wrote. Decades later, Rudyard Kipling reduced the idea to a single line: ‘He travels the fastest who travels alone.’
Such visions of self-sufficient masculinity endure in depictions of silent cowboys, wandering rōnin, desert hermits, elite soldiers, or libertines who treat love as a sport. Powered by their own strength and resilience, these men are domesticated only when circumstances or a determined partner finally insists on it. According to this view of masculinity, love is a welcome addition but never a need.
Women, on the other hand, have often been portrayed as being consumed by their desire for romantic relationships. Consider an often-quoted line from Lord Byron’s epic poem Don Juan (1819-24): love is just one part of a man’s life, Byron writes, but ‘tis woman’s whole existence’. If men can take or leave romance, the logic goes, then women must be the real romantics. They are the ones who fall harder and faster, and the ones who carry the emotional weight of a relationship.
But that’s not how things really work. As a researcher specialising in the psychology of romantic relationships, I have found that the evidence points the other way. In 2023 and 2024, I analysed more than 50 empirical studies and meta-analyses, revealing masculinity to be much more fragile than assumed. At every stage, from the first spark of attraction to the aftermath of a breakup, it is men who depend more on their romantic partners, for their happiness and, in measurable ways, for their survival.
To understand the disproportionate weight love carries for men, we must examine the trajectory of relationships, starting from the time when men are single and searching for a partner. On average, men consider finding a partner more important for their happiness than women do. When single, they are less satisfied with their relationship status and long for a partner more intensely. They also plunge into the feeling of falling in love more often and more quickly, and they experience unrequited love more frequently. Contrary to common expectations, men are typically the first to say ‘I love you’ in heterosexual relationships, according to a 2022 study led by Christopher Watkins from Abertay University in the UK, which surveyed participants across seven countries on three continents.
Once in a relationship, both partners usually benefit. Longitudinal research indicates that entering a romantic relationship itself is typically accompanied by increases in life satisfaction. Accordingly, couples tend to show higher levels of wellbeing, better mental and physical health, and even higher life expectancy than their single counterparts. Yet, all these benefits are more pronounced for men. For example, a 2020 meta-analysis by Yafeng Wang from Wuhan University in China and colleagues, involving data on marital status and mortality risk from 7.9 million individuals and 1.9 million deaths, found that unmarried women had a 22 per cent higher mortality risk than married women, but unmarried men even had a 46 per cent higher mortality risk than married men. So for the average man, being in a committed relationship is more decisive for how long they will live than it is for the average woman.
Following a divorce, the risk of suicide doubles for men
Many romantic relationships, however, end in a breakup and, if they do, this is typically initiated by women: among heterosexual couples, 60 to 70 per cent of breakups and divorces are initiated by women, according to studies in the US, Germany and Netherlands. The remaining 30 to 40 per cent are equally divided between mutual breakups and those initiated by men.
When the split happens, men suffer more. While a breakup is typically painful for women too, men tend to struggle more to find any positive aspects, such as relief or newfound independence, following a split. They are less likely to feel like they have learned something from the breakup. Men also tend to experience a sharper decline in life satisfaction, reporting higher levels of loneliness afterward and more frequently resorting to harmful coping mechanisms, such as alcohol and substance abuse.
Most alarmingly, the end of a relationship can be fatal. Following a divorce, the risk of suicide doubles for men. In a research paper in 2025, the men’s health expert Michael Wilson from the University of Melbourne and colleagues reviewed 75 prior studies on suicidality in men to find ‘the factors underpinning men’s suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and death by suicide following relationship breakdown’. They found that the risk of suicide was especially high during the separation period itself, nearly twice the odds seen in men who were already divorced (and more than four times as high as married men). For women, the suicide risk after a divorce or separation increases by a far smaller amount, if at all. For a significant number of men, losing a romantic relationship is, quite literally, a matter of life or death.
How did we arrive at a place where the supposedly ‘stronger’ gender longs intensely for a partner, relies more heavily on them for health and wellbeing, is more frequently left behind, and remains emotionally fragile in the face of heartbreak? Multiple factors may play a role here.
Consider, for instance, the unequal distribution of household chores. Women spend substantially more time and effort doing unpaid care work, including both the execution and planning of tasks as part of home organisation. This unequal distribution of duties between heterosexual romantic partners is not without costs and is associated with lower levels of mental and physical health in women. However, after a breakup from a cohabitating partner, women tend to spend less time on household chores than before, leaving them with more time for enjoyable activities. Men, on the other hand, often suddenly lack the person who managed this workload, and may start spending more time on less enjoyable domestic activities.
Men, throughout their lives, are less likely to receive emotional support
A related practical factor that may shape the profound effect that romantic relationships have on the physical health and life expectancy of men is that women are more likely to remind their partners to go to the doctor than vice versa. Accordingly, while both men and women in romantic relationships tend to visit the doctor more often than their single counterparts, the difference between partnered and single individuals is more pronounced among men.
Child custody is another point. It is noteworthy that following a divorce, children tend to stay with their mothers in most cases, regardless of who initiates the breakup. That means fathers who walk away from a relationship not only lose their romantic partner but also risk a substantial reduction in contact with their children. The result is a compounding sense of loss, which mothers in the same position are far less likely to face.
However, the most robust and far-reaching explanation for why the ‘stronger’ gender is so much more emotionally fragile in the face of heartbreak is intimacy: research consistently shows that men, throughout their lives, are less likely to receive emotional support.
All humans possess an innate need for intimacy. We want to confide in others, to feel secure, to be touched and held, and to know someone has our back. A central condition for experiencing emotional intimacy is receiving emotional support. Emotional support involves caring for another person’s wellbeing by understanding and appreciating them. Longitudinal and intervention research has proven that emotional support is a central resource for mental and physical health. The fundamental problem is that men often lack this support outside the boundaries of a romantic relationship. As shown in numerous studies, they tend to receive less emotional support from their friends and family than women do. Instead, men are more likely to view their romantic partners as their primary confidant.
This ‘intimacy deficit’ begins remarkably early. Even boys aged around 10 or 11 report opening up to friends far less than girls do. As they grow older, men are significantly less likely than women to have confidants they can turn to in times of trouble. To fill this gaping void, many men lean almost exclusively on the emotional support of their partners. Consequently, finding a partner represents a massive gain in emotional closeness for a man. And losing that partner can represent the loss of his entire emotional infrastructure.
We have created a paradox: forms of masculinity that forbid vulnerability guarantee an even higher level of vulnerability
The root of this isolation is the traditional male gender role. From early childhood, boys are socialised to view vulnerability as a weakness. Parents subtly enforce this: studies show that when talking to preschool-aged daughters as compared with sons, parents focus more on emotional experiences and react more positively to sadness.
By adolescence, boys have learned the lesson. They expect that opening up to friends will feel ‘weird’. Adult men go on to judge other men harshly when they show vulnerability, seeing it as a violation of traditional masculinity. A comprehensive meta-analysis led by the social psychologist Alice Eagly from Northwestern University in Illinois, including studies spanning from 1946 to 2018, shows that communal traits, like emotionality and nurturance, are still overwhelmingly attributed to women. Both men and women continue to view emotionality as a desirable trait in women, but an undesirable one in men.
Yet, beneath this stoic mask, men experience vulnerable emotions like sadness and fear just as frequently and intensely as women do. We have created a paradox: forms of masculinity that forbid vulnerability guarantee an even higher level of vulnerability. Because deep emotional connection is socially acceptable for men only within the confines of a romantic relationship, they are left utterly defenceless when they are single or when a relationship ends.
While the societal roles and expectations for women have expanded massively in recent decades, the template for masculinity has largely stagnated. We continue to raise boys who become men who are wholly dependent on romantic partners for their basic emotional needs. This is an unfair burden to place on women and is actively impairing the health and life expectancy of millions of men.
Everyone, regardless of gender, should have the capacity to lead a fulfilled, emotionally supported life without a romantic partner. To achieve this, we must rewrite the societal image of masculinity from the ground up. We need to dispel the myth of stoic self-reliance. We need to normalise emotional openness and platonic intimacy among men, to ensure they lead healthy, resilient lives that are no longer existentially dependent on a romantic partner.
This shift must be systemic. It begins with parents, who must be encouraged to raise sons to view emotional openness as a fundamental life skill rather than a weakness. In schools, the importance of emotionally close friendships must be explicitly taught, creating spaces where boys learn that vulnerability is a strength.
Furthermore, we need targeted, community-based programmes for adult men that foster connections beyond romance. A promising model is the ‘Men’s Shed’ movement, which originated in Australia and is now run in several other countries around the world. These community workshops provide a space where men, typically of retirement age, can work on practical projects and talk ‘shoulder to shoulder’ rather than face-to-face. Such informal settings bypass the stigma of traditional therapy, reducing social isolation and increasing wellbeing.
For centuries, men have been told that romantic relationships don’t matter that much and that self-sufficiency is the answer to all problems. The research tells a different story: love, it turns out, is never just a small part of a man’s life.