Is Breaking Up Hard to Do? Exploring Emerging Adults' Perceived Abilities to End Romantic Relationships

Abstract

ObjectiveTo explore emerging adults' beliefs about their ability to end romantic relationships and to identify demographic, personality, and romantic experience factors associated with breakup beliefs.BackgroundAlthough, ending relationships is a key component of emerging adult romantic development, research suggests that breakups tend to be protracted and painful. Little is known about what individual skills might be relevant in making breakups smoother for both members of a couple.MethodUsing a cross‐sectional design and drawing from an existing survey panel, 948 emerging adults completed an online survey about their romantic experiences and health outcomes.ResultsMost participants perceived that they can carry out breakup‐related tasks; they reported knowing when to break up, being able to do so appropriately, being able to accept it when someone breaks up with them, and not delaying breaking up. However, a sizable proportion of participants (23.5% to 47.1% depending on the item) reported that they lacked the skills necessary to end romantic relationships. Beliefs about the ability to end relationships were most consistently associated with emerging adults' general self‐efficacy.ConclusionAlthough most emerging adults in the sample appeared confident in their abilities to break up, a sizeable minority indicated that they lacked key skills to end relationships.ImplicationsRelationship education programs for emerging adults generally do not focus on relationship dissolution. Yet our findings suggest that some emerging adults may need opportunities to build skills that will help them exit relationships that are unhealthy, unsatisfying, or out of sync with their individual goals.