Why do people leave someone?
The reason an ex gives when they leave is rarely the whole story. "It's not you, it's me", "I need to find myself"... Those lines are often a way to leave without hurting too much, or without having to explain everything.
Researchers asked people who were thinking about leaving their partner why they wanted to, then sorted all the answers: they found 23 different reasons. The ones that came up most often: broken trust, personality traits in the other person that had become hard to bear, and a partner who was slowly pulling away. And almost one person in two also had reasons to stay.
A much older study had already noticed something simple. It followed 231 student couples in Boston for two years, and couples where one person was much more invested than the other broke up more often. When only one of the two is carrying the relationship, it ends up showing.
That's why the quiz only asks you once for the "official" reason. The rest of the time, it looks at the last months of your relationship, and picks up the cause that comes back the most in your answers.
The eight causes the quiz picks up
These are the reasons for breakups that come up most often. The quiz gives each one a percentage, and the highest becomes your result.
The quiz isn't looking for someone to blame. Several causes often come from both people, and some come from no one: a move, an illness, a bad stretch.
What the breakup doesn't say about you
Understanding why it's over helps you move on. As long as you don't turn the reason into a verdict about yourself.
It's not necessarily your fault
Even when the quiz points to something that comes from you, like jealousy or needing reassurance, a breakup rarely happens because of one person. And what didn't work with that person can work just fine with someone else.
"It's not you, it's me"
That line annoys everyone, and yet it's sometimes true. When your ex was going through a bad time, the breakup was mostly about them. The quiz picks that up with the cause "it wasn't the right time".
Understanding helps you let go
A 2018 study asked people who had just been through a breakup to think back on their ex's flaws and on what wasn't working: their feelings of love went down, even if their mood dipped a little at the time. Putting words on what wasn't working is also a way to move on faster.
How the quiz finds the cause
Each answer weighs on one or two causes, with 1 to 3 points depending on what it says. The same cause can come back across several questions, in different forms: desire fading, boredom, a letter that would talk about love that died out, and so on.
At the end, each cause gets a percentage of what it could have received. The highest becomes your result, as long as it's above 30%. If a second cause comes in close behind, the quiz mentions it just below. And if none stands out, it tells you that too: some breakups don't have a single reason, but several small ones that add up.
The quiz can't read your ex's mind. It picks up, in what you went through, the breakup causes that come up most often among couples who split.
What now?
Knowing why it's over doesn't change the breakup, but it changes what you do with it.
If you're hoping they'll come back
A breakup that came from a bad time or from distance creeping in doesn't have the same chances of being repaired as broken trust or two opposite life plans. What has happened since the breakup matters a lot too.
If you want to move on
Keep your result in mind the next time you start idealizing your relationship. And if you recognize yourself in a cause that comes from you, like needing reassurance, that's good to know for next time.
