Why Do We Trash Our Exes After a Breakup? Unpacking Magical Thinking and the Lies We Love to Tell Ourselves
Monday, September 16, 2024.
Breakups: no one gets out unscathed.
Whether you’re the heartbreaker or the heartbroken, one thing is nearly universal—at some point, you're going to trash your ex.
You’ll reframe your relationship, maybe with a little creative license, and suddenly that person who you once adored becomes the poster child for everything wrong in your life.
But why do we do this?
Is it just bitterness, or is something deeper at play? Spoiler alert: it’s all about magical thinking, the brain’s way of coping with the emotional earthquake that is a breakup.
So, buckle up as we explore why we trash our exes, how magical thinking shapes our reality, and how deception (both toward ourselves and others) can soothe our emotional wounds—at least temporarily.
Magical Thinking: Why Reality Isn't Enough for Us
Let’s start with the basics: magical thinking is when we convince ourselves that our internal feelings can change external reality.
Think of it as DIY emotional sorcery.
In relationships, magical thinking becomes our safety net when things start to fall apart. It gives us a narrative where we are still in control, even when everything is spiraling. Essentially, it’s a defense mechanism designed to protect our fragile egos when reality is too painful to face head-on (Piaget, 1929).
Take the classic post-breakup scenario: You’ve just been dumped, and your first thought (after sobbing into your pillow) is, “I didn’t even want to be with them anyway.” This little mental jiu-jitsu move is magical thinking in action. By flipping the narrative, you're no longer the jilted lover—you’re the one calling the shots. Suddenly, you’ve transformed heartbreak into empowerment.
According to Paulhus and John (1998), this is known as self-enhancement bias—our mind's way of bolstering our self-esteem by distorting the truth just enough to keep us from collapsing under the weight of rejection. It’s like emotional Photoshop: the breakup still happened, but now it looks a lot better from your angle.
Why We Trash Our Exes: The Comfort of a New Story
So, why do we start bad-mouthing our exes after a breakup? Well, part of it is theater.
We’re performing for ourselves, our friends, and sometimes even social media.
But deeper down, trash-talking serves a much more important psychological function: it rewrites the painful reality into a more palatable version.
In fact, research by Tesser and Paulhus (1983) suggests that we diminish others to maintain or even enhance our own self-worth.
After a breakup, we reframe our ex in the worst possible light because it allows us to avoid the crushing self-doubt that comes with rejection. If your ex was truly terrible, then you’re obviously the hero in this tragic tale—and heroes don’t have to wallow in self-pity.
Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) also plays a starring role here.
This theory explains that when there’s a gap between our beliefs and reality, we adjust our beliefs to make the situation less uncomfortable.
For example, if you thought your ex was “the one” but they dumped you, your brain will scramble to reconcile the cognitive dissonance. How? By convincing you that your ex wasn’t so great after all. It’s easier to change your perception of the relationship than to face the cold, hard truth: they left, and it hurts.
Lies, Manipulation, and the Alternative Realities We Create
At its core, magical thinking relies on lies—especially self-deception. We know deep down that reality isn’t as simple as we make it out to be, but lies offer a way to cope with emotional overload.
According to Bion (1962), the psyche craves truth for healthy mental growth, just as the body craves food.
Without it, we starve emotionally. But here’s the kicker: truth is hard, painful, and often inconvenient. So we lie, manipulate the narrative, and create a psychological reality that feels safer.
One of the most common post-breakup lies is that our ex is somehow defective—not just flawed, but irredeemably awful.
This isn’t just spite; it’s self-preservation.
By demonizing our ex, we protect our fragile self-esteem and avoid confronting the real issues that may have led to the breakup.
This is what psychoanalyst Melanie Klein referred to as the splitting defense mechanism (Klein, 1946), where we split people into "all good" or "all bad" to simplify the emotional complexity of relationships. Your ex? Now they're all bad, and you’re off the hook for your part in the breakup.
In extreme cases, this can border on delusion. Magical thinking can lead us to believe that we were never at fault, that our ex is entirely to blame, and that we’re better off without them.
This might make us feel better in the short term, but it also robs us of the opportunity for genuine emotional growth. According to W.R. Bion, this avoidance of painful truths stunts our ability to learn from experience, leaving us stuck in a cycle of self-deception and emotional immaturity (Bion, 1962).
The Pleasure Principle vs. The Reality Principle: Why Truth Hurts (But Helps)
To fully understand why we trash our exes, we need to go back to Freud’s foundational ideas: the pleasure principle and the reality principle (Freud, 1920).
The pleasure principle drives us to seek immediate gratification and avoid pain. After a breakup, our mind desperately wants to return to a state of comfort, and if that means bending the truth, so be it. “They weren’t that great anyway!”—that’s the pleasure principle at work.
But Freud also introduced the reality principle, which eventually forces us to confront the actual, painful reality in front of us.
You know, the part where we learn something useful from our emotional suffering. The transition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle is key to moving on after a breakup. The only problem? It’s excruciating. Facing reality means acknowledging the parts of the relationship that didn’t work, including our own flaws and mistakes.
Research by Elliot Aronson on cognitive dissonance (Aronson, 1992) shows that the more we try to avoid the uncomfortable truth, the harder it is to learn from our mistakes. If we refuse to confront what really went wrong, we’re doomed to repeat the same patterns in future relationships.
Sure, it's easier to rewrite history and make our ex the villain, but as Brené Brown reminds us, "vulnerability is not about winning or losing; it's about having the courage to show up and be seen" (Brown, 2012). Translation? If you want to grow, you have to face the uncomfortable reality head-on.
Magical Thinking and Its Emotional Price Tag
Magical thinking might seem like a harmless coping strategy, but it comes with a hefty emotional price tag.
The longer we stay in our fantasy world where our ex is the enemy and we’re flawless, the more disconnected we become from the lessons we could be learning. This creates what psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott called a false self—a persona we construct to avoid emotional pain, but one that prevents us from experiencing genuine connection (Winnicott, 1965).
According to Dr. Brené Brown, avoiding pain through lies and deception keeps us small.
It limits our capacity for emotional growth and intimacy. “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending” (Brown, 2012). By refusing to acknowledge the truth, we miss out on the psychological growth that could bring us closer to our emotional truth—and eventually, a healthier relationship.
The Hard Work of Healing: Letting Go of the Illusions
It’s easy to see why we cling to magical thinking after a breakup.
The emotional pain can feel unbearable, and creating an alternate reality where we are the heroes and they are the villains is a tempting escape. But magical thinking, with all its comforting lies, robs us of the chance to face reality and grow from it.
In the long run, facing the truth—grieving the loss, recognizing our role in the relationship’s demise, and learning from the experience—is what allows us to heal and move forward. While trash-talking your ex might provide short-term relief, it’s the emotional equivalent of eating junk food: satisfying in the moment, but ultimately leaving you feeling unfulfilled and unhealthy.
Remember, the end of a relationship isn’t just a failure; it’s an opportunity to grow, learn, and, ultimately, become a better version of yourself. That’s what I’m trying to do.
As Freud suggested, moving from the pleasure principle to the reality principle is painful, but it’s the path to emotional maturity. So, while it’s tempting to indulge in the comforting lies of magical thinking, the real magic happens when we face the truth, no matter how hard it is to swallow.
And who knows? Maybe next time, when the dust of the breakup settles, you’ll be able to look back and laugh—not at your ex, but at how much you’ve grown.
Trash-Talking or Truth-Telling?
In the end, why do we trash our exes after a breakup? It’s a way to protect ourselves, to create a narrative where we are still in control, and to avoid the difficult emotional work of accepting reality. Magical thinking is the tool we use to build these alternate realities, but it’s also what holds us back from emotional growth.
By understanding the psychological mechanisms at play—cognitive dissonance, self-enhancement bias, and the pleasure principle—we can begin to see how our post-breakup behavior isn’t just spite; it’s self-preservation. But if we want to move on, grow, and eventually find healthier relationships, we have to face the uncomfortable truths that magical thinking obscures.
So, go ahead and indulge in a little post-breakup trash talk if you must. Just don’t let it be the final word in your story. The real magic lies in embracing the messy, painful truth—and coming out stronger on the other side.
Facing the Music: Emotional Growth Through Truth
So, what’s the alternative to trash-talking our exes and indulging in magical thinking?
It’s not glamorous, but it’s necessary: grieving.
Instead of rewriting the past, we need to embrace the messy, painful truth of the breakup.
According to John Bowlby’s theory of attachment (Bowlby, 1980), loss requires a process of mourning to heal. When we skip that step, we risk emotionally detaching from reality altogether.
Rather than retreating into magical thinking, we can grow by owning the truth—even when it stings. Yes, your ex might not have been perfect, but neither were yo, gentle reader.
Accepting that allows you to move forward with wisdom and self-awareness. As Freud said, growth comes from reality—not the fantasies we construct to avoid it (Freud, 1920).
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Aronson, E. (1992). The Social Animal. Freeman.
Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from Experience. London: Heinemann.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 3: Loss: Sadness and Depression. Basic Books.
Brown, B. (2012). *Daring Greatly:How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Penguin.
Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Freud, S. (1920). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 27, 99-110.
Paulhus, D. L., & John, O. P. (1998). Egoistic and moralistic biases in self-perception: The interplay of self-deceptive styles with basic traits and motives. Journal of Personality, 66(6), 1025-1060.
Tesser, A., & Paulhus, D. (1983). The definition of self: Private and public self-evaluation maintenance. Psychological Bulletin, 93(3), 546-554.
Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. International Universities Press.