The Love - Breakup study: Defining love and exploring reasons for the breakup of romantic relationships

Abstract Background: Romantic relationships are quite common among young adults, and it has various outcomes, especially on psychosocial well-being.Currently, there is no data available from India. This study aimed to define love from the perspective of young adults and their beliefs associated with it and enumerate the reasons for the breakup of romantic relationships. Methodology: We conducted an online survey using Google Form, targeting young adults through social media. The self-administered questionnaire had questions related to defining love, beliefs related to love, and the reasons for the first five breakups of the romantic relationship. We did thematic analysis for the qualitative data and descriptive data analysis for the quantitative data using R software. Common words to describe love was analysed using Word Counter. Results: Among the 156 responses, 130 participants (83.3%) had any romantic relationship ever. The mean age of the participants was 24.7 (SD-5). Most of the participants were females (50%), having the highest educational qualification as graduation (36.6%), and with the current relationship as a single/post-breakup (50%). The top five common words used to describe love were - feeling (n = 26), person (n = 23), care (n=17), someone (n=17), feel (n=15). We were able to derive three definitions of love from the respondents’ perspectives. The majority of the participants (86.5%, n=135) believed that romantic love happens only once and reported that true love exists (68.6%). A total of 106 participants ever had a breakup of romantic relationships. The top five reasons for breakup were incompatibility, no feelings left (bored), cheating, long-distance relationship, and family did not approve.