Rules of disengagement: a qualitative study of young people’s relationship breakups

Young people often navigate breakups with little or no prior experience. The emotions experienced during breakups are felt privately and individually; yet these emotions are also socially patterned. In this article, we draw on Arlie Hochschild’s concept of feeling rules to explore the emotion norms governing youth breakups; we conceptualise these as the ‘rules of disengagement.’ We conducted five focus groups with 28 LGBT and cisgender heterosexual youth (aged 15-24) in the UK. We identify three rules of disengagement: ’one should be appropriately distressed’, ’one should not cause unnecessary hurt’ and ’one should no longer be in love with their ex’. We characterise the factors shaping the strength, duration and direction of the rules of disengagement and identify rule exceptions. Young people’s accounts revealed variation and overlap in how breakups are navigated by LGBT and cisgender heterosexual youth, including whose emotions are centred and whose are dismissed during breakups, and the emotion norms facilitating the perpetuation of youth dating and relationship violence. Our exploration of the rules of disengagement, grounded in the experiences of young people of diverse genders and sexualities, has implications for those seeking to support young people navigate breakups.