Afraid of Rejection? Why This Can Hurt Your Relationship
Afraid of Rejection? Why This Can Hurt Your Relationship
Worrying that your partner wants to leave you only makes things worse
Posted Jun 14, 2016
Once in a close relationship, most
of us want to be able to relax and not worry about the relationship’s
ending. This level of ease may not come all that easily to everyone,
however. Do you constantly feel your lover will walk out on you? Do you
worry that if your true self were to be revealed, your partner would
become so disgusted that things would come to an immediate halt? As
these types of concerns swirl around in your head, they can readily
drown out the thoughts and feelings that come from positive interactions
with your partner.
Where does this extreme sensitivity to rejection come from in the first place? Why should some people be constantly on guard for signs of displeasure from their partners? One possibility is that the highly sensitive feel so insecure in their own minds about themselves that they constantly need positive confirmation, especially from their closest partners. They need to be bolstered by a partner who fills in the missing pieces of their own sense of self.
Unfortunately, this sensitivity to rejection plus weak sense of self can backfire completely, contributing to a weaker, not stronger, relationship. Not only does the individual’s fear of rejection create undue stress on the partner but it also leads that individual to feel constantly that the relationship isn’t as good as it could be. It’s difficult for a relationship to fulfill every hope and dream of the partners, but this becomes even harder when one of those partners is always questioning and wondering about its stability.
This lack of secure identity can add to fear of rejection to reduce the feelings of satisfaction in a relationship. University of Tennessee psychologists Jerika Norona and Deborah Welsh (2016) believed that identity struggles would particularly evident among young adults who are in the process of defining their sense of self. At this age, people are at the peak of figuring out who they are, and at the same time, they’re trying to figure out what they want from a relationship. If their identities are still undefined, they may seek more confirmation from their relationship partner than if they feel secure in who they are.
To test the prediction that a weak sense of self would combine with fear of rejection to produce negative outcomes, Norona and Welsh sampled 217 undergraduates in a relationship for at least 3 weeks. The researchers defined weak sense of self as lack of self-differentiation, or the ability to achieve a healthy balance between dependence and independence on others. Specifically, people low in self-differentiation show these 4 characteristics: inability to regulate your emotions in the face of emotions expressed by others (what I would call emotional contagion), emotional cutoff in which you distance yourself from others to retain your independence, ability to stick to your own values when others challenge them, and fusion with others, in which you constantly seek the approval of others close to you.
Although difficulties in this area may be particularly pronounced among young adults, a weak identity can stay with an individual throughout life. Perhaps, as you looked at these 4 features of low self-differentiation, you spotted some of your own tendencies. Maybe you’ve been like this your whole life, and have never been able to live independently, or have constantly tried to be like your friends and intimate partner. Alternatively, you might push away from a partner to avoid being sucked in to your partner’s influence.
Rejection sensitivity, the second predictor of relationship satisfaction in the Tennessee study, focuses entirely on how much you fear your partner’s shutting you off. The Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire they used asked participants to rate how concerned or anxious they would be about their partner’s willingness to see them under a set of 18 conditions. Here’s an example of a question on this scale:
How concerned would you be over whether your boyfriend/girlfriend would say yes? 1= very unconcerned, 6= very concerned.
I would expect that he/she would answer yes sincerely. 1= very unlikely 6= very likely.
Norona and Welsh measured the individual’s satisfaction with the relationship by asking questions such as “Our relationship is strong,” and “My relationship with my partner makes me happy.” Note that they didn’t ask the partners of the participants, which would have been an interesting angle to pursue.
As this was a correlational study, it’s not possible to know for sure whether poor relationship satisfaction itself contributes to both low self-differentiation and high rejection sensitivity. However, the test of the statistical model conducted by the study authors attempted to establish the path of causality. This test revealed that, as predicted, lower self-differentiation contributed significantly to rejection sensitivity which in turn predicted low relationship satisfaction. Of the 4 components of self-differentiation, it was emotional cutoff that proved most significant in predicting satisfaction.
Preventing hurt by cutting yourself off from your partner, then, seems to be a very poor strategy for ensuring a successful relationship. As stated by the authors: “Although individuals are attempting to reduce the potential for rejection, distance also reduces the potential for fulfilling, accepting, and intimate behaviors” (p. 131). In other words, when you push away from your partner, you are literally cutting off your nose to spite your face.
The authors were careful to point out that their study examined individuals at the prime of identity development, and may not apply to more mature adults who are in established relationships. However, we know from other work that people do carry forward into the future the dynamics of their relationship at its outset. These “enduring dynamics” can mean that your insecurity can continue throughout the course of your relationships well into your adult years.
Follow me on Twitter @swhitbo for daily updates on psychology, health, and aging. Feel free to join my Facebook group, "Fulfillment at Any Age," to discuss today's blog, or to ask further questions about this posting.
Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2016
References
Norona, J. C., & Welsh, D. P. (2016). Rejection sensitivity and relationship satisfaction in dating relationships: The mediating role of differentiation of self. Couple And Family Psychology: Research And Practice, 5(2), 124-135. doi:10.1037/cfp0000056
Where does this extreme sensitivity to rejection come from in the first place? Why should some people be constantly on guard for signs of displeasure from their partners? One possibility is that the highly sensitive feel so insecure in their own minds about themselves that they constantly need positive confirmation, especially from their closest partners. They need to be bolstered by a partner who fills in the missing pieces of their own sense of self.
Unfortunately, this sensitivity to rejection plus weak sense of self can backfire completely, contributing to a weaker, not stronger, relationship. Not only does the individual’s fear of rejection create undue stress on the partner but it also leads that individual to feel constantly that the relationship isn’t as good as it could be. It’s difficult for a relationship to fulfill every hope and dream of the partners, but this becomes even harder when one of those partners is always questioning and wondering about its stability.
This lack of secure identity can add to fear of rejection to reduce the feelings of satisfaction in a relationship. University of Tennessee psychologists Jerika Norona and Deborah Welsh (2016) believed that identity struggles would particularly evident among young adults who are in the process of defining their sense of self. At this age, people are at the peak of figuring out who they are, and at the same time, they’re trying to figure out what they want from a relationship. If their identities are still undefined, they may seek more confirmation from their relationship partner than if they feel secure in who they are.
To test the prediction that a weak sense of self would combine with fear of rejection to produce negative outcomes, Norona and Welsh sampled 217 undergraduates in a relationship for at least 3 weeks. The researchers defined weak sense of self as lack of self-differentiation, or the ability to achieve a healthy balance between dependence and independence on others. Specifically, people low in self-differentiation show these 4 characteristics: inability to regulate your emotions in the face of emotions expressed by others (what I would call emotional contagion), emotional cutoff in which you distance yourself from others to retain your independence, ability to stick to your own values when others challenge them, and fusion with others, in which you constantly seek the approval of others close to you.
Although difficulties in this area may be particularly pronounced among young adults, a weak identity can stay with an individual throughout life. Perhaps, as you looked at these 4 features of low self-differentiation, you spotted some of your own tendencies. Maybe you’ve been like this your whole life, and have never been able to live independently, or have constantly tried to be like your friends and intimate partner. Alternatively, you might push away from a partner to avoid being sucked in to your partner’s influence.
Rejection sensitivity, the second predictor of relationship satisfaction in the Tennessee study, focuses entirely on how much you fear your partner’s shutting you off. The Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire they used asked participants to rate how concerned or anxious they would be about their partner’s willingness to see them under a set of 18 conditions. Here’s an example of a question on this scale:
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You ask your boyfriend/girlfriend if he/she really loves you.How concerned would you be over whether your boyfriend/girlfriend would say yes? 1= very unconcerned, 6= very concerned.
I would expect that he/she would answer yes sincerely. 1= very unlikely 6= very likely.
Norona and Welsh measured the individual’s satisfaction with the relationship by asking questions such as “Our relationship is strong,” and “My relationship with my partner makes me happy.” Note that they didn’t ask the partners of the participants, which would have been an interesting angle to pursue.
As this was a correlational study, it’s not possible to know for sure whether poor relationship satisfaction itself contributes to both low self-differentiation and high rejection sensitivity. However, the test of the statistical model conducted by the study authors attempted to establish the path of causality. This test revealed that, as predicted, lower self-differentiation contributed significantly to rejection sensitivity which in turn predicted low relationship satisfaction. Of the 4 components of self-differentiation, it was emotional cutoff that proved most significant in predicting satisfaction.
Preventing hurt by cutting yourself off from your partner, then, seems to be a very poor strategy for ensuring a successful relationship. As stated by the authors: “Although individuals are attempting to reduce the potential for rejection, distance also reduces the potential for fulfilling, accepting, and intimate behaviors” (p. 131). In other words, when you push away from your partner, you are literally cutting off your nose to spite your face.
The authors were careful to point out that their study examined individuals at the prime of identity development, and may not apply to more mature adults who are in established relationships. However, we know from other work that people do carry forward into the future the dynamics of their relationship at its outset. These “enduring dynamics” can mean that your insecurity can continue throughout the course of your relationships well into your adult years.
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Knowing who you are and what you want out of life and your
relationships is a constant building process. If you’ve been the
insecure type who pushes away, it may be time to open up and let others
in even if you’re afraid they’ll reject you. Long-term fulfillment in
relationships does take work, and the Norona and Welsh study shows how
your own fears and insecurities may inadvertently be making the work
that much harder. A partner who truly cares about you may surprise you
with accepting and loving arms.Follow me on Twitter @swhitbo for daily updates on psychology, health, and aging. Feel free to join my Facebook group, "Fulfillment at Any Age," to discuss today's blog, or to ask further questions about this posting.
Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2016
References
Norona, J. C., & Welsh, D. P. (2016). Rejection sensitivity and relationship satisfaction in dating relationships: The mediating role of differentiation of self. Couple And Family Psychology: Research And Practice, 5(2), 124-135. doi:10.1037/cfp0000056
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