10 Reasons It's Hard to Accept Your Partner's Rejection |
Why Relationships Matter
Take our Can You Spot Red Flags In A Relationship?
Find a therapist to strengthen relationships
Some people refuse to accept that a relationship is over.
People who have difficulty letting go have usually experienced loss or injustice in their past.
Trying to hold onto a rejecting partner is like clinging to a fantasy that he or she is the right one for you.
As the Neil Sedaka song contends: “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.” In fact, some people waste some of the best years of their lives trying to hold onto a partner who has abandoned or rejected them. Individuals who cannot tolerate this type of loss may continue to obsess about or even physically harass their ex-partners as long as they can; these situations may even require legal intervention. The following are 10 reasons I have found that make it especially difficult for partners to withstand a breakup.
Abandonment: If you have been abandoned by one or both parents (e.g., a father leaving home never to return), you might have trouble letting go, especially if the abandoning parent and abandoning partner are of the same sex.
Loss: Some losses are natural (e.g., death by old age). But if they are traumatic enough, they can have lingering effects such as an inability to let go of a meaningful relationship.
Injustice: If you have a heightened sense of injustice because you were treated unfairly in childhood (e.g., your sibling was favored), you may be more reactive to being rejected.
Obsessive-compulsive personality: If you have a tendency toward perfectionism and a need for organization, anything that disrupts your control might spark your resistance.
Perfection: If you perceived the initiating partner as special in one or more significant ways, you may think that you will never be able to find someone so perfect again—that he or she is the only one for you. This, too, can trigger resistance.
Low self-worth: If you saw the initiating partner as superior to you, then it might be hard to let go when rejected. Being rejected may trigger your low self-worth or self-esteem.
Fantasy: You hold on with the fantasy that someday you will be able to satisfy a significant, impossible-to-please person in your life. This is usually a transference from a difficult parent to the initiating partner.
Parentification (caretaking): If you have difficulty setting limits or boundaries with caretaking, your loyalty may know no bounds.
Competitiveness: If you are a competitive individual, you may view a breakup as a failure and will thus hold on until you have won the initiating partner back.
Intimacy: People who have difficulty with intimacy or getting emotionally and physically close may hold on to a rejecting individual as a defense to avoid finding someone with whom they will be able to form an intimate bond.
A person who relentlessly attempts to hold on to a relationship even when his or her counterpart wants out needs to understand that, in most cases, the rejecting partner is doing both a favor. That is, sooner or later, the rejecting partner may abuse or neglect the loyal mate in a way that is just as painful, if not more so, than the rejection. Even if the rejecting partner gives contradictory messages (e.g., I love you, but I need space), it is safest to interpret this ambivalence as a rejection rather than to ride a roller coaster of emotions. In general, I recommend that instead of viewing abandonment or rejection by someone who does not want you as a tragedy, the rejected partner might do better to look at it as if they have "dodged a bullet" and freed themselves up to find someone right for them…someone who truly wants and values them.
Why Relationships Matter
Take our Can You Spot Red Flags In A Relationship?
Find a therapist to strengthen relationships