Living the experience of rejection in relationships, especially in emotional ones, can be very painful and difficult to process. Surviving rejection can turn out to be an unexpected opportunity for growth capable of giving us strength and solidity.
Human beings are by nature social animals: they depend on the presence of others for their physical and psychological life. The relationships are therefore indispensable because it is within them that are structured parts of our identity : we are all ” sons of … “, ” Brothers … “, ” boyfriends / lovers / spouses of … “, ” friends of… “, all these parts dynamically compose our identity, that is, the person we feel we are.
For this reason, the experience of rejection , especially if lived within an emotional relationship, can be very painful and difficult to tolerate: we are denied, at some level, to be able to “exist” , at least within that relationship in which we had or would have liked to be recognized.
Yet that of rejection can prove to be one of the most useful and precious growth experiences to strengthen our personality and consolidate self-esteem and self- confidence .
Rejection: imaginary but likely stories
Andrea is 13 years old, he does nothing but think about his partner at the back counter, he would like to meet her, talk to her, spend time with her, but every time he approaches her, the words die in his mouth and he goes away.
Luigi is 25 years old, he is finishing university, he has had several boys but no relationship seems to have worked: at a certain point, when it starts to get serious, he cannot explain why, something happens that makes him feel strange, nervous and he dumps his boyfriend out of the blue and disappears into thin air. In fact, it is always he who leaves: he has never been left …
Mario is 40 years old, a partner and a daughter born a few weeks ago; he was happy for the arrival of the baby, but now he feels like he is left out : all the attentions of his partner are directed to the baby and this makes him feel useless, insignificant , so he begins to stay at home as little as possible, searching out sources of leisure.
Lidia is with a man who makes her suffer , who betrays her repeatedly and continually questions her abilities, yet she cannot leave him : every time she tries, she panics and just a few sweet and reassuring words from him are enough to make her come back on his footsteps, but soon everything returns as before.
Very different imaginary situations, for phases of life, affective investments and psychological condition of the characters, but united by the fear of confronting a refusal or abandonment (real or presumed) by the other.
The pitfalls of the fear of rejection
For fear of being rejected or abandoned, you can give up on approaching a person, avoid being romantically involved , remain in an unsatisfactory relationship and much more.
To remedy this unpleasant experience, in other words, one risks not living , giving up seeking one’s own happiness or enjoying what one already has. Sometimes there is even the risk of losing the emotional involvement that binds to a partner – as in the case of our Mario – because what is not interpreted as a refusal.
It is a somewhat ancestral terror that belongs to all of us when we come into the world and we literally depend on the care of others to stay alive. When we become adolescents and then adults, life will inevitably reserve for us other occasions in which we will experience rejection , abandonment , disappointment on the part of others.
Avoiding confronting this does not allow us to learn a fundamental lesson: now we can survive rejection without losing ourselves and our ability to love.
Too far or too close?
One of the essential elements for dealing with the possibility of rejection (without avoiding it a priori) is the distance in relationships . Yes, because when you fear that a refusal or abandonment can disorganize and annihilate your mind, you are emotionally taken by a fantasy of totalizing fusion with the other and you feel that you are totally dependent on him / her for your emotional well-being.
It is expected that, for a relationship to work, everything must always go “well”, that there can be no quarrels or disagreements because in that case they would be perceived as a threat to the emotional bond, a first sign of irreparable “breakup” …
Putting a healthy distance between oneself and the other is the first step in living emotional relationships with gratification and not letting oneself be conditioned by the fear of disappointment or rejection.
Learn from the experience of rejection
It is not useful to go around it: the other basically has every “right” even to refuse us , we may disagree, be sorry and suffer for this, but we do not have the power to prevent this from happening, we are not in a position to have control over the other’s mind, emotions or decisions.
Dealing with relational disappointments is very important: it teaches us that we can continue to be ourselves even after an experience of suffering, that rejection of the other, however painful, will not really annihilate us.
And, last but not least, it helps us to better understand what kind of people we want to be (the ones who know how to stay or the ones who cut the rope first?) And who we want next to , who are, in essence, the good people for us ( not the ones we have to keep to ourselves at any cost to avoid being alone …
