It is the rare man or woman who easily builds deeply rewarding intimate relationships. Many people find that building a lasting romantically intimate relationship is an elusive quest, one that often feels cruelly just out of reach.
Although a variety of factors contribute to this problem, one common reason is a strong fear of being hurt which in turn leads to unintentionally pushing others away. This is referred to as (Downey & Feldman) ‘rejection sensitivity.’
Rejection-sensitive people deeply wish to establish rewarding intimate relationships, but they are convinced that potential partners will in some way hurt or betray them. Consequently, they misread the behavior of their love interests, reading too much into what are in fact innocent gaffs or clumsy statements. These misunderstandings lead to conflict and the eventual end of the relationship.
Such tendencies to overreact end up creating a perpetual cycle of failed intimate relationships and cementing a belief that others cannot be trusted. This creates a foundation upon which every romance is begun, and not surprisingly no romance ever flourishes and grows into a deeply satisfying intimate bond.
Were these men and women able to gain some emotional distance and see their situation more realistically, the cycle might be broken.
How to dampen rejection sensitivity
Expressive writing is one way to gain perspective and achieve a happier outcome. In the 1980s Pennebaker, a social psychologist, began to study the impact on mental health of journaling. He wanted to know if those who kept a trauma experience hidden from others would benefit from writing about it even briefly over the course of a few days.
The results of this study showed that those who wrote about past trauma, as compared to those who did not, showed significantly less mental distress over the next six months.
Since the time of this initial study, Expressive Writing has been applied to many issues of psychological health and a robust research literature has grown that supports its use.
The basics of Expressive Writing involve journaling for 15 to 20 minutes about some troubling events in life. This exercise is repeated every two to three days. Spelling and grammar are of no concern. The focus is directed toward objectively reviewing events, acknowledging feelings, and identifying how your thinking, your view of yourself, others, and expectations were impacted.
Most people who engage in Expressive Writing find that they are better able to emotionally distance themselves from troubling events. They also begin to examine their relationships more objectively and compassionately.
Romance and Expressive Writing
With these benefits of Expressive Writing in mind, it raises the question of whether it might also bring about a change in the durability of romantic relationships. That is, if it helps someone look at their relationship more objectively, to see one’s partner’s perspective more clearly, and to do so with greater compassion, would this help someone maintain that romantic connection longer than otherwise would be the case?
This is the question that Slatcher and Pennebaker wanted to answer in a 2006 study.
They had two groups of participants, all of whom were already in a romantic relationship. One group spent 20 minutes a day on three separate days writing their candid and ‘deepest’ thoughts about their relationship. They did not share this writing with anyone. The other group (the control group) spent 20 minutes a day on three different days writing about what they had done or planned to do that day. Both groups reported the same levels of satisfaction with their relationships at the beginning of the study.
Three months after the brief writing assignment 77% of those who wrote about their romantic relationship remained with their love interest. Only 52% of those who wrote about their daily activities remained with their initial partner.
This suggests that a total of one hour spent reflecting on and writing about one’s romance had the effect of increasing the chances of remaining in that relationship by 50%.
One way to think of this is that Expressive Writing helped provide the perspective, and emotional resiliency, to work through the inevitable problems that arise in every intimate relationship.
Conclusion
If you are a rejection-sensitive person struggling to build intimate relationships, consider taking 20 minutes a day to deeply write about the romantic relationship you are currently building. Do this three or four times over the next week.
Don’t worry about grammar or spelling. Don’t spend energy on writing in a way that others would understand (this writing is just for you, not to be shared). Try to include the other person’s perspective and find causal links between feelings and behaviors (e.g., “I thought this meant that he took me for granted, and I felt anxious that…”).
If you are particularly ambitious you might do this regularly, perhaps during the first week of every month.
It costs little to try, and you may just find that it provides the sense of perspective and clarity you need to let that relationship grow deep roots.
