How not to begin to resent your partner for brushing off your advances

Bishop Robert Middleton

Keeping The Standard • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

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How to Handle Sexual Rejection

How not to begin to resent your partner for brushing off your advances

For our brain, rejection feels the same as feeling physical pain

MRI studies show that the same areas of the brain fire up when we experience rejection and physical pain, and the brain has no way of telling whether it was physical hurt or emotional one. Both hurts — a lot.

Rejection destabilizes our need to belong.

We have a fundamental need to belong to a group, to people, to a significant other. When we get rejected, this need becomes destabilized and our emotional pain is enhanced by this emotional uncertainty. To counterbalance this unstable situation, it is suggested to reconnect with those who love us, or reaching out to members of groups to which we feel strong affinity and who value and accept us.

Rejection creates surges of anger and aggression.

Studies show that rejection was a greater risk for adolescent violence than drugs, poverty, or gang membership. Even mild rejections can lead people to take out their aggression on innocent bystanders. Violence against women, is another example of the strong link between rejection and aggression — taken to an unhealthy level. Especially when rejection happens in a sexual situation, the rejected party might lose their temper, not taking no for an answer, regardless whether the rejection was addressed to him personally, or caused by a situation.

This could also be a reason for the frightening number of date rapes or sexual assaults within a relationship. Rejection feels terrible and people tend to hurt the closest to them.

However, much of that aggression coming from rejection is also turned inward and makes us question ourselves.

A typical response to romantic rejections is looking for and finding fault in ourselves. We tend to ignore the circumstances and the fact that most romantic rejections are a matter of poor fit and a lack of chemistry, incompatible lifestyles, wanting different things at different times. Blaming ourselves deepens the emotional pain we feel and makes it harder for us to recover emotionally.

Rejection does not respond to reason.

Participants were put through an experiment in which they were rejected by strangers. The experiment was rigged — the “strangers” were confederates of the researchers. Surprisingly, though, even being told that the “strangers” who had “rejected” them did not actually reject them did little to ease the emotional pain participants felt. Even being told that the strangers belonged to a group they despised such as the KKK did little to soothe people’s hurt feelings.

Here are 5 steps to release and let go of resentment:

1 Acknowledge Resentment

Since progress always starts with telling the truth, the first step in releasing resentment is to acknowledge that you feel resentful. You may even be consumed and controlled by it. Rather than deny, minimize, or rationalize it—simply admit “I have a resentment.”

The power of acknowledging and naming resentments is the reason Step 4 of the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves“) is one of the most meaningful—and transformative—steps in the 12-step process.

2. Identify Where You Have Power

The second step in releasing resentment has two parts: The first is to understand where you may have a role in the resentment you’re holding, and the second part is to know where you have power—in the present—to protect yourself and/or heal.

And when I say “where you may have a role” I’m in no way suggesting that you are responsible for what your unfaithful spouse did or didn’t do, or for his acting out behaviors.

We are all 100% responsible for our actions.

Here I’m referring to times when, for example, you may not have spoken up when someone hurt your feelings. Or you realize that the reason you’re bitter toward an old friend is not because of what that friend did, but because of a story you’ve told yourself that may—or may not—be true. Each of these are examples of situations where you have the power to release the resentment by either speaking up, or acknowledging and correcting distorted thinking.

3. Take Action Where You Have Power

In the situation above where something happened in the past that was hurtful or even abusive—and you didn’t speak up for yourself—you have the freedom and power to choose what you would like to do about it today.

Do you need to journal? Write a letter to the other person? Ask to meet with them to talk about it? There is no one right answer. The key is to ask yourself, “What can I do that would help me release this resentment?” And do it.

4. Release Anything Over Which You Don’t Have Power

Sometimes we’re resentful about situations or events in the past and there is nothing we can do about it in the present.

Many years ago, someone ran into my car on the freeway, lied about having insurance, and I was stuck paying for the repair myself. I wasn’t willing to spend the energy, time, and money required to file a lawsuit. The only thing left to do was to let go.

Keep in mind that just because you can’t change something from the past, that doesn’t mean you can’t experience healing around it in the present. For example, you can’t change your spouse’s past behaviors or acting out activities. But you can make requests for repair and trust-building actions in the present.

Releasing what you’re powerless over is often one of the most difficult things to do, and the process can take time. But the alternative is far worse—not only for us, but for everyone we’re in relationship with. Bitter, angry, and resentful people are at best challenging, and at worst, toxic.

5. Make Gratitude a Daily Habit

Gratitude is one of the most powerful medicines for resentment. It’s simply not possible to feel resentment and gratitude at the same time. If you struggle with feeling bitter and resentful, keep a gratitude list for the next 3 weeks—writing down at least 5 things you’re grateful for.

Nothing is too simple, mundane, or silly to earn its place on a gratitude list. The sunshine, your cat, a cup of tea, or having a roof over your head, are all worthy of being on your list.

Gratitude—when practiced consistently—can become a life-affirming, joyful habit that keeps resentment and victim thinking at bay.

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