"Just let it go" is one of the most irritating statements you can hear when you're going through a breakup. You are aware that you must move on and overcome the sorrow, but you must also process these emotions.
Some individuals are better than others at living a life after a breakup, and they are more successful at avoiding bringing the rejection and anguish they experienced during the breakup into their next relationship.
Stanford research has found that individuals have a more difficult time letting go of rejection because it reveals something about who they truly are.
According to researchers, why breakups are so difficult to overcome
It turns out that if you believe that personality is unchangeable, romantic rejections are more likely to cause you to mistrust yourself. You will take the breakup personally and begin to doubt who you are; you will be concerned that you were rejected due to a flaw you did not recognise.
A 2015 study titled "Changes in Self-Definition Impede Recovery from Rejection," published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, investigated the relationship between rejection and an individual's sense of self.
Prior research suggests that most people are able to cope with the emotional anguish of rejection, but rejections can sometimes linger for years and cause problems in future relationships.
It is stated, "Few things in life are more traumatic than being rejected by someone who knows you well and then decides she or he no longer cares about you or wants to be with you."
"The experience of being abandoned by someone who once believed they loved you but later learned more and changed their mind can be a particularly potent threat to the self and cause people to question who they truly are..
five studies involving 891 participants who completed online questionnaires regarding both hypothetical and actual rejections. The subjects reported that the rejection altered their perception of themselves.
For instance, they rated their level of agreement with the following statement: "I worry that something is wrong with me because I was rejected."
In another of the studies, participants were asked if they believed that people could change, indicating either a growth mindset (thriving on challenges and viewing failure as an opportunity for growth) or a fixed mindset (believing that your personality, intelligence, and creative ability are static given that cannot be meaningfully altered).
Participants who viewed rejection as a greater revelation of their true selves were subsequently more closed and defensive in future relationships. In fact, they were still negatively affected by rejections that had occurred over five years prior.
In contrast, participants with a growth mindset were able to move on and see a positive future for themselves, despite still being hurt by the breakup.
"Those who view rejections as revealing a fundamental truth about themselves as a person, something about who they truly are, are more likely to struggle with recovery and carry rejection into the future,
It can be extremely challenging to recover from the rejection of a breakup, particularly if you interpret it as a rejection of who you are.