Unrequited love: The role of prior commitment, motivation to remain friends, and friendship maintenance

Have you ever been in love with someone and they haven’t felt the same way about you? 

Perhaps you’ve confessed your feelings to this person, and they have rejected you in some way.

If so, you are among the 80% of people who have been involved in an instance of unrequited love. According to Bratslavsky, Baumeister and Sommer (1998), unrequited love (URL) is defined as: "passionate love felt by one person (the pursuer) toward another person (the rejecter), who does not desire romantic involvement with the pursuer." Unfortunately, there is little research that covers the challenging and unique topic of URL. Specifically, there is a gap in knowledge regarding consequences that rejection can have on the future of a previously established relationship, and the underlying processes that account for the relationship outcomes after a pursuer has been rejected. With this lack of research comes a problem: individuals facing a situation of unrequited love may have little information on what they can do to grow beyond the point of rejection, and may also wonder why the connection was lost in the first place. Thus, they may face low self-esteem, be unsure of how to apply coping skills, and may also have a deep-rooted anticipation for similar instances of rejection to occur.

Fortunately, Clark et al. (2019) conducted a study that examined the relationship between commitment to a relationship before an unrequited love incident and friendship maintenance behaviours after the incident. They also investigated whether the pursuer's motivation to maintain a friendship with the rejecter was responsible for the success of that relationship. In their work, Clark et al. (2019) found a wide range of statistically significant correlations. Firstly, they found that stronger commitment levels in a relationship before an episode of URL predicted more frequent engagement in friendship maintenance behaviours after the episode. Meaning, Harry and Sally's close friendship before Sally was rejected by Harry would be related to their likelihood of remaining friends after the rejection. However, when investigating which variable had a stronger relationship with friendship maintenance behaviours after rejection, Clark et al. (2019) found that, in this particular instance, prior commitment levels were insignificant when compared to the pursuer's desire to remain friends after the URL experience. More simply explained, if we are trying to determine what will predict Sally's tendency to engage in friendship maintenance behaviours with Harry after she is rejected, her desire to maintain a friendship with him has a stronger relationship with these efforts, as opposed to how close they were before the URL experience.

Secondly, pursuers who desired for the pre-URL relationship to be long-term, who felt attached to the person, and who imagined a future with that person demonstrated a correlation in having specific reasons or motivations for feeling attached to the relationship. For example, feeling this person is important to their life, having mutual friends, or anticipation of a future romantic reconciliation. However, the rejected individual could also have more negative motives, such as revenge for the romantic rejection. Furthermore, these motives demonstrate a strong relationship with increased efforts to stay connected to the person after being rejected, including being friendly, positive, self-disclosing, communicative, supportive, reassuring and otherwise engaging with the rejecter. Results also suggest that a pursuer’s post-rejection distress levels are correlated with a disruption to the positive relationship between commitment before the URL experience and their motivation to maintain a friendship with the rejecter. To elaborate, if Sally is feeling particularly distressed about Harry rejecting her, she is likely to disengage in friendship maintenance behaviours with him, regardless of how close their friendship was before the rejection.

Moreover, interpersonal connections (ex. this person brings unique meaning to my life) and social connections (ex. having mutual friends) were found to be strong mediators between commitment pre-rejection and friendship maintenance behaviours post-rejection. Higher pre-rejection commitment was related to feeling more attached to the rejecter and the social network after the rejection, which was subsequently related to increased friendship maintenance behaviours. To illustrate, if Harry brought unique meaning to Sally's life and they shared a number of mutual friends, Sally could demonstrate a stronger connection to him than if she did not have these connections to him. From this, it is clear that the importance of the social network and connection to the rejecter during the relationship process is highlighted.

So? Why does all of this information matter in the real world? Well, as previously mentioned, approximately 80% of people, at some point in their lives, are involved in an instance of unrequited love. Although this issue is common, there is very little research on this topic, therefore posing a considerable hardship for those who are trying to understand the meaning of a connection after an experience of unrequited love. Because we have little understanding outside this work, people may face unnecessary feelings of grief and loss after a rejection, low self-esteem and fear of future rejection, as they are unsure how a friendship with their rejecter can be maintained. Fortunately, this work by Clark et al. (2019) is very informative on the relationship between unrequited love, prior commitment, the motivation to remain friends, and friendship maintenance. This research could potentially benefit a wide variety of individuals, especially mental health professionals (ex. Therapists). Specifically, this data can inform therapists of how to help pursuers accept that they have been rejected and understand how to maintain or re-establish a positive relationship after rejection and distress. Furthermore, therapists can also use the findings of this work to help pursuers cope with any distress related to the unrequited love experience

Indeed, many people will choose to not seek therapy in order to help cope with this problematic incident. Thus, in that case, pursuers can still benefit from understanding the relevant processes in maintaining a friendship with the rejecter, including the role of commitment prior to rejection, and distress following rejection. This work can provide pursuers with a deeper, more clear understanding of how this unique and complicated relationship can work. For pursuers who frequently interact with their rejecter, developing an understanding of these processes in addition to effective coping skills is exceptionally important. Overall, these findings could benefit a wide range of people, from laypersons to mental health professionals, in understanding and facilitating positive relationships between two individuals after an instance of unrequited love.

Clark, E. M., Votaw, K. L., Harris, A. L., Hasan, M., & Fernandez, P. (2019). Unrequited love: The role of prior commitment, motivation to remain friends, and friendship maintenance. The Journal of Social Psychology. doi:10.1080/00224545.2019.1648234