Why are relationships so much harder with rejection sensitive dysphoria?

It is common for people who struggle with RSD to experience severe hardship that arises from their relationships with their romantic partners, close friends, family, and professional relationships. 

Approval Seeking

People with RSD are likely to engage in approval-seeking behavior that adds unnecessary stress to otherwise healthy relationships. Approval-seeking behavior often seems paradoxical to the other person. The RSD person may frequently “bid” for affection and affirmation only to find the response unsatisfying because they had to initiate it. 

Difficulty Setting Boundaries

People with RSD also struggle to express displeasure directly to those close to them. These interactions are often vital opportunities for open and honest communication about boundaries, needs, goals, desires, preferences, etc. However, because any honest communication of deeper wants inherently carries with it the possibility of social rejection, those things are likely to go unexpressed allowing for a buildup of unhealthy resentment. 

Polyamory Specific Difficulties

When a person with RSD is in a polyamorous or ethically non-monogamous relationship, those RSD-related behavior patterns can show up in unique ways, because of the nuanced circumstances that arise in polyamory. Polyamory specific challenges may be related to difficulties with time management, primal attachment-panic, poly-saturation, and setting safe expectations. 

Partners with rejection-sensitivity may feel confused when their desire to see their partner be happy with their metamour is seemingly contradicted by their feelings of inadequacy, resentment, and neglect, potentially also mixed with other trauma responses. Conflict often arises when the ADHD partner struggles to express these feelings without blaming or shaming their partner for pursuing their own happiness in their own way.