Should You Ever Tell Someone You Disapprove of Their Relationship?

Although closeness to a disapproving family member often rebounded with time, such was not the case for disapproving friends.

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As the plots of many Netflix and Hollywood flicks remind us, not all romantic relationships are met with jubilant approval from friends and family members. Indeed, it is a common experience to have at least one friend or family member who expresses—either subtly or not so subtly—some degree of disapproval for your relationship.

Sometimes the disapproval dissipates as they get to know your partner better, but, at other times, it can seem as though you are faced with the dilemma of having to end your romantic relationship or cut ties with your disapproving loved one. While nearly everyone can relate to either the experience of someone else disapproving of one of their relationships or the experience of disapproving of someone else’s relationship, surprisingly little research has explored how such disapproval can shift the dynamics of a friendship or family relationship.

Are There Costs to Expressing Relationship Disapproval?

In a paper that I recently published with a colleague and former student, we explored what happens to the perceived closeness a person feels toward a friend or family member who expresses disapproval of their romantic relationship. A great deal of research has clearly established that the opinions our friends and family members hold about our romantic relationships are not inconsequential. Individuals who perceive more social support and approval specifically for their romantic relationship report not only improved relationship well-being but also fewer mental and physical health challenges.

The association between perceived support for a relationship and relationship outcomes is not short-lived. Even decades into marriage, perceived support for the relationship from important friends and family members can still take a toll on relationship well-being, and even longevity. And while individuals in same-sex relationships generally report perceiving less overall support for their relationships than individuals in mixed-sex relationships, the overall pattern of social support’s association with relationship well-being and health is generally very similar between relationship types.

Yet, while we know quite a bit about what happens to the romantic relationship as a function of variations in perceived support and approval, we know very little about what happens to the relationship between the person expressing disapproval and the individuals within the maligned relationship. To explore this further, we conducted a study with 703 individuals who were currently in a romantic relationship and who reported that at least one friend or family member had expressed some degree of disapproval of that relationship. We then asked the participant to tell us not only about their romantic relationship but also about their relationship with the disapproving friend or family member (i.e., social network member).

Participants were asked to tell us how close they currently felt to the disapproving social network member, how close they felt to this person before that person expressed any disapproval of their romantic relationship, and how close they felt to the person when the social network member was expressing the peak amount of disapproval. Participants reported a drop in perceived closeness between themselves and the disapproving social network member, relative to how close they had felt prior to any disapproval being expressed. Further, the stronger the social network member’s perceived level of disapproval of the romantic relationship, the steeper the decline in reported emotional closeness.

In other words, if you are on the fence concerning whether to tell your friend or family member how much you disapprove of their new partner, you may want to first consider whether your relationship is strong enough to withstand a drop in closeness. This is particularly important for friends, as when we compared the degree to which closeness rebounded over time, the pattern varied depending upon whether the disapproving social network member was a friend or relative. For family members, closeness tended to rebound, albeit never quite returning to "pre-disapproval" levels of closeness. For friends, however, no such rebound existed. It may simply be easier to cut disapproving friends out of our social circles, while it can be challenging to entirely distance oneself from a family member, even if they do bring challenges to your romantic relationship.

What About Same-Sex Relationships?

Confirming past research, participants in same-sex relationships reported significantly more disapproval for their relationship than did participants in mixed-sex relationships. The general level of closeness between participants in same-sex relationships and their disapproving social network members was also generally lower, compared to participants in mixed-sex relationships.

Participants in same-sex and mixed-sex relationships also differed from each other in terms of the trajectory of closeness to the social network member over time. The drop in closeness when they perceived disapproval from their loved ones was much stronger than the degree of drop reported by individuals in mixed-sex relationships. It could be that when individuals in same-sex relationships perceive disapproval of their relationships, they inherently also perceive disapproval of their own identity, potentially making it harder to maintain a close relationship with the disapproving friend or relative.

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Do the Social Network Members Agree?

In addition to asking the 703 participants within relationships to tell us about their experiences, we also had a smaller sample of 42 dyads in which both the person within a relationship and their disapproving social network member provided information about perceived closeness. Our analyses revealed disapproving social network members also perceived the same pattern of reduced closeness following the disclosure of their relationship disapproval.

Expressing Relationship Disapproval Can Be a Risky Decision

Thus, expressing disapproval of a loved one’s relationship appears to be a risky decision. Social network members must balance the importance of expressing their disapproval, perhaps out of a desire to protect their loved one from what they believe is an unhealthy relationship, with the knowledge that sharing their disapproval may come at the cost of reduced closeness to their loved one. While closeness levels did rebound, they frequently did not rebound to their original levels, suggesting that the communication of relationship disapproval may have lasting consequences, particularly for friendships that may not have the same network of familial anchors to keep the relationship going through the peak of disagreement over the loved one’s romantic relationship.

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