One of the things I don’t talk a lot about in relationships is also a silent killer in
relationships and that’s resentment.
Resent is a form of anger, but it's not the explosive anger.
It’s when you hold stuff in; angry feelings or feeling of shame or feelings of hurt towards
your partner that you don’t address that can turn into resentment.
Once resentment builds, you’ll start noticing that you’re annoyed with your partner.
You don’t want to be around them, you don’t like them, it can even turn into hate and
disgust of your partner.
Many times, I have couples in and they’ll say to me, “I’m just disgusted by him”
“I’m repulsed by her” that’s probably resentment that has never been dealt with.
You may ask how does this happen because honestly in a long-time relationship.
If you’ve been the type to hold stuff in and not address it, sweep it under the rug.
In lieu of starting a big argument, you may have forgotten how you started feeling this
way.
But this happens with little things, it can happen when one partner blows up or makes
you ashamed of yourself or embarrasses you in front of your kids or family members.
It can happen in tic for tac relationships; in other words, I won’t do that for you
because you didn’t do that for me.
I want you to see how it feels.
It can happen when your partner becomes ill, and the other one is the caretaker.
The one who is taking care of their partner, feels like their partner is always berating
them or it’s never enough or they just start feeling like “all I’m here is to serve
them, to take care of them, there is no love in this.”
It can also happen in hurtful words, which is the most common.
Your partner said something really hurtful to you and you never confront them on it.
Or when you do they’re in denial or they won’t apologize.
These kinds of things are killer.
If you don’t talk about it them, then you’ll end up seething with resentment and you can
see it.
Sometimes even when the partner is seething with it, and no one else can see it.
Their partner feels this anger, this hostility, this repulsiveness from their partner.
So they’ll react and get all nuts and they’ll try and cause a fight.
They’re trying to cause a fight because they’re trying to get their partner to react.
So they can say “Aha!
See what you’ve got!
You’ve got resentment or you’re angry at me.”
When in fact it’s just years of built-in feeling hurt and shamed and all this pain.
And yeah, it does turn into anger then.
So what do you do if you feel resentful towards your partner or towards someone that you care
a lot about?
Well the first step is considering why you can’t let go.
Sometimes you can’t let go of the anger and resentment because it’s become your
self-identity in the marriage.
It gives you the credence, it gives you the reason to fulfill yourself or to feel the
way you do towards your partner.
It can be used as a way that you can identify who you are.
You may not be able to know a lot of things about yourself if you don’t have self-awareness.
So you may be able to say well I know one thing I’m not as bad as my partner is with
this.
You may say something like, if I give up this anger, there will be such a void in us.
I’ll end up leaving, we won’t have anything that holds us together.
At least this anger, resentment of mine keeps this marriage afloat.
It’s crazy thinking but yet it’s very real and i see it in clients.
With a therapist, they’re going ot help you practice self-compassion to get rid of
that.
Thinking about it, empathy, if you can somehow learn when you’re working with a therapist
because this is really hard to do on your own.
If you can somehow work on seeing it from your partner’s perspective or take apart
what they said and then see where they were when the context was used.
When they’re honest about it and talk to you about it, many times that can help you
let go of the resentment.
Lastly, what I've seen work so well is if I can remind people to keep a gratitude list
and think of the things that you’re grateful for.
Now that’s really hard to do if I ask the person, you know I want you to write down
things you’re grateful for with your partner because many times you’re so resentful that
you can’t even think of one good thing.
But if I can get the client to start out writing down things they’re grateful for in their
life.
People who are a blessing, many times they can generalize to their partner then they
can start looking for good things in their partner.
Make no mistake, resentment is real and there’s a real reason for it.
I would never tell anyone that you don’t have a reason.
I would validate why they feel the way they do.
But then from there, we have to move to help them let go of it.
So if you’re in a pattern of resentment, the best thing you can do for yourself is
to go and talk to a therapist or someone who really hears you, maybe a really good friend
or maybe a minister because they can counsel you.
It’s great if you can give this kind of thing to God, but when you give it to God
you also have to listen to God; and you have to do the work to free yourself from the resentment.
I hope this helps you and please if you are feeling resentful.
Don’t be hard on yourself, it’s a real feeling but do get help.