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Quotes:
“Resentment is nasty. What makes it so ugly is that it has a tendency to turn you an otherwise kind and reasonable person, into someone who is so angry at their own life situation that is nearly impossible to recover.
Bitterness and Resentment make it hard even for the people who love you to be around you.”
Martha Bodyfelt
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“You have more of a feeling of personal Resentment than I have. Perhaps, I have too little of it, but I never thought it paid.”
Abraham Lincoln
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Strength of character means the ability to overcome Resentment against others,
to hide hurt feelings, and to forgive quickly.
Lawrence G. Lovasik
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And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome
but must be kind to everyone,
able to teach,
not resentful.
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My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,
and do not resent his rebuke,
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Resentment kills a fool,
and envy slays the simple.
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(This YouTube Video is 3:36 Minutes in Length, Below is the Transcript)
One of the things I don’t talk a lot about in relationships is also a silent killer in relationships and that’s resentment.
Resentment 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 killers.
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 yourself-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 to 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.
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