This is my new area of interest in terms of relationship dynamics. I think it is enormous in the scope of negative impact on LTR's. And I also think that it is processed and handled very differently by the sexes.
I try to frame stuff so that it makes it easy for me to mentally digest, in the doing, I no doubt make some serious generalizations ... which although not always bad, may not always be applicable.
The Pillars
Building a good relationship:
1. Communication
2. Respect
3. Attraction
Breaking down a formerly good relationship:
1. Resentment
2. Loss of Respect
3. Lack of communication
In a nutshell, resentment is what led to me making the decision to separate from my wife. My resentment built up over the course of years, but, I was always looking to, and trying to find ways to jettison it, let it go. I didn't want to have it.
My ex's resentment built up over the course of about 10 months, when I utterly and completely checked out of the marriage. Conversely, by her own admission ... she CAN'T let go of the resentment that built up in that time.
We would never be able to truly reconcile, recover, rediscover and move on, for that reason. And I believe her.
I find it both interesting and sad. Frankly, I don't want to partner with someone that isn't willing to, or capable of, clearing the balance sheet.
Suppose I'm curious about resentment's extraordinarily corrosive effect on a marriage, such as Walk Away Wife Syndrome, and other similar circumstances.
Have seen here on the boards on several occasions, people candidly admit that despite their spouses willingness to abandon behaviors that had fostered resentment, and instead try to rebuild the good pillars ... that it is extraordinarily difficult to let go of the bad pillars ... particularly old resentments.
I don't know of many healthy relationships where resentment seems prevalent.
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Resentment is so corrosive to a marriage because the one person in the world who you thought understood you, cared about your feelings, and was supposed to bring out the best in you, did or said something that attacked your essential being, your soul. You are surprised by the attack, wounded, and you are uncertain how to process this feeling.
I learned how to let go of resentment from my husband's example. He is rather emotional, and can get angry easily, but lets it go just as easily. I am slow to anger, but when something gets to me, I have trouble forgetting my pain.
He refused to let me pout (my way of handling resentment was to withdraw) about any disagreement that we had. He kept after me until I told him why I was upset.
What I learned from his example:
Immediately discuss any small irritants that you have with each other. Do not let them fester.
Watch your tone. Sarcasm has no place in a marriage.
Think "we" not "me." How can we work this out together.
Stay affectionate. A good sex life works wonders to maintain intimacy and help spouses to overcome resentments.
I have realised over the past year that I harbour a sizeable chunk of resentment. Like you Deejo I don't want to have it in my relationship. I have thought about it a lot recently and the effect it has on me, my OH and our relationship.
I can honestly say that despite a slow start after OH had his thing with the girl at work, he has done a great deal to rebuild. He invests so much more and continues to do it now, both related to rebuilding broken trust and working at love languages to make our relationship stronger which he scoffed at before.
The resentment I feel at times towards the things he said and did is crippling. I am not as "strong" emotionally as I would like to be, and whilst I have done what I thought previously to do impossible, that is to forgive what he did, I still have moments where I feel incredibly angry at how he spoiled things. I completely realise the negative impact this resentment has yet find it difficult to shake it completely.
My recent conclusion is that it is a protective mechanism. That as long as I "hold" onto these feelings, I continue to remind myself of what he now appears not to be capable of, and I keep myself on my toes, aware, and do not allow myself to completely relax.
The flipside of this is obvious. I am not allowing myself to relax completely. I have had difficulty being vulnerable and enjoying the present as I regularly am too busy thinking about the past and therefore the potential future. My battle is to allow myself to be vulnerable again like I was before all this happened because I see the only way to truly recommit completely is to allow myself to be vulnerable and trusting again which means I have to let go of that resentment, to stop it invading and infecting the present and the future. I am also acutely aware that expressing past hurts can to him negate all the positive things he has done since to rebuild and this is never my intention.
Ever watch Labyrinth the movie? The young girl walks around the maze constantly declaring, "It's not fair!"
When you stand back from that for a moment you can see very clearly that all she cares about is what is not fair to her regardless of how it effects those around her. Resentment is inward based while forgiveness is outward based.
Then you bring into the mix boundaries. Right?
When I was talking about it being hard to let go of resentment because the actions that cause resentment still exist, are ever present in the relationship, that's when you're faced with a choice. Do I set a boundary and declare I won't accept this, forgive and move on with your life -or- do you stay, hope for change, feel sorry for yourself and continue to be angry, hurt and resentful?
You could always choose a third way too. Choose to look at it entirely different if it's not something that crosses your boundaries of acceptable to unacceptable. In my case, that would mean accepting that my husband is a workaholic and letting go of that resentment and choosing to change the way I respond to his behavior.
This is all very easy to understand but very hard to put into practice. My husband and I's relationship goes up and down as a result. When it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's really bad.
I've come to the conclusion that we are responsible for our own happiness, sense of security and choices when it comes to how we look at things.
I'll let you know when I get this down. For now I'm still really struggling with a lot.
This is a good thread for me right now. As after 9 weeks since she walked away I can actually feel the resentment in me growing. I truly appreciate reading Trenton say "Resentment is inward based while forgiveness is outward based."
Hit right home for me.
She definitely built up resentment which is exactly how the Walk Away Wife plays out. I don't want to poison myself with resentment.
To me resentment is like a subconcious form of unforgiveness. It shows you're still harboring anger for deeds in the past. I think the effects of resentment are the same as unforgiveness. It's not healthy, and it's not sustainable in a marriage.
I think it's difficult to get rid of resentment because unforgiveness is a natural mechanism we employ to protect ourselves from pain. It's like if someone kicks you in the nuts a dozen times, you're naturally going to protect that region when they are around you. Letting go of the resentment is similar to letting your guard down when the nut-kicker is right in front of you. It takes a lot of positive experiences to undo a negative or painful one. How many times would nut-kicker have to come around you and show no aggression before you put your guard down? How many people would never put their guard down?
The only way to let go of resentment is to make ourselves vulnerable. And by nature, that makes us able to be hurt. It takes many things for the healing to take place. First and foremost is a willingness to want to forgive and let go of the resentment. Second is a trust that the other person won't screw us over when we put our guard down. Third is a skillset that allows you to forgive.
I worked very very hard to overcome resentment, extreme anger, spousal rape, distrust, etc. Gave my H another chance, even. Oh well, I still have the skills to get over resentment, and they'll last the rest of my life, and be very useful in future relationships. So I won't resent that I went through so much (at least twice) to get them.
A clean slate is a clean slate.
I think it's a particular mindset.
In my case part of it was a willingness to be delusional (based on what I was working with as a spouse), the other part is just a mentality that most people learn from their mistakes and should be taken at their word until proven otherwise, because how else can you enjoy the fruits of forgiveness? Forgiveness being different than absolute trust, which is never a good thing, though it's often talked about as though it's some sort of gold standard/Holy Grail.
The reason the 3 Kings made it back without running into Herod is because they felt a little nagging feeling that the dude was untrustworthy. So they went back to their homes a different route, so they wouldn't have to report where the baby was, and all that. Intuition. Nagging Feeling. Not, gee, Herod seems okay, so we should trust him. That's why they were called Wise Men.
So maybe adjust 'Trust' to 'Appropriate Level of Trust' and add 'Confidence in Gut Instinct'.
Time has its issues, that is given enough time, someone is going to hit a trigger. If the other issues aren't in balance at that point, the whole thing can blow. Also, time is some kind of weird construct. In that it's something that exists that allows us to construct narratives - sequential narratives to explain things that cannot be explained or should not be explained. Our silly little human minds seem to pin certain events at the time when we experience the consequences, rather than the time when the event occurred. Try as we might, especially if it is trauma of some sort, we cannot reconcile the fact that with cheating the trauma occurred at a time when we might have been feeling happy. It's best not to go there. Most people cannot handle that trauma occurs and they are happy until they know about it. But if they have intuition, then they do know about it, and it gives rise to nagging feeling. If that's the case, then they might have an issue handling that, knowing about something, feeling it, before they possibly could know about it (that would be me). This experience negates time, because time has been essential for sequential, hard knowledge, what we call and honor as factual evidence. Then you've got the issue of emotional truth vs. real truth. Trust should be based on emotional truth, not real truth...but trustbuilding seems to be based only on real truth (factual evidence) rather than how one person's thoughts and emotions affect anothers, regardless of distance or notion. It has been proven scientifically that once two entities have been together and connected emotionally or physically, there is a connection that exists where the outer electrons spin in synchronicity, regardless of distance (like on the other side of the world). If you think I'm out to lunch, I can find the research, it was featured in a documentary film this past year (the director that had that huge bike accident...)
I think maybe Time could also be adjusted by saying that the people involved need to enter into a zone of timelessness, where nobody is writing a story, because stories just beg for closure. (Hayden White/Narrative Fallacy).
Sorry not trying to be esoteric, just helpful. Overcoming resentment is not an equation. It just is. Overcoming resentment is linked to forgiving. Forgiving is a gift you give yourself. You forgive not only the other person, but also yourself for allowing your intuition to be out to lunch, for being so disconnected from your spouse that you did not realize a change AND to question it, and if you did, for giving your spouse the benefit of the doubt, and if you did that, for doing it for so long, and if you went a long time and lost yourself then for losing yourself. At some point you can overcome resentment by making reparations for the damage you allowed to occur to yourself in your relationship. For ignoring it as it happened. Maybe it went too far. This is different than blaming the victim. It is honoring the damage that you experienced as a victim and owning that the only person who can repair some of the damage is yourself. Maybe the damage was done by an other, had to be initiated from them, maybe out of your control physically altogether...but you have to go back to all of the concerns and intuitions that you ignored, and realize that you accepted all of that hurt out of love. There is a lot of shame to get over too. For the hurt person, not the cheater. Being sympathetic towards oneself goes a long way in getting over resentment. I'm not trying to be funny with this last bit, but I don't resent what my husband did to me one bit. It is his nature to do what he did. It was my nature to do what I did. Now I will do something else. What will my husband do? I don't know, it won't be with me, if it is it won't be physical. If he still chooses to hurt me, he can try but I've attached my electrons to a different sort of love, which is stronger than his attachment to me and what's left of mine for him is faint to non-existent.
Anyway, that's my input for getting over resentment. Resentment is I think a form of panic that's caused by asynchronicity and unbalanced attachment. It can be fixed. But not methodically.
So after giving this a lot of thought this is where I have landed based on my personal experience.
I have been on the receiving end of the dread "beast of partner resentment" maybe a half dozen times in our marriage. And the same beast has attempted to seduce me with its siren song of "self pity and sense of entitlement" many times.
The receiving end of this always showed up in the same form, my W would say to me "I am NEVER going to get over the fact that you did .......".
And the seduction side was "I cannot freakin believe my W actually said/did ...... to ME, I DESERVE BETTER".
So this is some pretty serious stuff, or it can be. When I am the "bad guy" and I hear the phrase "I am NEVER going to get over you doing ......" I always react the same way.
1. I sincerely apologize
2. I promise to make a good faith effort not to do "it" again, whatever IT happened to be
3. I then proceed to respect my W's right to HOLD ONTO her anger and resentment for as long as she wishes. HOWEVER, the way that I do so is I give her space. I sure as heck don't keep apologizing because doing so is a form of "can you hurry the hell up and forgive me". It isn't my place to rush the forgiveness process. It happens when it happens. But ummm in the meantime, I focus on everything BUT my W.
It turns out that NEVER appears to have a maximum duration of 5 days. Fine by me. She is allowed to get angry and stay that way for a few days.
When SHE is the bad guy the same thing happens in reverse except I don't use the phrase "I am NEVER going to get past this". Seems like overkill to me. And you know how I get over it? I start trying to recall all the nice things my W has done for me during our marriage. And I cannot. Because there are thousands and thousands. And then I feel love washing over me, immersing me and the anger melts away like snow in the sunlight. And that process never takes more than a week.
I refuse to be held hostage for my imperfections. Because for every one thing I do wrong, I do dozens, maybe hundreds of things right. And I would choose not to stay with someone who WANTED to cling to anger and resentment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deejo
This is my new area of interest in terms of relationship dynamics. I think it is enormous in the scope of negative impact on LTR's. And I also think that it is processed and handled very differently by the sexes.
I try to frame stuff so that it makes it easy for me to mentally digest, in the doing, I no doubt make some serious generalizations ... which although not always bad, may not always be applicable.
The Pillars
Building a good relationship:
1. Communication
2. Respect
3. Attraction
Breaking down a formerly good relationship:
1. Resentment
2. Loss of Respect
3. Lack of communication
In a nutshell, resentment is what led to me making the decision to separate from my wife. My resentment built up over the course of years, but, I was always looking to, and trying to find ways to jettison it, let it go. I didn't want to have it.
My ex's resentment built up over the course of about 10 months, when I utterly and completely checked out of the marriage. Conversely, by her own admission ... she CAN'T let go of the resentment that built up in that time.
We would never be able to truly reconcile, recover, rediscover and move on, for that reason. And I believe her.
I find it both interesting and sad. Frankly, I don't want to partner with someone that isn't willing to, or capable of, clearing the balance sheet.
Suppose I'm curious about resentment's extraordinarily corrosive effect on a marriage, such as Walk Away Wife Syndrome, and other similar circumstances.
Have seen here on the boards on several occasions, people candidly admit that despite their spouses willingness to abandon behaviors that had fostered resentment, and instead try to rebuild the good pillars ... that it is extraordinarily difficult to let go of the bad pillars ... particularly old resentments.
I don't know of many healthy relationships where resentment seems prevalent.
I refuse to be held hostage for my imperfections. Because for every one thing I do wrong, I do dozens, maybe hundreds of things right. And I would choose not to stay with someone who WANTED to cling to anger and resentment.
Recognizing whether or not the above is true with your partner is key.
Like I said before, if you sincerely apologize and you work to overcome the behavior after realizing it was wrong then having your spouse hold onto resentment is unfair. If you keep repeating the behavior you're sending a different message entirely.
T,
Yes. If you keep doing the same thing that is a whole different story.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trenton
Recognizing whether or not the above is true with your partner is key.
Like I said before, if you sincerely apologize and you work to overcome the behavior after realizing it was wrong then having your spouse hold onto resentment is unfair. If you keep repeating the behavior you're sending a different message entirely.
I could use a little help here trying to understand resentment and hidden anger. The kind that last for decades.
My marriage of 20 years just ended. I won't go into much detail but it involves an EA, stalking, loss of job, and a few other things that my ex partook of.
Anyhow, I was able to forgive him of all of his actions, yet there is still hurt and pain that runs deep within me, knowing that he wanted the divorce and he chose not to forgive me, yet I scratch my head with wonderment because I was a faithful wife until the end.
Finally, after 20 years, he spewed out so much venom against me, it was the little things, things that I thought he approved of and enjoyed, but inside he was making notes of his disapproval, and it built up over the course of our marriage. Little things like this... he would have preferred a nice little honeymoon in the town where we lived in, just a stay at a hotel for a couple of days instead of a nice trip. I read a newspaper on our honeymoon while he was resting in a chair writing, not buying cereal in bulk, just little things like that. His resentment to so many things that I had no idea he disapproved of has me riddled with guilt. I never meant him any harm with these little things, and yet he can't forgive me of these. WTF. Can somebody explain this too me, why I can forgive him of the very painful acts upon his part that affected his whole family, and he can't forgive me of little things.
Resentment 
