# overcoming resentment?



## anon9 (Sep 6, 2011)

looking for guidance from those of you who have been in my shoes. 

i am a young professional woman, married slightly over 3 years now to a young professional man. our marriage has been rocky, at best, for its entire duration. 

i couldn't remember my old password, but i had written about it under a different name here: http://talkaboutmarriage.com/mens-clubhouse/20318-need-mans-perspective-marriage-going-sour.html

since my last post, we have gone to counseling. unsurprisingly, my husband states that he has also been unhappy in our marriage. he feels i am too emotionally needy, he feels i am unreliable and that i am unsupportive of how hard he has to work in his career. he is going through a transition phase in his career as well, and is a little vulnerable at the moment. 

since counseling began he has worked harder to be more attentive to my needs. it is a slow process, but i appreciated his efforts. however, i found it difficult to reciprocate with the things he wants of me. the problem is now largely mine. 

i am so incredibly angry and full of resentment for what he put me through for three years. the nights of crying while he left town or taunted me for being a crybaby, the incredible loneliness i felt being married to someone who was little more than a roommate to me, who rejected almost all of my attempts at physical and emotional intimacy. the questioning day after day whether the man i loved even cared for me at all because he would seem to take pride in not saying i love you to me after i said it to him. 

i told him that i was unsure if i could stay married. that really shook him up. he states that if that is the case, i have no right to be demanding of him while i am uncertain and leaving him in an uncertain limbo. in a way this makes sense, but there is a part of me that feels that i was in limbo for so long, and yet he expected me to be supportive of him. 

he is asking that i make a choice asap, but i want some time to see if i can overcome my feelings. 

and so in the meantime it seems like the power has shifted some. suddenly, he is the one crying when we fight. i am the one yelling at him. it might be even worse, because i think there is a part of me that WANTS him to feel the way i did. to understand how much he hurt me. i feel like i am losing whatever empathy i had for him, especially in this vulnerable time for him. it makes me feel like a horrible, vengeful person. but it also makes me feel like i have a little power that i never had before. i am so conflicted. 

i know in order for our marriage to have a chance, i have to let go of my anger and my desire to give him a taste of his own medicine. i have no idea how to do that. i feel that the experiences of the past three years have made me painfully suspicious and distrustful of him. i have built a wall between us, figuratively speaking. 

how do you let go and move on? how can i make him understand that i need time? is it even reasonable of me to take time? what should our relationship be like while i figure out what i want and if i can let this pain go?


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## jessicx (Sep 5, 2011)

When you say you need time, what exactly are you asking of him? It is not at all unreasonable for you to ask for it, in fact it can be very healthy. But he needs to understand why it's happening. My guess is that he's pushing for a decision because it's tearing him up inside wondering if the ultimate decision will be divorce. It may be coming across as pushy, but we all know that men and women sometimes display uncomfortable emotions in a negative way. 
Resentment is one of the hardest things to overcome in marriage. I've read this book "The seven principles for making marriage work", by John M. Gottman, Ph.D. I like his technique because he doesn't try to force better communication on his couples, like a lot of marriage counselors will try to do. He states that the best way to overcome resentment and contempt are to make more good memories. The issue at hand here is that there are so many overwhelming "bad" memories in your marriage that you can't seem to forget about them. This is because there are not enough "good" memories to outweigh the bad. Try to find a way to help your husband understand where you are and why you're there. Find a way to build upon those good memories. Eventually, you may find that it becomes easier to let go of the bad stuff.


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## Halien (Feb 20, 2011)

I understand some of your feelings because I've been there - I am still there, more or less. For years, as a husband, my emotional needs took a back seat to my wife's issues with depression. 

I wonder if part of the inability to let go of the resentment is because you fear that you'll end up exactly where you were in the past. That his renewed interest in meeting your needs, what little there may be, will fade with time.

Maybe it would be worthwhile to tell him that, given the history, the two of you need to develop new assumptions for your own parts of meeting each other's needs. Give him a chance to tell you how he feels that he should treat you, make you a part of his social life, and generate intimacy. Just a few basic assumptions that he now expects himself to hold onto for the future of the marriage. Then, the two of you can talk about how he will do these in various day to day settings. This is something that our marriage therapist has helped us to begin working on. Every day, after dinner, my wife goes through a short, basic set of affirming things that she has observed about our relationship, in order to keep her from being completely focused on being so critical.

I think that if this fear is there on your part, having him verbalize his intent to change will at least help you feel like there is hope for the future of the relationship. You can do the same thing for him.


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## squirrel211 (Sep 7, 2011)

More and more I am coming to the realization that resentment is a result of a lack (or perceived) lack of understanding between the parties. 

My guess would be that you both feel as though the other doesn't understand what your problem is. Any apologies are going to be meaningless unless they are specifically addressing the "wrong" that was done. 

There are PLENTY of reasons for you (and probably him) to feel this way, and a lot of them can stem from outside of the marriage. Ask yourself this: at the end of the day, if he truly understood what he put you through, apologized for it sincerely and if you truly believe he is on your "team" and supports and loves you, would you still feel this way? (A long question, I know!)


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