“Anger, jealousy, resentment does not change the heart of others – it only changes yours”
A relationship is sensitive when it cannot carry the baggage of too many negative emotions. It could be pented up frustration with your partner’s habits or it could be a bigger reason. Irrespective of the reason, holding on to resentments in a relationship is not healthy as it can not just destroy the health and peace of the relationship but it can just snatch away your own peace for that matter. Can you relate to any situation where you have been way too resented with your partner?
Witnessing different emotions every now and then is common, we are human after all we would be a part of sadness as good as we are a part of happiness and it is not necessary that our reactions to every emotion is balanced and fair enough. How many times we feel like our partner is overreacting or for that matter we ourselves overreact. Give it a thought!
In this article, let’s throw light upon the possible causes of feeling resented in a relationship, ways to be smart and avoid getting to that point of feeling resented and options to overcome resentment in relationships so that peace and happiness occupy a bigger role in your relationship than that of resentments.
What Is Resentment In A Relationship?
An emotion that can make one feel low and pulled down because of recollecting episodes of gathered anger and frustration in the past that is over but its impact is still running through a person’s mind haunting him or her in the present as well in such a way that he or she is not able to forgive the opposite person for the wrongdoing or accept it for that matter.
A person who clings on to resentment does not think it is a doddle to be able to let go of that negative finds or would have tried but failed at letting go of the resentment.
Resentments should never have a scope to enter relationships or if it is entered it should be chased out, failing which, someday it will lead to unhappiness and death of the relationship.
What Causes Resentment In A Relationship?
Causes for resentment in a marriage happens specifically when partners fail to respect each other or even stay in each other’s shoes to understand each other’s problems.
Either someone is crying over not being heard, someone resents their partner for hurting their self-respect or it could be because the two people are unable to understand each other mental and physical needs, everyone has their bit of the story. Here is what causes resentment in a relationship
Cause No 1 – Words Once Said Can Never Be Taken Back
It is true that what is said once can never be unsaid. That said, there are several situations where you and your partner have had heated conversations and you have ended up saying hurtful things to each other that whenever you fight you tend to bring up the old stuff back just because those words would have hurt either of you way too much.
Cause No 2 – Murdering Each Others Personal Space
When either of the partners interferes in personal space it can be really suffocating. There are couples who do not understand that all the two of them need is to have a personal life of their own instead of being so much after each other’s personal schedule, failing to understand this they end up suffocating personal space and that leads to too much frustration and anger between the two that they start to resent each other.
Cause No 3 – Broken Trust
When insecurity creeps into the relationship it does not find a way out easily. That said, there are incidents when partners lose faith in each other because either of them betrays or lies to the other. Most people who go through betrayal become bitter and feel a strong resentment that time alone heals.
Cause No 4 – Taken For Granted
When either of the partners is taken easily and the other one thinks that no matter what he or she says it does not matter and the partner at times forgets his/her responsibilities towards the relationship it causes a disturbance in a relationship and can make any person feel strong resentment towards the other person.
Cause No 5 – One Sided Efforts
Everyone has their breaking point and in a relationship when only one person is giving in too much, it is natural that the opposite person would least expect is a little reciprocation and when that never comes back a person breaks down to an extent that he or she is hurt and can find it tough to get over that resentment.
Cause No 6 – When Your Partner Is Insensitive
It is disappointing and heartbreaking when a partner cannot be sensitive to what you like and do not like and continues doing the same despite knowing that you do not like something and that affects you way too much. When someone is insensitive to what affects you, it is the most disastrous feeling.
Cause No 7 – No Room For Compromises
At times when you make all the effort to compromise for your relationship and you see that your partner is least bothered and you are the only one who is expected compromise, it can be the most shattering feeling and it might make you feel fed up with your partner.
Cause No 8 – When Negativity Is Put In Focus
Most of the times we are all busy complaining about everything that is going imperfect in the relationship and we barely understand that we could look into things that are going well. Resentment generally likes to stay close to you when you have forgotten to look at the good side of the relationship and you just focus on everything that has gone wrong till date.
Therefore, having understood the causes of resentment in a relationship it goes without saying that all of you who are tied with any of these situations must look for a way out to overcome resentment.
Signs Of Resentment In A Relationship
Here are the signs that prove that you resent your partner
- Sign No 1 – Flaws are all that you see in your partner
- Sign No 2 – When every right in your partner seems as wrong always
- Sign N0 3 – When you deprive your partner of sex and you want to hurt your partner that way because he has hurt you too.
- Sign No 4 – When you love holding to your grudges more than holding to those good times you have had with him.
- Sign No 5 – When you think giving up on the relationship is 10 times better than trying to reconcile.
- Sign No 6 – When you are stuck on a feeling that you cannot forgive your man.
Thus, these were some of the possible signs of how resentment takes over in a relationship. At times a person would consciously feel the resentment and sometimes he/she would subconsciously go through resentment.
Ways To Overcome Resentment in A Relationship
Deep down you understand and know that you have some portion of resentment in your heart even though you would have wanted to let go of it. Isn’t it? It is like crossing an ocean to be able to completely forget resentment. Once you make up your mind to completely get over it then nothing like it. Here is what you can do to overcome resentment in a relationship
1 – Look At Your Own Perfections And Imperfections
It is easy for us to blame the opposite person and complaint about the way they behave with us. On the contrary, don’t we get too deep in playing the blame game that we do not look at where have we gone wrong.
Thus, if you want to overcome resentment towards your partner then you can make yourself understand that on many aspects you have been imperfect too so it is the best to let go of the resentment.
2 – Be In Your Partner’s Shoes
Before you make up your mind to be rigid with your partner try and understand why he would have taken such a step or behaved in a particular manner, immediately put yourself in those shoes and analyse of how you would have dealt with the same situation and how would you expect your partner to react. While you make this judgement you will yourself understand if it is worth holding on to resentment against your partner or not.
[Read: Tips to Maintain a Good Relationship With Your boyfriend]
3 – Have a Two Way Confrontation And Communication
If you are stuck up with resentment for your partner then you should immediately confront it to him and let him know your reasons for feeling that way and at the same time you cannot be adamant and rude by not hearing him out, give him a chance to communicate as well.
Have your fair share of arguments but see to it that you have a two-way communication and you are trying to understand each others pain as well. Balance your arguments and communication so that the two of you can finally get over all the resentment that’s been dwelling in your mind for ages now.
4 – What To Give Up On? What To Hold On To? – Make A Choice!
Make a choice, you either find a way to sort things out and hold on to the marriage or you choose to give up on your marriage and stick to your resentment. Its time you make this choice because this question will make it easier for you to either give up on your resentment or make an attempt to make things better for your partner and you in the relationship. Think about this, be it any decision see to it that you do no regret it at the end of the day.
[Read: How to be Mature Woman in a Relationship]
5 – Accept And Let Go!
It is not fair to leave a relationship for a few faults because no relation is going to rock the way you want it. Thus, it is no wrong if you accept the fact that your partner’s made a mistake and is asking for forgiveness. Let go of everything that happened in the past by accepting it as it is and at the same time let go of all the bad that happened and give your relationship another try rather than just letting it go.
6 – Rekindle Happy Moments
If you want to save your relationship from resentment the best thing you can do is dig down to the good memory lane of the two of you together and think of all those times when the two of you would never hold grudges against each other and whenever the two of you fought how both of you would make an effort to make things fine. Apart from this, there might have been times that were crazy and happier. When you have a laugh about the good times all your pain of resentment would feel petty in front of all the great times that you have had.
7 – Address Your Concerns The Right Way
Yelling and being rude is just going to worsen situations, if your partner is not patient and that triggers him it could just add up to the resentment. It is necessary to understand that expressing resentment is never an issue but not expressing it in a polished manner is never going to be the right way. Everyone likes to be treated well and no one has tolerance to misbehavior. That said, treat a person the way you want to be treated.
8 – Be Responsible Towards Your Actions
A mistake cannot happen from one side, you would be equally responsible for holding on to the resentment. Keep aside all your egos, be responsible to your conscience, truly ask yourself about where you went wrong and apologies to your partner from your end as well. By doing this you are just being true to your own doing and you have opened up to genuinely overcome all the resentment for your partner. What could be better than feeling light after apologizing?
9 – Discuss About Solutions
Saying sorry is easy but meaning it, working towards not repeating it and keeping your cool when your opposite person disappoints you is not easy in reality. Since you talk and confront your issues to each other it is important to think of solutions on how not to let that same situation come up again and disturb your relationship. Having said, clearly communicate to each other what you like and do not like and what the two of you should be and not be looking for from each other, once there is a clarity, your life and relationship gets even better.
10 – Make Up For The Long Never-Ending Distance
As the two of you let resentment come your way and you have sorted things out, its time for the two of you to make love and make up for all those sweet moments that you have lost. Cuddle each other, make love and have sex to bring back intimacy and romance that the two of you lost on. This would be one of the most loving and memorable times of your relationship where you kind of parted and now you are getting back together.
In the end, every couple goes through a rough patch almost every day. Giving up is just not challenging enough to prove how much you love your partner and at the same time, small things can bring bitterness in the relationship as well.
Resentment is a bad sign in a relationship because it can lead to your relationship breaking and at the same time resentment can be good as well because only when you go through the worst of times you know how much your partner and you love each other.
Have a happy relationship by cutting away resentment!
