Resentment building in your relationships?

Each of us is responsible for our own emotional reactions to other people and situations. When we mistakenly hold our partners responsible for our own emotions it is possible to begin to blame our partners for our own painful emotions. This often leads to a sense of entitlement to use resentment or anger as a defense against our partner. We slip into a position of moral superiority ( “I am right, you are wrong” ) and stubbornly argue our own point, demanding compliance from the other.

This is a difficult concept to learn — accepting responsibility for our own emotions rather than blaming others for our sadness, shame, anger or loneliness. Few of us were raised by parents emotionally mature enough to pass this lesson onto us as children. We tend to learn this lesson as adults through painful trial and error — each of us is responsible for our own emotions and emotional responses.

Emotions are not magical, uncontrolled forces but merely partial information from our brains to help us make wise decisions. Considering information from our thoughts, emotions, past lessons, and looking from different perspectives is how we use wisdom to make decisions and express our needs. (But merely expressing a need does not mean we can expect the other to fully fill the need — that is another another blog post though.)

When each individual in a partnership takes responsibility for his or her own emotions and own needs; each is more capable of fulfilling the partnership responsibilities of trust, loving communication, sharing, intimacy…

When we hold our partners responsible for our emotions, resentment results. We stay trapped in resentment to unconsciously avoid deeper feelings of vulnerability: fears of not being worthy of love,  fear of being inadequate or incompetent, not mattering to anyone, being trapped, flawed to the core. These deeper vulnerable fears are too unpleasant to experience so we move into our anger, resentment and blame which feels more powerful than painful vulnerability of fear. We use anger, resentment, anxiety and boredom as defenses against these deeper fears. We use power to try to control or manipulate another, hoping the other will treat us in a way that brings forth happy and affectionate emotions rather than this anger the other is “making us feel.”

By abdicating responsibility for our own emotional responses we give up our personal power to feel and relate with others honestly. Instead we substitute power and control over another as an attempt to feel less fear, vulnerability, or shame. We stay trapped in a shame/anger/resentment cycle by blocking off our deepest feelings of vulnerability or.

Until each person is willing to explore these deeper vulnerabilities and eventually accept them as part of our human condition rather than shun them, we stay trapped in our power struggle of resentment. To explore these deeper vulnerable fears is fraught with waves of shame. It is an uncomfortable process but not impossible. As we begin to recognize these deeper fears and reveal to a trusted other, the shame decreases. The emotional charge of these fears decreases and we feel less controlled by our feelings. Our emotions become interesting to notice, they inform decisions rather than compel impulses. We feel personal power over our own emotions and no longer a need to power over another to feel safer. We live with less resentment.

Based on principles from the book “Love Without Hurt” by Steven Stosny, PhD