Tips for Overcoming Resentment in Marriage

Sometimes, you don’t like the people that you love. Liking someone is about having a certain warmth toward them, harboring positive feelings of regard, and holding affection for that person. When you like someone, there is often something about them that you find attractive. That quality may be their taste in music, their sense of humor, how they’re a great listener, or just how you feel when you’re around them.

On the other hand, loving someone, while it often is accompanied by feelings of affection, regard, and attraction, isn’t necessarily carried by those feelings. A common understanding of what love is reduces it to those feelings, and so when the feelings evaporate, even for a brief season, the assumption is often that the love is gone, and therefore the relationship is over.

However, it’s more helpful, in understanding love, to consider it as a posture that you adopt toward someone. Love is a commitment to pursue the good of the other person, and that commitment isn’t necessarily based on what they’ve done for you lately, or if there is any attractive quality about them. The feelings of warmth toward them may come and go, but that commitment toward their good remains.

How then should you respond to your spouse, the person you chose to be with for the rest of your life, when you have feelings of resentment toward them?

Understanding resentment

Resentment is a complex feeling that combines elements of anger, disgust, bitterness, hurt, and fear. It can develop over a single interaction, but it can also build up over time and through multiple interactions with someone. There are several reasons why you might resent someone, and some of those reasons include:

• Being insulted or humiliated by them, whether privately or in public.
• Being taken advantage of, like when someone reaches out only when they need something.
• Being taken for granted, like if they just assume they can borrow your car without asking first.
• Having your boundaries disrespected.
• Having unmet expectations, whether they are legitimate or not.
• The other person always must be right in every situation.
• Not feeling heard, and having your needs ignored.
• Feeling like you are not valued in the relationship.
• A lack of affection or intimacy in the relationship.
• Being betrayed by the other person, whether through infidelity (emotional, sexual, or financial), or by them revealing private matters to others.
• Feeling jealous that your spouse has what you don’t, like free time to relax while you feel spread thin.
• Being unable to let go of past hurts.

In marriages, resentment will often develop over areas such as sex, money, raising the children, and the division of labor in the household. It’s in those areas that you might feel like you are under-appreciated, or that you are doing more than the other spouse. Overwhelmingly, certain expectations you hold have not been met. Comparing one’s workload to your spouse’s is a significant contributor to feelings of resentment in a marriage.

Resentment in a marriage can develop over time. Though you might still love your spouse, you may not like them very much. In other words, while you may still desire and work for their good, your heart just might not be in it, and you’re doing it begrudgingly. Unfortunately, that only leads to deeper resentment, as every action you undertake on their behalf can become another reason for resentment, especially if you don’t feel appreciated.

When resentment takes root in a marriage, it can silently destroy that marriage from the inside out. Unchecked resentment is essentially poison to your relationship, and it can lead to separation or divorce. Resentment is slippery. It can build without either you or your spouse knowingly doing anything wrong. Because it often goes undiscussed, that unnamed silence between you allows for resentment to grow and continue wreaking havoc.

What resentment looks like in a marriage

Resentment in a marriage can be sparked by any number of things, and it can take different forms in that relationship. Commonly, what resentment does is drive a wedge between spouses. They grow apart from one another, and the sense of connection that they may have had begins to wane. This intimacy is what helps a marriage feel deeply satisfying, and it is what grounds a marriage and allows it to flourish.

With their sense of connection wavering, or even severed, couples may find a wall of silence builds between them. You retreat, withdrawing from your partner because you feel vulnerable and angry. When couples stop talking about the things that matter to them, intimacy decreases, or it disappears altogether from the marriage. This can compound the feelings of isolation, and of anger, which allows the resentment to grow.

If resentment is left to fester, you can feel constantly angry at one another. Instead of feelings of warmth, affection, regard, and empathy toward one another, anger takes pride of place. You may stop liking your spouse altogether, and no longer enjoy spending time with them.

When those feelings of affection disappear and are replaced by anger and bitterness, it’s easy to begin assuming that perhaps you married the wrong person. It’s unsurprising, then, that resentment in marriage will often lead to one or both spouses having an affair or deciding to get divorced.

Overcoming resentment in a marriage

Resentment can spread throughout a marriage like an infection does in a wound. Whether you acknowledge it or not, resentment can destroy your marriage. If you desire to overcome any resentment that has set into your marriage, the first step is to acknowledge that it is happening. If the feelings of resentment aren’t acknowledged, addressed, and resolved, they can irreparably damage your marriage.

As part of dealing with resentment, it’s important to keep in mind that resentment is usually caused by poor communication and unconsciously selfish behaviors. It typically isn’t your spouse’s intention to take advantage of you, or to take you for granted. Life sometimes just happens, and without good communication, it’s easy to feel that you aren’t being appreciated, or that there is an unfair division of labor in the home.

Poor communication is thus a significant factor in generating resentment. Likewise, healthy, effective communication is thus a vital factor in beginning to address the roots of resentment.

Instead of allowing the feelings of resentment to grow, name and talk about them with your spouse. Also, choose empathy toward your spouse. This will allow you to listen, to hear their side of things, and to begin taking accountability for your part in the current predicament.

Dealing effectively with resentment requires that you look past your feelings of hurt and the list of injustices you’ve no doubt charged your spouse with countless times in your heart and head. That is not easy, and it can feel impossible, especially if you’re also dealing with feelings of distrust, or you feel they should make the first move toward you.

One of the resources that can be made use of in addressing resentment is to apply the good news about Jesus to the situation, especially if you and your spouse are disciples of Jesus. Jesus’ willingness to die for His enemies may challenge your reluctance to make the first move, and His rich forgiveness toward you can prompt and empower you to forgive the wrongs committed against you. (Romans 5:8, Ephesians 4:32, Matthew 18:21-35)

Getting help

When resentment is entrenched, you will likely need the help of a counselor. Your counselor, as an impartial and professional third party, can help you and your spouse establish different and clearer ways of communicating with one another. They can also give you tools to handle conflict better, as well as dismantle any unhealthy comparisons or patterns of behavior and thought that contribute to resentment.

If you are ready to access this support, reach out to our offices today. We will connect you with a qualified Christian therapist who will walk with you in your journey to release resentment in your relationship.