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Forgiveness
Lingering Resentment? Maybe It's Time to Put It to Rest
Before you blame the other person, take responsibility for your own choices.
Posted November 8, 2021 Reviewed by Tyler Woods
Key points
- Resentment is about old wounds that haven't healed, anger that lingers.
- Often what is needed most is closure—saying what was never fully said.
- Sometimes, resentment comes from giving in and not taking responsibility for your decisions.
- The key to avoiding resentment is being assertive at the time and repairing the relationship as soon as possible.
Resentment is a feeling that we’re all familiar with. Unlike explosive anger that flares up and quickly dies, resentment lingers. Like a wound that has never fully healed, it remains. And though you try not to touch it like a wound, when you do, the memories and pain and anger come to the surface. But all resentment is not created equally.
Below are two examples of the major types of resentment. We'll then examine their underlying drivers and cures.
Though it’s been years, Emily is still resentful about how her “best friend” embarrassed her in front of their friends at her engagement party. Sure, they “patched it up,” but it doesn’t take much for those old feelings to surface.
Thomas has been in a relationship for several years. If you ask him even on a good day how he feels it’s going, he’s likely to say, "Fine…but." The but is that he has a lot of accumulated resentments—about his agreeing to move when he really didn’t want to, about his feeling 'bullied' into the way they decided to decorate the house, how they spend their holidays. Yes, they have sort of talked about this, but it still nags at him.
Angry grudges
Emily was deeply hurt at her engagement party. She and her friend “patched it up,” but that can mean anything from a quick exchange of "I’m sorry" to a brief conversation about why she felt embarrassed, to an angry flare-up at the time that she then felt terrible about and pushed aside, to a glaring look and then moving on.
The underlying problem
No matter how the situation was initially handled, what remains is a lack of closure—the hurt has not healed because she never initiated or never received the understanding and response that she needed.
The solution
Emily needs to find a way to put this to rest. She may send her friend a long email, have a phone conversation, meet face-to-face, but whatever the medium, she needs to have the opportunity to say what she didn’t say then that has been nagging at her. To do this right, Emily needs to do more than just an emotional dump that will likely only result in her friend defensively snapping back and replicating the problem than healing it. Instead, she needs to move the relationship forward by clearly saying what she needs to feel better: that her friend simply hears her out and doesn't minimize how she felt; or that her friend offers the sincere apology that Emily needs to put this behind her. Or it may be both acknowledging the lesson learned that they each need to carry forward into the future of their relationship so that this doesn’t happen again.
Closure is about healing the past in the present so that it doesn’t contaminate the future, about stepping up and being brave and clear, and not continuing to sweep these hurts under the rug.
Feeling like the martyr or victim
Like Emily, Thomas’ resentment also reflects some lack of closure. But unlike Emily, another driver is operating here that fuels his lingering feelings, namely, that he felt manipulated or had expectations that his partner didn’t meet.
Underlying problem
Thomas didn’t want to move, but he went along with it, likely to avoid creating some major conflict. This is the signature move that leads to feeling like a martyr—the sacrifice. The problem with this stance is that it comes with expectations—that one will be wildly appreciated for the gift one's just made, the expectation the other person will reciprocate in kind—do the same for you when there is something you want. The problem is that the other person usually doesn’t know you’re making the sacrifice and instead takes you at face value. Because Thomas doesn’t state how he really feels, his partner assumes that Thomas was okay with moving.
The cousin to the martyr is the victim. Where the martyr is about taking a one-up stance—I’m the bigger person who does this for you—the victim is a one-down stance: Thomas feeling intimidated in some way into going along with whatever decorating ideas his partner wanted. There are certainly situations where folks are, indeed, bullied and intimidated, but Thomas’s situation is likely more subtle—his partner voiced a strong preference, but he gives in because Thomas wants to avoid conflict and his instinct is to go along. The resentment comes because it was not what he wanted. He’s making a sacrifice because, for whatever reason, he felt he had no choice.
The solution
Obviously, there can be a fine line between these stances. But what’s missing from this equation, and what is in part fueling Thomas’s resentment, is that he made a choice—to accommodate rather than to speak up about feeling bullied and about not being clear about his expectations. If Thomas rationalized that “this was okay” for whatever reason—that he wanted to be supportive despite his reservations, that he didn’t want to create a fuss—Thomas needs to take responsibility for handling the situation the way he did.
This is not about blaming the victim, especially in clear abuse cases, but about not fully taking responsibility for your own decisions and choices. You blame the other person for your response—making you do what you did—rather than accepting that you could have done something different but didn’t.
Resentment, unlike raw anger, is a complex emotion that arises either because of lingering anger that was never put to rest, or from pushing aside how you felt without expressing it. If you don’t want to feel resentful, handle your side of the problem. Speak up and repair as best you can, as soon as you can.
