In this blog I am going to discuss the issue of Resentment. From time to time resentment becomes an important stumbling block for couples and even between groups of people. I include suggestions on how to remove a specific resentment. In my personal experience, removing resentments is not a passive activity. It cannot be done by waiting. Resentments do not go away by just letting time pass. When we ignore resentments, we are putting them off until they pop up later. I think resentments are removed by real Validation and Dialogue.
Validation is a term we use to describe, “Whatever it is you do, that makes a person feel understood.” More than being heard, folks need to feel understood, both in their thinking and their feelings. If someone doesn’t feel understood, then we are not validating them. The skill of Validating comes from the skill of Understanding which comes from Listening. Basically, to Validate another person we must verbally or non-verbally show that we grasp the other person’s sense–meaning their logic and their emotions. When we do this we are bearing witness to their sense.
What is a Resentment? A Resentment is a memory of past Invalidation.
A resentment is centered around a memory of an event of time when a person felt invalidated or willfully misunderstood—where the person needed or expected validation and was unable to get it.
Resentments carry within them a specific memory (sometimes deeply buried) of a specific “focus or person.” The person from whom the validation (understanding) was needed or expected was not received. With that, I think a “Resentment” can be seen as a frustration, a desire for understanding, for validation that was/is blocked.
A Resentment may have been repeated many times by many people and so it can be big and complicated.
This can be confusing as a current occurrence will have a current “focus-person.” The intensity of the resentment will often seem strangely excessive and humongous because it carries additional intensity of similar historical resentments. For example, let’s say I react to my partner’s behavior partially because she ignored me and additionally because that ignoring me reminded me of my mother’s, my father’s, my boss, my past invalidations and ignoring me. Bottomline, my partner did it a 10 and my reaction is a 600.
Since our brains are not designed to forget, and particularly not capable of forgetting threats or injuries, resentments don’t go away. If anything, they accumulate and the piles … get bigger and bigger as time passes—particularly if similar invalidations continue to happen.
Resentments, like frustrations, have triggers. A trigger is some action by someone else that evokes a feeling of frustration, or a feeling of being invalidated or resented.
The trigger may also be extremely small and committed by someone who has nothing to do with the original “focus-person.” When this happens, it’s easy for boundaries to be unclear and skewed.
One of the primary gifts of the Imago Restructuring Frustration process is to define the boundaries of the situation that is causing the resentment. It clarifies that the “triggerer” or the person who did the triggering behavior is not actually the cause of the frustration. This was crucial learning to me in terms of intimate relationships. To solve a frustration, it seems best for the frustrated person to look into themselves, perhaps with the help of the person whose behavior triggered their frustration. I am convinced that eventually the frustrated person has to take primary responsibility for their own frustrations. Until this happens, I believe folks will stay stuck.
The frustrated person can use a friend who assists, but that person does not take blame.
This gift of clarity, of clear boundaries about responsibility, leads to growth on the part of the frustrated/resentful person and also remarkably on the part of the assisting person whose action just happened to trigger the frustration. In couples, I see this as a Win-Win situation. This kind of clarity also shifts people away from the completely unproductive fault-finding and blaming which is prevalent in this society. Here’s an example:
- Partner A says/does X
- Partner B feels invalidated and points at and blames Partner A
- Partner A now feels invalidated and points at and blames their Partner B.
- Both withdraw from connection, carrying their resentments with them.
You see, this is completely unproductive, but very common.
In summary, a resentment typically has a focus (a “triggering/invalidating” person), but it is essentially an event within the person who carries the resentment. If you are up for it, you can write a few examples here: Just look at who is the FOCUS of your resentment.
Contact Paula for Imago Relationship Therapy – www.paulasmith-imago.com
