How to End Resentment in Your Relationship for Good

When you ask your partner to do certain things around the house or with the kids, how do you feel if he does it? How do you feel if he won’t? Do you believe that you’re the only one who’s responding to your kids’ needs? Are you convinced that the responsibility for running your home falls squarely on your shoulders?

I harbored strong feelings of resentment towards my husband for years as a stay-at-home mom, and could not seem to get past my conviction that I had to do it all alone, whether his schedule as a pilot had him home or not. I asked myself time and time again why he couldn’t just do what I needed him to do, when I needed him to do it - after all, I was managing by myself with three children - surely I deserved a bit of help too?

But what I finally came to realize was that getting him to do what I thought he should be doing (the way I wanted him to do it) was never going to be the solution to my problem. Taking responsibility for how I was thinking about my husband and how I was feeling in our relationship was.

Someone else’s actions can never make you as happy as you want to be

It doesn’t actually matter what your partner says or does, it’s your thoughts about what he says and does that determine how you feel. You might think everything would be just fine if he changed his behavior but this is simply not true.

The way our brains are wired - which is to look for evidence of what we currently believe and to reject any evidence that goes against it - you will not actually feel any differently towards him even if you do succeed in getting him to do exactly what you want.

A good example of this comes from a friend of mine who (in the early stages of her relationship) was anxious about the depth of her husband’s feelings for her, and so asked him to say “I love you” more regularly to make her feel more secure. Her husband agreed to do as she asked, and even used her name in the texts he sent her... and so of course the first time a message arrived without the added emphasis of her name, all of her anxiety came flooding back. Later down the line he then began to abbreviate the word “love”, which she took to be a terrible sign...and on it went until she finally decided to put herself out of her misery and believe that he truly did love her.

We have to remember that it's our thinking that causes our feelings, and never another person's behavior. And if you’re telling yourself “but it does make me happy when he does what I ask him to do”, what’s actually happening is that you’re deciding to think that he truly cares about you and what you want - and it’s this thought alone that makes you feel good. 

And yet still we tell ourselves over and over again that we feel this way because of our partner’s behavior. So what’s the answer?

1. Throw out the manual you have for your partner

Know that the only reason you want your partner to behave the way you want them to behave is because of how you think it will make you feel. We all do this - we have a manual or rule book for the people in our lives (even the people we will only ever pass by on the street) that they should follow so that we can feel a certain way. We may not even be aware of just how clearly these instructions are laid out in our minds, but one thing’s for sure - our partners certainly have no idea! 

Now you may be thinking it’s only right to have reasonable expectations of others, but who’s to say what counts as reasonable? 

And what about all the pain and frustration that having these manuals causes for us? We can spend years trying to get our partners to change and thereby setting ourselves up to inevitably feel negative emotion in our relationship. This not only takes all of our power away - telling ourselves that we can only feel happy if another person changes - but also makes us controlling towards the people we love the most.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t ask our partners for anything at all - it just means that we ask without making our happiness dependent on whether they do the thing or not. We take responsibility for how we feel, accept that we can never control anyone else (because everyone - including us - behaves how they want to behave), and ultimately decide what we want for ourselves in our relationships.

2. Choose to feel gratitude

You also can choose to redirect your brain away from the negative you see in your relationship and focus instead on feeling gratitude for all the things - however small - your partner does for you and your family (preferably by writing them down in a notebook). When you powerfully redirect your brain in this way, you create new thinking habits that focus on what you do appreciate, rather than all of the things you don’t.

Make the effort to thank your partner at least once a day, even if you believe he should be doing those things anyway or are telling yourself that he never thanks you for anything you do for him. Maggie Reyes of the Marriage Life Coach Podcast explains the benefits of taking such positive action when she says that, in doing this, you’re taking the lead in demonstrating to your partner how it’s possible to show up differently - not because he deserves it and gets to sit back and make no effort in participating, but because it’s good for you and the marriage you desire to have. “Then you see how your partner responds to how you show up and then you decide what comes next - more love, a boundary, a new choice or something else.”

And what I’ve noticed is that, once we start to open ourselves up to really seeing all of the little things, more and more of these moments will reveal themselves. Plus, doing this helps us to see that choosing to believe the very best of our partners in any given situation is always preferable to assuming some sort of malicious intent behind their actions. 

3. Take the criticism out of your relationship

If you believe that your way of doing things is the best way and often criticize your partner for not doing things exactly as you’d like them to be done, then you’re not alone. I certainly felt this way for many years and didn’t hold back on pointing out what was “wrong” with the way my husband had done certain things when it came to dealing with the kids. This, not surprisingly, led to him not wanting to do anything at all because he didn’t enjoy being criticized all the time!

If you find yourself doing this, get curious as to why. Are you sure that your way is the best way? Did you feel the need to micromanage your partner before you had kids?

Also, ask yourself whether you’re feeling negatively towards your partner because you believe you only ever hear criticism and complaints from him. If that’s the case, it’s important to remember that the brain naturally glosses over anything positive we hear about ourselves and focuses instead on the negative comments we receive (this is a survival mechanism because there’s no threat in positivity!).

But, when we do find ourselves on the receiving end of critical comments, instead of just letting it add to the resentment, we can choose to listen and be open to it, and perhaps even look for the possible truth in it. Some criticism may hurt precisely because it’s true, and we always have the choice to be open to that being ok and deciding to learn from it, without getting stuck in endlessly beating ourselves up about it. 

Instead, put all of your energy towards deciding who you want to be in your relationship and how you want to feel, and then commit to doing your best to show up as that person every single day.

If you’d like to learn more about how it’s possible for you to show up as your most powerful self in your relationship, click below to set up a free coaching consultation.