Episode 154: How To Stop Feeling Resentment In Your Relationship

You really want to learn how to address things when they are small so that they don't get bigger. And when you speak up, like we just talked about, like, acknowledge and take responsibility for your part in the situation, regardless of how small it feels. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Zander Marin. I'm a sex Therapist with over 20.

Years of experience, and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step by step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. A few weekends ago. We were doing our usual Ask Us Anything Sundays on Instagram. If you're not following us on Instagram, definitely go on over to Vanessa and Xander over there. Yeah. So we put up a question box every Sunday. We tell people, hit us with your best questions. And I noticed that there were a bunch of questions about resentment. So when I look through the responses to those question boxes, I'm always looking for themes. I'm like, okay, let me see. What are people asking about? I want to cover the topics that seem to keep coming up over and over again. So there were a ton of questions about resentment. And I thought, okay, let's start this off. I just want to poll. I'm curious, like, how many people are currently feeling resentment in their relationship?

Because resentment is a big topic. It's a big thing.

Yeah. So I just wanted to start with a little bit of data, put up a little poll. I went back to check it a couple hours later, and I was shocked to Discover that only 29% of our community said that they are not currently experiencing resentment in their relationship.

Wow.

Only 29%.

Damn.

And that's currently, too. That's not even like. Have you ever experienced resentment towards your partner?

I mean, I think most people. Well, again, setting partners aside, I think everyone has experienced the feeling of resentment. I would imagine most people who've been in a relationship for a while or multiple relationships has felt it at some point or another.

So we decided we've got to do a whole episode about resentment because it's a huge topic. Like Xander just said, resentment, it doesn't feel good to feel, and it can have some really, really serious consequences on your relationship. So we decided that today we had to do a deep dive into understanding resentment and most importantly, how to Overcome resentment in your relationship?

Yeah, I think resentment is one of those things that it's not. If it will eat away at your relationship, it will eat away at your relationship. And eventually it will likely end a relationship if kept unchecked. I think that's just the reality of the situation. It's something that we don't always realize because not that many people talk about it, but resentment can feel like a small thing. It can feel like a no big deal thing until it's not. It's one of those things that builds and builds and builds. And we'll talk more about exactly what resentment means, but resentment doesn't fix itself. So we're really excited to do this episode and dive deeper into this and talk to you more about what. What resentment is, what it isn't, and how to fix it. So before we do that, I gotta give you this week's review of the week. Amazing, amazing, amazing. I love this podcast and listen every week. I found Vanessa and Xander on Instagram a couple years ago and I've loved their content ever since. In the last month, I binged all the previous episodes and introduced my partner to it as well. Wow. That's some dedication. We are working our way through Sex Talks and the workbook together and have bought a couple of other courses as well. It has been a game changer for our relationship to learn and grow together.

Wait, wait, I misheard that. I. For some reason I heard like in the last year. But no, in a month you have listened to every episode. That is amazing.

Good for you. Good for you. Hell yeah.

That's dedication. Wow.

We love the representation and hope to see even more content geared towards the LGBTQIA community. I recommend this podcast to anyone looking to grow personally or in their relationship. As I stated in the title, Amazing, amazing, amazing.

Wow. Thank you for this amazing, amazing, amazing review. It makes me feel amazing, amazing, amazing. If you have not heard us talk about reviews before, though, they are so important to the podcast. This is not just us wanting to feel good about ourselves tooting our own horn. Yeah, it truly is the best way to help the podcast grow. Because when Apple and Spotify see that there are more positive reviews on a podcast, they're more likely to feature it. Meaning that more new people are likely to find the podcast and binge it themselves. So it really helps us. If Pillow Talks has ever taught you something, given you a good tip, made you laugh, we would really appreciate you taking 60 seconds to leave a review. So here's how you do it. You go over to the Main pillow talks page on Apple. Scroll to the bottom. You'll see the review section there. All you need to do is type a couple quick sentences into that little box, and we do a review of the week giveaway every single week as our way of saying thank you for leaving a review. So if you hear your review read in an episod episode, email us@infomtherapy.com and we will get you hooked up with a prize. There are prizes for reviews? All right, let's get into the episode, and let's start with talking. What the heck is resentment in the first place?

Yeah, I feel like resentment is one of those things where we don't really have a commonly accepted definition. I bet if we go in and ask 10 people what it means, we'd get 10 very different responses. But it's one of those things, like the. Well, I know it when I feel it or when I hear someone describe something, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's resentment. But, yeah, I mean, honestly, I didn't have a great definition for this myself until I actually Googled, like, what is the definition of resentment? Because I was just like, yeah, I know it when I feel it. I've done a lot of work with resentment in my own life, and, like, yeah, I know it when I feel it. I didn't feel the need to define it when I was working on it, but when we're doing a podcast about it, I was like, shit, I better figure out what the hell it actually means.

So we're saying resentment is a general negative feeling or an emotional reaction to your perception that you are being mistreated or treated unfairly. And we'll get to that perception aspect of it.

Yeah, that is a. That is a key word in there that I think a lot of people don't pick up on, or you wouldn't pick up on that unless we pointed that out to you. It's just a key part of how we view resentment.

So our hot take about resentment is that resentment is actually on you.

So it's like, not somebody else's fault. The person that's treating you unfairly, mistreating you.

So this is the tricky thing. Like, your partner definitely may be acting like a jerk. They may be doing things that are unfair or unkind or whatever it is. But the buildup of resentment itself comes from you not expressing your wants, your needs, or your boundaries. And it's something that builds up over time. So we're not saying that, like, your partner has a blank check to just be a jerk. To you and do whatever they want. But we are saying that the actual experience of resentment, it's different from my feelings are hurt or I'm upset that you did that. Resentment is like this buildup over time where you have not ever expressed to your partner, I don't like that. That's not okay with me. Or you haven't enforced boundaries around it. And so over time, it turns into this stronger feeling.

Yeah. So the part that is on you, it's sort of twofold. There's the, like, not saying something in the moment. Right. So, like, allowing it to get to a point where you don't feel good about something, but you don't say something. So then you start to stew on it, you start to ruminate, and then you continue to not express your needs or share any feelings that are coming up for you. Because nobody feels resentment, like, immediately. It's not like a boom resentment, like, oh, you said something. I resent you. Resentment is something that it stews. I mean, it's almost like it's cooking, and it takes however long it takes to cook the resentment, and then it's ready after a certain amount of time. And so, yeah, it is on you. The fact that you had a feeling that was not resentment. You know, maybe you were angry, you were upset, you were disappointed. You know, you could insert all kinds of different feelings or emotions right there. That's what you felt initially. Then you didn't say something, or you didn't say enough about it, or you. You weren't even aware that you felt that. And then at a certain point, you became aware or you decided not to say anything. And then it just built into and built and built and then, boom, then it's resentment.

Yeah. And I think, you know, typically resentment comes from a series of events or, like a pattern of behavior.

Oh, yeah.

It can result from, like, one singular big event that happened that you're, you know, really holding on to some resentment around. But typically, it does tend to emerge more, like, around a certain pattern of behavior.

Yeah. So when it's a pattern of behavior, then it's totally understandable that maybe it does seem totally cool. The first time something happens, you're not really thinking about it, like, oh, God, this is a big deal, and I better say something because this is going to turn into resentment. It's that over time, you start to become aware of a pattern, and then all of a sudden, you start to kind of view the things that happened in the past through a different lens because you're starting to see, oh, maybe this is a malicious pattern. Or I'm like, putting these pieces together and not feeling good about it. So it's not like we're saying, oh, yeah, all you have to do is just say something in the moment. You might become aware of it later, but then there's still that part that's on you of the, okay, this has built up into something. I've started to see a pattern here, and now I'm not saying something about it. I'm not doing something about it. I'm allowing the resentment to continue.

In the majority of cases, resentment comes up when you haven't expressed yourself or your needs or anything like that to your partner. I do want to say, though, there of course are circumstances where maybe you have told your partner that something bothers you or that you're upset, but they haven't changed their behavior or they haven't acknowledged how you feel, or maybe they.

Kind of brush you off or they try to like the classic, oh, that's not a big deal. Yeah, the kind of gaslighty or just like brushing it under the rug type of behavior.

So in that kind of case, the resentment can develop if you're not enforcing boundaries around that. Like, your partner ultimately gets to decide if they want to be a gaslighting jerk and, like, try to deny your excuse experience. But then it's on you to say, you know, yeah, this behavior isn't acceptable to me, so I'm going to do XYZ or I'm going to even remove myself from this relationship. But ultimately it's, yeah, it's like an. A lack of expression of needs, wants, or boundaries. Other dynamics within you that might contribute to resentment. Building and building include needing to always be right, wanting your partner to read your mind, having unrealistic expectations.

Expectations. Oh, the expectations. That's a big one. I know that's one for me.

People pleasing and ineffective communication.

So if you find yourself relating with any of those dynamics that we just listed, I do want to also give you a couple sort of feelings or signs that you might be feeling resentful. Because I think the reality with resentment is that it's not always something that we are immediately aware of. It's like often we start to feel it once it's gotten really big. And at that point we can kind of trace it back and be like, okay, yeah, I can see how I was starting to feel that a while ago. So we want to give you a list of different things that can be signs that resentment might be starting to brew. So that's like if you find yourself feeling angry, irritated or frustrated, often at a certain person or at them doing a certain activity or a certain situation, maybe you find yourself having a snippier tone.

Oh, yeah, the tone. The tone tells all.

Yeah. Find yourself being passive aggressive.

I mean, that's a classic one, because resentment is all about not expressing how you really feel. Yeah, it's sort of passive aggressive is like, I'm not gonna tell you what's really going on, but I'm gonna just be.

I'm gonna try to show you.

I'm gonna try to show you.

It could be badmouthing your partner. Especially if you find that you're badmouthing your partner behind their back a lot, that's a great sign that there is something going on that you're maybe willing to tell other people about, but you're not willing to. To talk to your partner about.

Some other possible signs that you might be starting to feel resentful are comparing your partner to others behind their back or to their face using blanket or generalized statements.

This is like always or never. Oh, you never do this. You're always doing this purposefully.

Withholding from your partner. That's really a sign that the resentment has crept in.

That could be like affection or sex or all kinds of things.

Yeah. Losing hope in the relationship and losing sexual desire. That's a big one that. I think a lot of people don't make the connection between that. If you're feeling resentful of your partner, it's going to be very difficult to get super excited and hot and horny about having sex with them.

Yeah, I feel like those. The losing hope, losing desire, those maybe are like later stage symptoms of resentment, especially the losing hope. I think it's like, you know, at first we tend to go through more of the. The kind of showing the signs of anger and stuff. And then eventually, you know, you can only feel angry about something for so long. Eventually we start to feel defeated, we start to lose hope. And that's kind of. That's where it's like. That's getting into the territory of. That's a lot harder to come back from. Honestly, that's a great reason to. To really want to try to address these things earlier. Because nobody wants to be in that situation where you're just in a relationship that you feel hopeless about.

Oh, yeah, that's horrible. So next we turned to our community and we asked, what are you feeling resentful of? Like, let's get to the bottom of it. What specific situations are stirring up this Feeling for you. So one of the most common responses was parenting.

I think that you could have guessed that one.

Yeah, this was the most common response, especially amongst women.

And I think this shouldn't really come as much of a surprise because at least I'll speak for this country. In the us, in our society, in our culture, we don't really have a lot of honest, open conversations about how challenging parenting really is and what it really looks like. We have a lot of romanticized views of what it looks like. And often when you're talking to your friends about it, you kind of get a lot of like cherry picked statements from them about like all the great stuff and we don't hear about the challenges. And very often what we hear from couples is there's not a lot of honest discussion in the lead up to having kids about what this is really going to look like, how challenging it's really going to be, how there's inherently going to be some imbalances and stuff. So if we're not talking about it as a culture, as a society, if we're not talking about it as a couple before it even happens, then of course it's going to be really hard to talk about it in the moment, to express what's going on in the moment, because you weren't even expecting to feel these things, right? So this one is like no surprise at all. And it's just like one more reason why it would be so nice if we could as a society start to talk more honestly about this stuff up front.

So a huge response within this category was just feeling more responsible for the kids overall or feeling like you're the default parent. But we also had women write in and say things like staying up with the baby while he sleeps, my partner getting to leave the house or travel for work while I stay at home with the kids. That was a huge dynamic in and of itself, like working at outside of the home versus working inside of the home. We don't like to say stay at home because that makes it sound like a little the staycation when it's a huge, huge job staying at home.

Or it could just simply be that one person is working outside of the house and one person is taking care of kids and also working a job inside of the house. Another common sort of subtopic of parenting that creates a lot of resentment is just experiencing having differing amounts of alone time. So one person wrote in my resentment grew around things that I felt he was allowed to do. And I wasn't like spending time relaxing saying no or prioritizing himself.

Oh, that's such a tough one.

Yeah. So I mean, that one, you're, that you're kind of set up for failure there if you're feeling like, oh yeah, they're allowed to take some time for themselves, but I'm not like that, you know, and then you feel like, well, I can't say anything about that. So of course that situation happens. You feel jealous, you feel upset, you feel sad. Why can't I have that? But I can't say anything. So boom, like guaranteed resentment is gonna form in that situation.

You know, one thing that we haven't addressed yet is that a lot of resentment can form around different societal expectations and messages that we get, especially amongst the genders.

Oh yeah, that's what I was saying before expectations and just misaligned expectations are such a massive cause. Like you might even be able to argue, you might even be able to argue the expectations angle of almost any resentment situation.

Well, I mean, like, specifically with parenting, women get so many messages about how we're supposed to be like completely self sacrificing, complete caregivers and caretakers. Like, moms are made to feel so guilty for taking even the tiniest ounce of alone time for themselves or prioritizing themselves over their kids even for like a minute. Whereas dads, I think are given a lot more leeway of like, oh yeah, no, it's okay, you need to take care of yourself. And even dads are given a lot more praise for doing very basic parenting things. Like, you know, if you see a dad out with a baby, there's like, oh, you're such a good dad. Whereas a mom out with a baby, no one would ever tell her, like, you're doing such a great job, like, you're such a good mom.

Yeah. And then on the flip side, it's like, if you see a bunch of fathers out, like hanging out together without kids, nobody is asking, hey, why aren't you at home with the kids?

Uh huh.

But you see a bunch of moms hanging out and there's definitely that vibe of like, oh, like should, should we be at home? Like, oh, like who's taking care of your kids? Like, nobody is asking the men who's taking care of your kids right now?

So resentment can develop like, purely because of those messages, that socialization, those expectations. Like, and even if you and your partner are on the same page about like, yeah, no, we don't want to have that kind of relationship. We don't. You know, we do want to be a team and Sharing things and whatever, like social media. Still, you can feel resentful of your partner for nothing that they did whatsoever. But more about, like, it is so unfair. And you will never understand what it's like to be in my shoes. Like, I feel that sometimes, just purely as a woman, I'm like, you will never understand the shit that I have to deal with simply because I'm a woman. Simply because I was born with some slightly different body parts than you. And, like, you didn't do anything. Yeah, you didn't do anything to me. You haven't done anything wrong. But there is for sure a resentment within me of, like, must be nice to be you.

Yeah. And we'll, we'll talk about this more in the, in how to overcome resentment. Because I know that. I'm sure that when you hear Vanessa describe that, it might sound a little hopeless, like, well, God, like, what the hell? What the hell are we supposed to do? Like, I can't just change societal norms. I can't change the way that we were conditioned. So we. What are we going to do? It's hopeless, but it's actually not hopeless. But we'll talk about what to do. Stay tuned.

Okay. Going back to the parenting category that we're still in. Pregnancy and postpartum were also a very popular subtopic within parenting.

Another thing where we don't really acknowledge or accept how challenging this really is upfront and how just inherently imbalanced it is.

Yeah. Here are responses from a couple of different women. One woman wrote, you'll never have to experience how hard being pregnant is mentally and physically. I relate to that so much. That was actually a fear that came up for me a lot. In thinking about us deciding whether or not we were gonna have kids, I knew like 100%. I will be resentful of you, like any little. If I get morning sickness, if I have some sort of ache and pain, any symptom that I have, I knew resentment would come up for me. And that wasn't a, a deciding factor in, you know, deciding not to have kids. We do have episode 37 of the podcast if you're interested in our decision to be child free. But it was just something that I knew would come up for me. And I was.

You had, you had pre resentment.

I had pre resentment.

You were, you were pre resentful for sure.

Another woman wrote, not having to deal with post birth body changes and breastfeeding and postpartum blues. And another woman wrote, being a mom of an infant is just more difficult than being the Dad, I mean, there are, you know, physical realities. Like breastfeeding is the perfect example. Like, you're never going to be able to breastfeed. So, yeah, those are very understandable sources of resentment. Moving on from parenting, another huge category was an imbalance of household chores and responsibilities and mental load. We will loop back to this topic because it is obviously a huge one. But if you have never heard us talk about mental load before, we do have a podcast episode about that as well. I believe that's, that's episode four, one of the early OG episodes. So definitely check that one out. Of course, another huge category was sex. Here are a couple of different responses that people sent in. Years of rejecting my initiation attempts. Not being willing to compromise on our different sex drives.

Not pursuing me anymore like he used to. Withholding sex when I haven't done a task that he's asked me to do yet. Lack of daily affection or intimacy. But my partner expects sex at the end of the day. I can see where all of these could generate some resentment over time, for sure.

And wrapping it up, we had big life decisions. One person said, I've compromised on my goals to help my partner with theirs and the lack of effort put into the relationship. So another person sent in, I will seek out help, read books, follow counselors and sex therapists. But he just wants me to tell him what to do. He doesn't put in any effort to help the relationship himself. We hear that so much, so much. And I bet a ton of people listening to this can relate to that feeling as well. Like, you may be the, you know, you're listening to this podcast. You may be the person in your relationship who's taking more of an active effort to seek out tools and resources and learn more.

Yeah, you're, you're. You're the relationship keeper or the relationship holder. And yeah, I think that's. It is an unfortunate reality of relationships that just like, you know, sex drive or whatever, like no one, no two people in a relationship are ever going to be on the exact same page, the exact same level of something at the same time. And so, you know, there almost always will be someone that is more. Invested isn't the right word, but like taking more of the mental load for keeping up the relationship. That's not saying that it's okay for one person to just be like, oh, just tell me what to do. But there is, you know, there is the reality that there may always be some amount of imbalance there. It's just a matter of, are we able to get To a balance where we can accept that this feels okay or that, you know, the person that maybe carries a little less of that is like, okay, I'm not seeking this stuff out, but when you have a suggestion for me, I'm a hell yeah. Like, let's try this out.

Okay. Let's talk next about the impacts of resentment. So first and foremost, resentment does not feel good to feel.

Right?

Like, nobody enjoys feeling resentment, so it just doesn't feel good in and of itself. But it also can lead to a lot of negative impacts within your romantic relationship. More stress, more. More fighting. I think it can contribute to a lack of trust. It can feel like you are not in a true partnership with your partner. Like, at times, it can even feel like you're opponents rather than teammates. It can certainly lead to a lower sex drive. We discussed that a moment ago. It can also lead to feeling defeated or hopeless about the relationship, and it can eventually cause breakups. Resentment is absolutely at the heart of so many breakups. So resentment is something that we really need to get a handle on because the impacts of it, the consequences of it can be severe. So let's get into the most important.

Part of the episode, the million dollar question. I mean, you don't want any of those things that you just said, any of those impacts. Right? So, like, what the hell do we actually do instead?

How do we do to get over resentment in a relationship?

How do we do.

How. What do we do? How do we do? How you do.

How do we do it?

Howdy doody.

Howdy doody.

Okay. How to get over resentment in a relationship. Why don't you talk about step one? Because this is maybe the controversial one.

Yeah, well, I mean, we kind of seeded this earlier in saying that we actually think resentment is on you. Other person might have done something really shitty, really unfair. Yeah.

Not excusing their behavior.

We're not excusing anything. But the actual. The feeling of resentment, the fact that it has gotten to the point of resentment, that part is on you. So the first step is actually to really try to consider, be thoughtful, to figure out what is your part in this resentment. Whether that's just like a small way that you contributed to a bad situation, or it could even be just that, you know, all it is is that you not saying something and allowing those feelings to grow, like, once you become. Once you became aware of them. I think the problem with resentment is that once we are become aware of it, it is such a big feeling. It's really easy to forget that we may have played some part in that. That maybe whether it's a pattern of behavior, whether it is one really crappy situation that happened, you may have had some very small role in that. But it's really hard to see that once you feel all that resentment. And it's really hard to even see your role in allowing it to get to where it got. Cause you're like, well, God, it feels so big. Like this person did this to me, this situation created this. Like I can't have anything to do with it.

So I think one good question to ask yourself could be what made this turn into resentment? Rather than upset or hurt feelings or disappointment or whatever it is. Like resentment is a different kind of experience. It's not just a, like, hey, you did something that I didn't love or that hurt me. It's like it has turned into resentment within me. So trying to get clear for yourself of what is that distinction within me.

And I think another thought that I'll throw out there when it comes to considering your part. Cause I know this can be so hard. I know a lot of people hearing this might be feeling like this is just a non starter for me. The way that I like to think about considering like my part in something. Even if it feels really unfair, even if it feels like, God, it can't. Like my part is so small or non existent or negligible that like it can't really have played any role in it. I try to think of it from the pers. I like to think of it. It's a reframe for me to go like, you know, this is about keeping my side of the street clean. So let's say you live on one side of the street, your neighbor lives on the other side of the street. And they are really, really messy. There's like trash all out, you know, trash in their front yard, it's overflowing onto the sidewalk. They, you know, they, they never like pull the weeds. It's a total mess. And that's. They get to do what they're going to do, right? Like their place is what it is. You could do two things. You could be like, well, God, like their place is such a mess. Like it almost doesn't even matter what I do with my side of the street. Like it's always gonna be cleaner than their side. So like, no one's gonna like fault me for having a little bit of, I don't know, a little bit of messiness on my side of the street, right? Or you could be like, you know what this is my house. To me, it feels important to keep my stuff clean so I can feel proud of it. I can feel in integrity with the way that I want to live my life. So I try to kind of separate from what's happening with the other person. Even if it's something really horrible. It's like, you know what? This is my opportunity to keep my side of the street clean. This is my opportunity to just. To be a good person, to be a thoughtful, reflective person and just take responsibility for what I can take responsibility for. I know that might feel hard right now, but, like, in six months or in a year, believe me, it's gonna feel so much better knowing that, you know, you took care of what you could take care of, and you let the other. The chips fall where they may be beyond you. But, like, I took care of me. I did the right thing. I get to sleep, you know, I get to rest easy every night, like a year from now, knowing that I did that.

To overcome resentment, you also need to learn how to talk openly and honestly about your feelings as soon as they come up, up again. Like, the pattern behind resentment is letting things fester and they just sit inside of you and they get stronger until finally it's boiled over into resentment. So the anecdote to that. Antidote. Antidote.

Wow. The anecdote. I. You know what? God, I wish. I wish we just had a simple anecdote. I mean, I gave cake.

I caught myself.

I like. I like my, you know, keeping my side of the street clean anecdote. That is nice. But no, we don't have a truly simple anecdote.

You really want to learn how to address things when they are small so that they don't get bigger. And when you speak up like we just talked about, like, acknowledge and take responsibility for your part in the situation, regardless of how small it feels. And this can work wonders in having those conversations with your partner. Like, of course, if you come in hot with your partner and you're like, you did this and you did that, and I'm just telling you this now so I don't turn into resentment later, like, obviously, that's not going to go over very well.

It's also going to sound like, well, it sounds like it's already resentment.

But if you can come in and say, you know, I want to talk to you about this situation. Look, I want to acknowledge my part in this. This is something that I contributed to, or, you know, a way that I didn't set us up for success, like, that instantly softens things up for your partner, and that makes them more willing to listen and makes the two of you feel more like teammates, like talking through things together.

And I think you just, you just modeled like the final point in that, which is, you know, we said it's really important to consider your part in the resentment, and it's equally important when you start talking about it to make sure you acknowledge your part in things, acknowledge your responsibility. Ideally, at the very beginning of the conversation. That is going to be the best way to soften things, to make it feel like, hey, like, I'm, I'm taking responsibility for some stuff and I have some feelings about this. You know, it helps your partner see, like, oh, okay, this is a, this is a two way street. This isn't just like, I'm not just like, they're not just shitting on me, you know. Yeah, that, that helps emotionally. Emotionally. Yeah, emotionally. I guess it's worth clarifying that on this podcast of all podcasts. So, yeah, I. But yes, that is, that is really the key to opening these conversations successfully and with grace. So like Vanessa said, you do have to speak up. And here's the thing. Even if you really feel like saying something isn't going to do anything, I think that's so common. There's that voice in our head that's like, well, like, what, what would I even say anyway? Or like, how can, how can what I have to say about this make any impact? Especially if this is like a societal thing or something? Like, how the hell am I going to change, like, the way that everybody talks about this? Or how am I going to change, like, my whole lifetime of being socialized in a certain way. But here's the thing. Speaking up, saying what you're feeling, you're not doing that to actually fix a problem. I think that's where a lot of people get tripped up here. They're thinking, oh, I need to, like, we need to solve whatever the problem is. Maybe you can solve the problem, maybe you can't. But the reality is that talking about it, it's about voicing your feelings. It's about being able to get it out of your head and get it into, you know, into reality where somebody else is going to hear it. Because that's like the big thing with feelings is that they feel so much bigger when they only exist inside of us. We have to be able to get them out into the world. That's how we process them. That's how ultimately, like, we actually get to feel closer to our partner or whatever is knowing that, oh, I can share these things and then they can start to dissipate and we can trust each other. So it's not actually about solving the problem. Yeah, like you're not gonna solve 20, 30, 40 years of your own social conditioning. You're not gonna solve like the way society talks about something, but you are gonna be able to express how you feel about it and you're gonna give yourself a chance to start processing those feelings.

Okay, some more tips. Don't use absolute statements. This is kind of communication 101 stuff that we go over. But things like you never or you always, they're just one way ticket to the two of you getting into an argument that's purely logistical and that is not going to address any actual emotional undertones of it. You're not going to actually resolve the issue. You also need to learn how to make specific requests of your partner. So a lot of times we develop resentment when we have expectations that we haven't voiced to our partner. So a lot of times I think people are operating in relationships as though there's this contract, but the other partner doesn't even know what the contract is.

Yeah, I mean, in legal terms that is not a legally enforceable contract where one side has signed a contract and the other side hasn't signed it, hasn't even seen it. Or like say you, you have a contract and then one party changes the contract, the other party never sees it. Like, there's no way that's going to hold up in a court of law. Like that doesn't work in relationships either. And we, that happens so often. I love talking to couples about this idea of the contracts thing because it's, I think it's a really easy one to understand of like, yeah, you can't have a contract with someone where they've never seen it. Right. So like, why are you doing that in your relationship? Why are you doing that with your expectations?

So it's a good question to ask yourself. You know, if you're feeling resentful of something, ask yourself, have I expressed a specific need to my partner? Have I made a specific request to my partner? And if you haven't, definitely make sure you loop back and start to do that. Another tip if resentment has already started to develop within you, is to remind yourself of the positive things about your partner. And I think this tip really applies more for those situations where it's like little tinges of resentment or it's about those everyday things. Like we're not saying, you know, if your partner has cheated on you or your partner refuses to do any household chores. Like, this is not a situation to be like, let me just remind myself of the positives. You know, we're not saying like have a toxic positivity here, but in a situation where it's like, you know, maybe Xander hasn't taken out the trash and the bags are loaded up in the garage and I'm starting to feel a little like resentful of, oh my God, these freaking bags are really loading up. Like in those kinds of smaller situations, reminding yourself of like, hey, my partner does contribute in a lot of other ways. They are genuinely a great teammate. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Like, hey, we've had a really wild week. Like, I understand why the trash is, you know, has slipped to the bottom of the to do list, but really trying to like balance out the feelings for yourself. Another tip is to take better care of yourself. I mean, I think this comes up a lot with the parenting examples. You know, it's so easy to feel resentful of your partner if you are not taking care of yourself if you're not doing anything for yourself. And I, like, I sometimes hate when people talk about self care because it often gets framed. Like it's so easy. Like just more self care, girl.

Yeah, just do it.

Yeah. And it's like most of us are feeling self so overwhelmed and busy and stressed and just generally terrible that like even the idea of taking five minutes to walk around the block or read a book like that can feel like a herculean task sometimes. And also of course like we're not saying the solution to every situation is just take a bath. You know, sometimes there are deeper conversations that need to be had and bigger issues to resolve. And all that being said at the same time, like you taking care of yourself still is really important. And if you are making more space for that and making more effort for that, like it's going to help in every aspect of your life.

And one little reframe that you can try is like, if this is a situation where your partner is engaging in some amount of self care activities that you're not and you're like jealous, resentful, whatever of them for that is, you can ask yourself, like, okay, what is my, like what do I want out of this situation? Do I genuinely want to ask my partner to not do those things? Like, is, is that what this is or is this something else? Because I think most people would if you put it that way. Like, okay, well do I actually want to ask them or tell Them, they need to stop doing these things that I know are good for them that they want to do for their own mental health. Most people will be like, well, yeah, that's not really what I want. That can help you be like, okay, well that's probably a good sign that it might be really hard for me, but I need to do a better job of doing this for myself too.

Another strategy for overcoming resentment is making a plan for the mental load. We are so passionate about this because it comes up in pretty much every freaking relationship. So if you need help with the mental load, we have our mental load workbook that we will link in the show notes. It has detailed and organized tasks list to go through together to give you clarity on exactly who is doing what and what needs to be done and how it needs to be done and ultimately for creating a plan for sharing the mental load in a way that feels fair and balanced for your unique relationship. Truly, like every relationship needs a plan for the mental load because if you do not have one, it is going to lead to resistance, resentment at some point. So this is a non negotiable for couples. The next thing I want to mention is another potentially controversial one, but it's based on some very interesting research that was done by the Gottman, some of the like foremost relationship researchers in the country. And they found that 67% of conflicts in relationships are unresolvable. So 2/3 of the conflicts you have with your partner are things that are never going to be fully resolved. And a lot of times we drive ourselves nuts trying to fix these things that really frustrate and annoy us when the reality is that we're just never going to be able to fully fix them. So like one example that comes up for us is timeliness. Like we both operate with different relationships with time and we have pretty frequent spats and arguments and tension around like being late, one of us being later than the other. Xander we have different and we have.

Different perceptions of the different ways that we each care about timeliness because, I mean, yeah, we, we could really get into that. Vanessa feels like I have a different relationship with time. And I actually, I do feel like she has a different relationship with time than she is always aware of.

Yeah, it's a thing for us. And you know, we've spent a lot of time feeling like we were banging our heads against the wall, like trying to fix this issue and like get on the same page about it and never fight about time ever again. And we came to a point where we had to Recognize, like, this is just always gonna be an issue in our relationship. And we have to accept that. And that doesn't mean that we're not allowed to get irritated with each other. Like, we still, of course, have those frustrations and moments of tension, but it's just this recognition of this is part of the price of admission of being in a relationship with each other. And for us, the positives of this relationship vastly outweigh the negatives. But there's a price of admission in any relationship. And so I think trying to look at your conflicts and think about, are there, like, which of these not are there? Because there are at least two thirds of them are which aspects of our conflict are just going to be unresolvable? And might we approach it in a different way, knowing, hey, this is just part of the price of admission?

Yeah, it's more of like, can I aim for acceptance rather than solution? And that gets back to what I was saying earlier about, you know, sharing what's coming up for you. It's not always about solving the problem. Often most of the time is not about solving the problem. It's just about being able to share what's coming up for you so that you can start to process those feelings. And it can be really hard to share and start to process those feelings. If you're feeling this pressure or you're putting pressure on yourself of like, well, we have to solve this problem. If you can instead be like, okay, can I see myself getting to a point where I. Where I. Or we can just accept that this is an unresolvable thing. We're always gonna have a difference of opinion here, but we can still share, like, what comes up for us when we bump into that difference of opinion, what the impact is. That's what Vanessa and I do about timeliness. Like, we, you know, just because we have accepted that we are each. We're kind of going to agree to disagree forever on this issue. That doesn't mean that we don't ever get to share with each other, like, hey, I feel a certain type of way that it feels like you're going slow here or you're not valuing us getting here on time or whatever. So we each very much share those things with each other. And it's a lot easier to share and hear those things when we know that it's just about all. You know, when Vanessa shares with me, all it is for me, it's about hearing her out and validating her feelings. It's not like, it's not about, okay, Now I have to solve this problem.

Yeah. And that leads us straight into our last tip, which is to ask for validation. This is something that so many people are hesitant to do. Like, we all want validation from our partner. But if you're in a situation where you've built up resentment, like odds are, you have not gotten any validation. And a lot of people feel hesitant to ask for it. But sometimes that really is what it comes down to. And it's okay to ask for it. It doesn't make it mean any less to ask for it. But ultimately, resentment comes down to you feeling unheard and unseen. And so a lot of that is you being willing to speak up more for yourself, to share your needs, boundaries, desires, all that stuff, and to really make sure that you feel heard and seen by your partner. So even if this is something that, let's say you've had a resentment for a long time that you've never really talked to your partner about, or maybe it is something that you have talked about, but you've never felt validated or fully seen in it. So asking your partner something like, hey, I wanna share with you my experience of this, it would mean a lot to me to just hear you validate it. To hear you say that makes sense. I see how you can feel that way. It doesn't mean your partner has to agree. They very well have their own perception of what happened in that event, and they may not agree. But validation is different from agreement. Validation is just like, I see that, I understand that, and I validate it.

I think it's so important to be able to ask for what you want, especially when it comes to validation. Because, look, we're talking to you about resentment right now. We're walking you through this sort of process that we have for breaking down resentment. And it's probably something that you haven't really heard before. You might have been thinking, well, you know, oh, well, like, it's all about solving the problem, not about acknowledging my part and just sharing what's coming up for me. So it wouldn't be a big surprise if your partner has some of those misunderstandings about resentment too, such that when you start sharing what's going on for you, they are probably going to be jumping into, oh, my God, this per. Like, my partner is dumping all these big things on me, and I don't know how I'm going to be able to solve this problem. This feels really hopeless. And so they might respond in a way where you actually feel, you know, further away from a resolution than closer. So do your partner a favor and just. Just tell them what you're looking for. Hey, I want to share some stuff with you. I'm not looking for you to solve this problem. I'm not sure that there is a solution to this problem. I'm just looking to share what has been coming up for me, and I would love just for you to hear that and to provide some validation if that's possible. And that way, you're focusing your partner on, you know, on receiving it in the right way and setting them up for success rather than them feeling like, oh, my God, I have to fix this impossible problem. I can't do it.

All right, well, that is the end of our tips about resentment. If you want more resources to help out your relationship, we definitely encourage you to come on over and check out our website@vmtherapy.com we'll put the link in the show notes as well. On top of that mental load workbook that we mentioned, we also have tons of guides about developing stronger connection, improving your sex life, even a whole course for parents to help you reprioritize your relationship. All you have to do is head over to vmtherapy.com and start exploring.

All right, well, that's all for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we do a very special in laws edition of Am I the asshole?

Should I sing you a little distraction song? A little distraction? Oh, I can record the rest of this.