Why Resentment Slowly Kills Relationships

All right, there is a really great saying about resentment.

I did not coin the saying, but the saying goes, "Expectations are resentments waiting to happen." I once told a client all about this.

He and I have been working together, and he was like, "I'm putting this up on my wall." He said he used to have expectations of partners or girlfriends in the past that all of a sudden they weren't meeting, and then he would get really frustrated, and he would feel really angry about it.

Now, you might be thinking, "Well, isn't that controlling behavior?" Sure, I guess resentment could lean into controlling behavior.

However, it is not the same as abuse or manipulation.

It can be used toward abuse and ma- manipulation in relationships.

I wanna be clear on that.

But resentment has its own beautiful category, because you don't even have to resent your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife or partner or whatever.

You can also resent people, places, things, situations.

Okay? So today is not just about, oh, well, it is about relationship resentment.

I'm just gonna be fucking real.

But it is transferable because you can look at other aspects of your life and maybe be like, "Oh my God, I resent my mother-in-law." I res- I don't resent my mother-in-law, by the way.

Just shout out to her if she is listening.

I do not resent you.

I love you.

Have great...

I have great in-laws, to be honest.

But lots of people feel resentment toward their in-laws or feel resentment toward friends and friendships.

So there is a lot that this resentment can expand off of.

And usually, if you're feeling resentful in your romantic relationship, I guarantee you felt resentful at some point in your life in something else.

But resentment is unspoken needs, unspoken hurt, repeated disappointments, or like the Taylor Swift song that I love from her Lover album, "Death by a Thousand Cuts." Yes, it's just like these little chip away things that happen over and over again.

Now, if you maybe noticed, I said a lot of unspoken.

That is the key here.

Usually, when you are feeling resentful towards somebody, you created some expectation, whether you realize that or not, okay? And we all have certain expectations that we have created in relationships before.

I can absolutely tell you that in conversations with partners in the past, I have been like, "Hey, I expected or I thought that this would happen, or that you would change your behavior." And then I started feeling resentful because I was like, "Oh, you're still acting that way, and I expected you to change, and you're not changing, so now I feel resentful for the fact that you are doing that." Well, like the saying goes, "Expectations are resentments waiting to happen." It's like, there's another good saying here.