How to Address Resentment in Marriage

Your spouse is the person with whom you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life. He or she can sometimes become the person who causes you the deepest pain, which can lead to resentment in marriage. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “To love at all is to be vulnerable.”

You can’t truly love someone without being open to them, sharing yourself with them, and possibly being hurt by them. This is the risk we all take in forming relationships with other people, and while it’s a risk worth taking to experience love, it can be an expensive risk.

How resentment in marriage happens

Of course, your spouse isn’t supposed to hurt you, but all too often that’s precisely what happens. When a loved one hurts you, what often compounds that hurt is the sense of betrayal – surely they, of all people, ought to know that this would hurt.

A stranger can hurt you, but you don’t expect them to look out for you; you do expect those who love you to show some consideration. When you’re hurt, the anger and ill feeling that flows from that can cause resentment.

Resentment is a complex emotion that combines anger, disgust, fear, and disappointment. It can set in if a person repeatedly doesn’t respect your boundaries, take advantage of you, or they show preferential treatment to someone else, or they disappoint your expectations.

This can happen in marriage if one spouse doesn’t do their chores routinely and expects their spouse to pick up the slack. It happens if the words “Thank you” are absent in a marriage, and one feels taken for granted. Resentment can develop if one spouse makes fun of the other in the company, or if one spouse has an affair or withholds affection.

When these and other issues develop, if they are not resolved, resentment sprouts in the marriage. Over time, it can be corrosive to the relationship.

Addressing resentment in marriage

Resentment in marriage can be addressed in several ways, including the following:

Express yourself.

Instead of keeping your anger bottled up, articulate it. Perhaps your spouse is exasperating you unknowingly. We might hope for our spouses to know us through and through, but they are not mind-readers.

Shift your expectations.

Resentment is often caused by unmet expectations. These may be reasonable, they may be assumed, and they can be unmet in various degrees. Sometimes, shifting your expectations is enough to undermine the growth of the bitter root of resentment.

Or sometimes what’s needed is to give your spouse room to meet those expectations in their way, rather than in a way that’s comfortable for you. In other cases, you need to ask yourself if your expectations are reasonable, or if they’ve even been expressed.

Extend forgiveness.

Many things pass between married couples. One way to address these is to extend forgiveness and release your ill-feeling toward your spouse. This forgiveness doesn’t mean relinquishing consequences for his or her actions, but it frees your heart from the burden of anger. Just as you need to be forgiven, consider forgiving your spouse (Ephesians 4:32). Forgiveness is a powerful tool within a marriage.

Choose gratitude.

Sometimes, instead of focusing on all the things that are going wrong, or things your spouse has messed up, it helps to focus on the things you’re grateful for and that you appreciate. Resentment draws its power from dwelling on everything that isn’t going right, but it can be neutralized by being mindful of the things you appreciate and for which you can give thanks.

Christian marriage counseling

Resentment can destroy a marriage, often doing so quietly but no less effectively. One way to deal with resentment is to go for professional marriage counseling in Grapevine, Texas. With the help of Christian counseling in Texas, you can get to the heart of your resentment toward your spouse in a safe and non-judgmental space.

Your counselor at Grapevine Christian Counseling in Texas can help you unpack the dynamic in your relationship that may be generating resentment. They can help you with tools for conflict resolution and problem-solving so that resentment doesn’t take root in your marriage. Reach out to us today at Grapevine Christian Counseling in Texas to make an appointment to begin chipping away at resentment in marriage.