Reining In Resentment

Bitterness is a Toxic Element in a Relationship and Left Unresolved, It Can Break Up Couples. Here’s How to Defuse Grudges and Grievances Before They Become Unmanageable

You get home after a long day at work, exhausted from driving through two hours of traffic and shopping for what you’ll need to cook dinner. On your way to the front door, lugging heavy parcels, your foot lands in a pile of poo, courtesy of the family poodle. Furious, you barge inside, screaming at your husband: ‘You didn’t clean up the dog poop – again! You only have one responsibility in this house, but even that’s too much for you! Must I do absolutely everything myself!?’

To which he replies: ‘What’s the point of trying to help when you criticise everything I do? You never stop nagging and finding fault with me.’

His calm tone makes you even angrier, and you yell back: ‘If you were willing to pull your weight around here, I wouldn’t have to nag. I’ve been asking you to fix the leaking loo for three weeks and you still haven’t sorted it out!’

Does this slanging match sound familiar? These are typical signs of anger that’s been building up over issues you’ve never resolved, or may never even have expressed – and it’s not about the leaking loo or the dog poo. In fact, it’s not about your partner’s laziness at all. It goes far deeper than that, possibly to experiences from your past that long predate your marriage.

For example, if your partner was unfaithful to you in the past, the hurt you felt at his betrayal may still be festering and now you’re picking on him to keep guilt-tripping him. Perhaps you had a parent who abandoned the family, or a boyfriend who exploited you and then dumped you, and you still haven’t forgiven them. These old resentments can break up marriages and families, unless they’re resolved.

Pretoria-based clinical psychologist and author Thabang Tlaka explains how to identify them, defuse them and then let them go, so that you can move past them.