Rambles on Resentment and Identity in Relationships
Do you ever just savor a phase of growth you’re experiencing in yourself?
Sometimes I hear a concept I’ve encountered dozens of times and, for no identifiable reason, it just hits different. It clicks, and I notice patterns relevant to the new concept in every aspect of my life. This happens especially often when I’m driving along Oregon’s beautiful highways where the forest envelops me in shades of green.
My childhood armed me with sensitivity as a survival skill.
As a result of necessary hypervigilance, being parentified as a young child, and having the job of emotional processing for others from a young age, something I’ve been working at for as long as I can remember is finding a sense of self that doesn’t rely on or shape-shift for the people around me. I’ve spent the entirety of my teen- and early-adult years searching for and trying to develop my sense of self, or something like that.
I’ve been studying what it means to be at home in myself.
I’m working through a book with my therapist right now that I’ve read a couple dozen times — Welcome Home by Najwa Zebian. It’s this beautiful guided journey through the process of finding home not through where or with whom you belong, but in yourself. It starts out explaining the bricks that must be laid to create the foundations of a home, before construction even begins. They’re something like self-love and self-trust. The book goes on to introduce lots of different rooms in the house, including the Compassion Room, which is the only room other people should be allowed to enter.
I kept asking: what’s the point of creating something nobody else will ever see?
I’ve been grappling with Najwa’s suggestion for years — the Compassion Room sounds great but, until recently, I could not for the life of me understand what the point was of the entire rest of the home she was telling me to create and cultivate (the book even goes into decorating inside your inner home and having a garden) if even romantic partners and siblings weren’t allowed inside.
Resentment and disappointment have become my teachers…
Recently during a romantic disappointment, I found myself thinking I missed the part of myself that comes to the surface when I’m in a bustling coffeeshop feeling calm, confident, and social… Something I slowly stopped doing as it became apparent it was not my partner’s cup of tea. At first, I approached the relationship excited to explore new things and find “our thing” that brought out the best in the both of us and was fun and fulfilling… but the more things we tried, the more things went wrong and eventually we all but gave up on social activities together. I try not to lose myself in relationships, but impulsively putting someone else first is a complicated habit to break.
They say holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for it to hurt the other person…
And after a few months of neglecting myself and pouring all of my energy into the relationship, I began to really understand that saying. My resentment was burning me up inside and my words became venomous. Even though I didn’t like the way resentment was consuming me and pouring out everywhere I went, I didn’t know how to let it go.
My rose-colored glasses were chipped and shattered by a depressing pattern of despondency.
The relationship had become increasingly disappointing, to the point of breaking down the rose-colored glasses I’d worn all my life, and showing me a much colder version of reality. Not just in love, but in my whole life. It brought forth a lot of grief, sadness, anger, and a massive blow to my self-worth.
The root of my anger and sadness was valid: This person and our relationship was entirely different from what our first few weeks seemed to promise.
I grieved for what I had once hoped this relationship would become.
I felt tricked and betrayed, like I had wasted my time being fooled into loving someone. I felt like I put in the effort to learn to care in a language they understood, to bridge the gaps and find our rhythm, while they sat there and watched it all happen.
Side note: don’t take this to mean that the other person was a bad person, or even that they weren’t honest. People change and expectations lead to disappointment, especially when they aren’t rational or clearly communicated. A few things this relationship has taught me (lessons that I’m still processing and deciding what to do with) are that it is possible to weaponize intimacy, that vulnerability can be a manipulation tactic, and that not everyone wants the same types or levels of closeness in relationships. That doesn’t make one person right or wrong. It’s just a compatibility thing, I think.
Anyway, because of what I thought this relationship was and how important it was to me, I put it before myself — not in response to pressure from my partner to change, but because I thought that was how relationships had to be nurtured, I suppose. It felt like the way to show my love and caring and commitment to my partner…
It wasn’t healthy. Ultimately, the way the disappointment and resentment that were eating away at me forced me to open my eyes to the ways I was unhappy and the actions I was taking that contributed to the problems.
In order to stop shooting daggers and words like weapons at my partner, I had to get to the root of my resentment.
After a few weeks of drowning in resentment, I pulled back from the relationship and paid a lot of attention to what I was feeling inside, both emotionally and physically. I started listening to my self-talk, the questions I ruminated on (would he like …, what will he think of …, I wonder what … makes him think of…, are we going to make love tonight?, how can I ask for … without making him feel bad?, etc)…
I became aware of how I was contributing to my own disappointment and frustration.
And after a few days of noticing where my mind was, I decided to flip the script and change up the questions a bit. Whenever I caught myself wondering about his preferences or desires, I’d intentionally re-state the question in my mind, but make it about me. “What do I think of …?” “How do I feel about …?” “How do I want to feel when I ask about …?” “I wonder if I would enjoy…”
It was a constant battle at first, kind of like trying to notice your thoughts without engaging when you first start a meditation practice. But it got easier quickly, too, and it was super effective! Within a couple days, I grew beyond bored with the usual stream of questions I was asking and I was able to see how much of my stream of consciousness had just been unnecessary anxiety all along. I also found myself recognizing that how I felt and thought about things was actually more interesting and rewarding to consider than making assumptions about how anyone else might feel about them.
At the same time, when resentment struck, I started practicing noticing it and tuning in physically. I turned my attention to my body, like the sensation of my feet on the ground while I walked or the feeling of the sun on my skin, to slow my emotional reaction down and prevent myself from spewing my bitterness onto my partner or anyone else.
By tuning into my body, I found that resentment usually appeared at times when I felt unsafe, so my heart was racing, my hands were cold, I had lots of little signals that I wasn’t protected or couldn’t rely on my surroundings, thoughts, or feelings.
I learned that putting on a cozy sweater, wrapping myself in a blanket, going for a run in an outfit that made me feel strong and capable, or listening to a song that reminded me of a time I felt powerful was usually all I needed to start feeling secure again, which cooled my resentment off quickly and prevented it from spreading.
I’m starting to get the hang of recognizing my needs, desires, hopes, and unhealthy expectations (and shifting them to something healthier or putting them to rest entirely).
After a while, when a question about his perspective did cross my mind, it was promptly followed by a realization that I didn’t actually care.
Not because I don’t care, of course I still consider him where it makes sense to. It’s just not him first anymore because I’d rather be investing that mental and emotional energy into my own very whole, full, and interesting life than waste it musing about someone else’s — especially someone who isn’t interested in the depth of emotional connection that comes from even a healthy level of mutual consideration.
I also started noticing the physical signs that I was feeling insecure or unsafe, and I’m getting better at comforting or reassuring myself in physical ways before my emotional response to the sensations gets too intense. It’s kind of like a band-aid solution, but it helps to slow down the cycle and it buys me time for the inner work to catch up and for my habits to change. It also helps me develop my emotional regulation skills, which is always a good thing.
Reflection revealed that I was worried about aging and was holding onto an old idea of a relationship instead of the one I was actually in.
These thoughts led to the numbing disappointment of a realization that I wanted a boyfriend — “a real boyfriend,” I felt guilty for thinking. One who I could kiss joyfully and who would hold my hand at the fair, one who would laugh and sing in the car with me on road trips to nowhere in particular, one who wanted to see the Redwood Forests and The Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and the Northern Lights with me. One who wanted to make love in the forest and who would sit with me beside the sea in the pouring rain without complaint.
I’ll be 28 next month and I know that’s still so young, but it’s also another year gone.
It’s closer to the age where I guess a lot of the population won’t care about me anymore and most of the other girls will be more attractive and perhaps most of the good ones will be taken and the glow and allure of my youth have already started to fade away. Not in ways anyone else can see, I don’t think, but I do see it. I don’t mind so much, but the vanity standards of beauty and societal fear still whisper to my bones sometimes and it gives me more of a shiver than I want to admit.
Shifting my thoughts away from “will he like…” gave me space to look in the mirror instead…
The weight of what I’d learned about the root of my resentment sat in my chest like a boulder: I only have so much time left. … I want a relationship with someone who really gets that, who feels a similar passion for living and who wants the level of intimacy and passion I crave.
I only have so much time left and I’ve been settling. And not settling could mean having to end something, which will hurt and make us both sad, and I hate that.
My 20s are nearly over and it’s an elephant in the room and it hurts to think about what comes next. I know it’s not the end of the world, but I don’t know what’s next and I wish there was someone beside me to take it all on with me.
One of the thoughts that helped me release the massive pile of resentment I’d been carrying behind barred teeth was a playfully-toned mantra: Be the boyfriend you wish to see in the world.
“Be the boyfriend you wish to see in the world.”
In an effort not to disappear and lose myself in relationships like I used to, I’ve made a point these past few years of going out and doing the things I love even if nobody will go with me. I fell back into that old habit of waiting for my partner at the beginning of this relationship, but after a couple months I remembered my promise to live my own life and I started traveling on my own again.
This week, I found myself on yet another solo road trip to go see my favorite musician playing in one of my favorite small towns… and on the drive out, another concept that has been beaten to death struck me in a new light: do it for yourself. This is doing it for myself. This is loving myself. And this is what it looks like to live in that inner house in the rooms where nobody else is allowed to enter.
Being the romantic partner to myself that I wish I had seems to be helping — and it’s actually really fun.
When I take time to myself, I become more myself. I write stories, I practice sketching and playing music, I sing, I call my sister and I write thank you letters. I start and finish writing novels, I read beautiful stories, I listen to fables and fairytale retellings, I take photographs in nature, I learn about plants and animals. I explore beaches and I visit artists in their element. I try new foods, I talk to strangers, I thrive…
And along the way I collect trinkets full of joy that will continue to ripple into the world around me. The memory of an old woman’s smile, a beautiful rock from the falls, puppy fur accessorizing my favorite boots, photos of dew-covered ferns on misty mornings, tales of baristas and bards in the forest…
I am learning that I am a person worth knowing. I am someone who is interesting and who, when I feel safe, offers a radiant, unique and beautiful presence. I’m kind and deeply considerate. I am the kind of person I love to be around…
Except when I spend too much time enveloped in people and spaces that make me feel unsafe and insecure. Then I can be chilling, unsettling, cool, resentful… and the air around me becomes unsettling at best.
Side note: This isn’t a way of blaming external people or circumstances for my own bad moves or behaviors. I believe who we are under stress says a lot about a person, too. But this is an acknowledgement that environment and social safety have a massive impact on my mental wellbeing, especially long-term situations, and my mental health is a key important aspect of how I present in life from one day to the next. My mental health impacts my ability to regulate my emotions, to notice and adjust insecure attachment thoughts and behaviors to be more secure and healthy, to make deliberate and rational decisions, and to notice the tone and direction of my inner dialogue and adjust it intentionally.
In conclusion, I don’t know about romance anymore.
But I’m weary of it anyway, so as much as I love the idea of a partner who to wholly love and be loved by and to share all of my days and nights with… I’m content with being that for myself from now on, regardless of my relationship status.
People seem over-exposed and sharp without my rose-colored glasses and there’s a lot to process there, but it feels amazing to recognize my desires, gut feelings, and experiences of gratitude and disappointment in real-time (rather than in resentful shame-spirals once it has all blown up).
I feel proud of myself when I’m able to consider my comfort and well-being first… Being able to acknowledge my own needs and adjust accordingly before placing an impulsive invitation or accepting a task that will drain me and make me feel taken advantage of feels better than any relationship I’ve ever been in.
Now I realize what it means to be in a relationship with yourself first… And why it’s so worth the effort.
I made a list today of all of the ways I have shown myself epic love.
I made another list today of all the ways I have betrayed my own epic love.
Then I reconciled the two, reflected on the promises I’ve kept and failed to keep with myself, and learned that I actually do trust myself deeply. I agreed to continue learning to be the boyfriend of my dreams because I decided this has been fun, fulfilling, and absolutely delightful.
I’ve learned to hold my own hand and listen to myself with compassion through the resentment, rage, and disappointment. I’ve learned to seek out contrast to those painful feelings and notice where I can water the opposite and grow something beautiful for myself so that the negative isn’t getting all of my attention and energy.
But most of all, I’ve discovered that I am a joy and a delight to be around when I’m happy and healthy… and I am the only one who can fully understand what that means to me or who can create it.
It’s time to stop begging other people to “care enough,” and it’s time to delight in caring for myself in that way instead.
There will be people who care enough and who do go above and beyond tending to bonds with me in all areas of life, but nobody is going to be resented or longed-for into doing it, they’re just going to do it because they want to, because they love to, because it’s natural. They’ll come and go in their own time, and all the while it will be me that I am in control of and responsible for.
It will be me that I lay with at the end of the day and it’ll be me on my death bed and it will be me in the grave. Perhaps there will be a hand to hold, perhaps not, but no matter what, it will be me in there. So, it’s up to me to get to know me, to love me deeply and truly, to be fully present with myself in the precious moments, and to make the choices and lean into what matters most to me.
The relationship I’m dreaming of is an inside job first. No more expecting someone else to match my dreams, no more resenting partners for what I’ve failed to give to myself, no more making going at it alone mean something about how worthy I am.
This body is my home.
This life is my experience.
Nobody will ever live it for me.
It’s up to me.
The End.
P.S. I hope this long-winded pondering on resentment and developing a sense of self helped you. Feel free to write me back in the comments below. — Vera Lee Bird
