Resolving Resentment in Relationships

Audiobooks are my jam - especially when I want to read a book for learning purposes. I love that I can listen while doing something else like driving, cooking or cleaning. This week I’ve been listening to Brené Brown’s newest book, Atlas of the Heart. In it she talks about all the different types of emotions we can experience as human beings. 

One that shows up in so many of the couples I’m working with is resentment, and as I listened, Brené describes resentment as coming from the envy family of emotions. I’ve never actually thought about resentment in terms of envy, but it makes so much sense! 

Resentment in relationships happens when events take place and a partner’s needs aren’t met in some way. You may try to communicate how something made you feel, but it may not have been conveyed in a way they could hear, or it may not have been expressed at all. 

That time your partner didn’t stand up for you when their parents were critical of your parenting, or the many times they didn’t communicate where they were going and who they were with, even though you asked repeatedly for them to do so as a courtesy. 

It could have been something big, or something small that continues to happen and the longer you harbor it, you run the risk of a blow-up later. 

When we think about those examples from a lens of envy, it can be more apparent as to why it’s easy to harbor anger and resentment. Let’s dig a little deeper into those examples: 

Not having your partner stand up for you when you needed them to may be more about the envy that comes up for you as you watch their parents needs be met over your own. 

Frustration over your partner not communicating where they are going and who they are with may be about the envy of them getting their time alone to blow off steam with friends while you’re home with the kids. 

When resentment goes unchecked, you also risk falling into the cycle of negative-sentiment override, which is a concept we use in Gottman therapy in which you begin attributing negativity and negative sentiment to the things your partner expresses to you. Things that may have a neutral or positive connotation begin to be seen as negative. 

For example, your partner may express something like, “I love how your mom did our daughter’s hair, she looks so cute!” And you meet this with, “I know, I never do her hair anymore,” and internalize feelings of inadequacy or interpret the comment as a dig at you rather than a compliment to your mom. 

Responding to your partner with criticism or contempt is a sign that there have been unresolved hurts that have caused resentments. 

Expressing your needs and communicating using “I-statements” can help counteract this pattern. 

Having open dialogue about issues also goes a long way, especially when you are communicating to truly listen to your partner. The best time to have conversations like this is when you’re not in the heat of the moment. Ask your partner to listen while you express calmly how their behavior makes you feel. 

Example: “When we had that conversation with your parents I felt attacked by them. I also felt so hurt and alone when you didn’t stand up for me. I really need you to say something to defend me the next time they are being critical. 

If you’re the listener in the conversation, use active listening to respond to your partner’s feelings and offer an apology. 

Example: “I could see how you’d feel hurt by their criticism. I’m really sorry for not sticking up for you. It was not my intention to make you feel alone, I will offer my opinion if that ever happens again with my parents.” 

Learning how to communicate in this way takes practice, and you might not always get it right, but the more you do it the easier it becomes. 

Bids for Connection: How to make and reciprocate them

How well do you notice when your partner is reaching out to connect with you? 

That process of reaching out to connect is called a bid for connection. 

As human beings we are wired for connection, and in our romantic relationships we want to connect with our partner. I know you’re probably thinking, “duh, Alicia, of course!” 

Even though this concept is incredibly simple, it’s amazing how many couples miss the importance of this, and end up feeling lonely in their relationships. 

As simple as bids for connection are to make, they are just as simple to miss because they happen quickly. (Kind of like when you go to the grocery store and the automatic doors open, and you have a few seconds to get in, or the doors close.)

An example of a bid for connection could be: you and your partner are sitting on the couch, and your partner looks out the window, and says, “wow, there are a lot of birds out there.” 

This is not a relationship altering revelation, it’s just a simple observation but one that your partner sees as a way to connect. 

At that moment you can turn towards your partner by saying something like, “oh, yeah.”  Or you can turn away from your partner which would be something like continuing to scroll on your phone, or keep your gaze focused on the game you’re watching on TV. 

(You don’t even have to physically turn towards your partner, that’s just the language that we use to describe reciprocating bids for connection.)

According to John Gottman, in order to maintain a healthy relationship there needs to be a 5 to 1 ratio when it comes to reciprocating bids for connection; so for every time you turn away from your partner and don’t reciprocate a bid for connection, there needs to be five times that you do. 

Reciprocating your partner’s bids for connection is extremely important because when a person feels like their partner isn’t reciprocating their bids they tend to make meaning of this, and they begin to tell themselves things like, “I guess what I have to say isn’t interesting to my partner,” or, “I am not interesting to my partner.”

After continued missed bids for connection, the person who feels like they aren’t important or interesting stops making bids altogether, and one or both partners begin to feel lonely. 

Loneliness in a marriage is a difficult feeling, and since I work with so many couples recovering from infidelity, it makes me worry because that loneliness can be a slippery slope that allows a person to give themself permission to begin opening up to someone else. 

So, look up.

Acknowledge your partner when they are reaching out to connect to you.

Even if it’s just to point out the flock of birds outside the window. Those little connections are important even if the subject matter really isn’t. 

If you’re finding it difficult to reciprocate your partner’s bids for connection, or you're feeling disconnected because your partner isn’t turning towards you, therapy can help. We help our couples create the safety they need in their relationships to make and reciprocate those bids for connection. Click the link below to book your free 15-minute phone consultation or call us today at (909) 600-0306 and get your relationship back on track.

How Trauma Impacts Marriage

“If it’s hysterical, then it’s historical.” Have you ever heard this saying? Maybe it's just psychology geeks like me who gravitate towards these types of sayings. This is one that has really stuck with me from grad school through the years in my practice. You might be wondering what the heck that even means - well, when someone has a really big reaction to something that doesn’t necessarily warrant that type of reaction it’s usually related to something from the person’s past. Many times it's an indication of something that has also been unresolved. 

As a couples therapist I hear fights about so many different things - things that might seem pretty benign on paper: You didn’t do the dishes! You never text me back quickly enough! You didn’t tell me you were stopping at the store on your way home! 

If you can imagine grown adults having what looks like a tantrum in my office for these above examples, it might seem so ridiculous to you. However, the reason that these things cause such big reactions for people has less to do with the subject matter, and more to do with old wounds and historical traumatic experiences. 

Going to war isn’t the only thing that causes a trauma response although it is one of the quintessential experiences that people tend to imagine and sometimes the only thing people imagine can cause PTSD - but that assumption is outdated and incorrect.

Trauma can be defined as “a deeply distressing or disturbing event,” and emotional trauma is experienced when there is a violation of a person’s familiar ideas about the world and about their human rights. 

Trauma can be difficult to define because it’s really about the way the event is experienced. In Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry’s book, What Happened to you? They discuss an excellent example of a fire in an elementary school.

For the firefighter on the scene, this was business as usual, and the incident felt controllable and even predictable. For the first grader in that classroom this event caused him to experience minutes of terror, intense fear, confusion, and helplessness. Both are very different experiences, and this is considered a trauma for the child due to his response.  

A recent study by the National Survey of Children’s Health found that almost 50 percent of children in the US have had at least one significant traumatic experience. And the CDC recently reported that 60 percent of American adults report having had at least one adverse childhood experience, or ACE. (You can find out more about the ACEs here)

Events like an infidelity or sudden threat of divorce in relationships can be very emotionally traumatic and people describe experiencing them in terms like, “my world shattered,” or “I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me.” In these examples the relationship that the person believed was stable and secure is turned upside down and unrecognizable.

That sense of security being ripped out and the sense of reality being shattered causes emotional trauma. There are developmental traumas (that happen during childhood), and emotional traumas that can happen at any age. Either type of trauma can impact the relationships closest to us, including our marital relationship. 

When there is an unresolved trauma that comes from childhood, it can rear its ugly head right in the middle of an argument with a partner and cause havoc. That response that’s so big, and seemingly unnecessary, can then touch on your partner’s unresolved trauma causing a tidal wave of emotions to come spewing back. This is typically the reason couples have such difficulty hearing one another and reaching resolutions. 

The conflict often becomes so big that both partners eventually retreat and only come back together when they absolutely need to deal with something together, like parenting their child, or they have to play nice in front of family or friends.   

The argument that is started because your partner had expectations about spending time alone together after a long day can really be about him/her being upset that you haven’t made them a priority. And that need to be high on your priority list may not even be coming from your relationship at all, but from their unresolved need to be prioritized as a child since their mother was often away using drugs and alcohol, and they were left to fend for themselves. 

When both partners have unresolved traumas they can continue to bump heads with each other. One partner may have a deep-seated need to be a priority due to parental abandonment, while the other has a deep need to be independent because they were constantly smothered by an overbearing parent. These two marry one another, and dig their heels in, fight tooth and nail, and continue to go around and around about this seemingly unresolvable issue in the marriage. 

The negativity from something like this can bleed out into other areas of the relationship and erode it over time. 

Couples therapy is a great place to identify how past traumas are showing up in your relationship and can be worked on in that setting, or your therapist might recommend individual therapy in addition to or in place of couples therapy. Either way working to resolve past traumas can be incredibly beneficial to your marriage. 

Mind-Reading in Marriage (part 2)

Last week we talked about mind-reading and how it can be such a disappointing pattern when you think your partner should just know what you need when you need it. In case you missed it, you can read that here. 

This week I want to talk about the other side of the mind-reading pattern. It’s also something I see a lot in my practice where one partner will say something like, “well no, I did not bring that up, because I already knew exactly how he/she was going to respond.” 

To which I typically reply, “oh, so you can read your partner’s mind?”

The truth is, we don’t know exactly how our partner will respond to something. 

Yes, you may have had a similar situation or pattern and you know things about what your partner may like and dislike, but when you assume that your partner will respond in a certain way and as a result of this pattern of mind-reading, you tend to either alter your communication or you avoid the conversation altogether. 

You might tell yourself you’ll get a negative response to something because you’ve felt negativity in an area of the relationship, and this sets you up for a pattern called negative-sentiment override. 

One of my clients used to refer to this pattern as the merry-go-round. 

Altering and avoiding communicating with your partner because you are telling yourself you know how they will respond only perpetuates the pattern and many times you will treat your partner as if you’ve already had that conversation and you’ve already received that negative response even though you only actually had the conversation in your mind and not out loud. 

Once you get into the pattern of negative sentiment override it can be difficult to get out because you aren’t actually having the conversations and you’re always assuming your partner’s negativity. Not having the actual conversations never allows for a positive response from your partner and keeps you perpetually stuck in assuming negativity and you might even begin to see your partner in a negative light altogether

When I reality test with clients about their assumptions of their partner’s negative responses and they actually have those conversations in session they find out things like: 

Their partner gave a negative response to helping with the kiddos' bath time once when they were stressed from work, and if they could do it all over again they’d respond differently. 

The assumption that was made in this case was that helping in the evenings was not going to happen, and one partner just assumed all responsibility without asking for help due to one negative response. 

One partner didn't want to talk about vacation planning one evening because they’d just had an issue at work with a coworker who typically covers for them, and didn’t feel comfortable asking for coverage at that particular time. 

The assumption that was made here was that vacations weren’t a priority for this person, and their partner was afraid to broach the subject. After further conversation in session it turned out this wasn’t the case, and once things were running smoother with the above mentioned coworker, vacation planning could easily resume. 

One negative response from your partner should not mean you’ll always receive that response in similar scenarios, and it could just be situational. 

So have the conversations. Make the requests. Don’t assume you know exactly how your partner will respond and get into a rut of negative sentiment override.

If you’d like help improving the communication in your relationship, we are here and eager to help! Click here to schedule your free 15-minute phone consultation and get hooked up with one of our amazing therapists who can walk you through improving your relationship.

Mind-Reading in Marriage

Do you expect your partner to know how you feel, what you need, when you need it? 

Couples will sit on my couch in the middle of a conflict, and one will look at me and say something like, “we’ve been together for 20 years, she should know that when I have to deal with work on my day off, I’m going to be upset. She should just anticipate that I’m going to be pissed off that day.”

This actually came from a session I had a couple weeks ago. The couple was upset with one another about how each handled a recent conflict in which PartnerA had to go into work on a day off, and said PartnerB appeared to be completely oblivious to their mood. 

PartnerA exclaimed, “you should have known I was upset and needed a hug!”

PartnerB shot back with, “I was in my own world, I was getting ready for work myself, and I didn’t even look up to see the look on your face when you told me you had to go into work.” 

PartnerA responded with, “I’m ALWAYS pissed when I have to go into work on my day off, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT! You should've been there for me - you should have given me a hug because you should've known.”

This went on for a while longer, back and forth like a tennis match, until I stopped them. 

The fundamental distortion here was that PartnerA was angry, hurt, and ultimately felt lonely because PartnerB had not anticipated their needs. 

PartnerB was hurt, and saddened that when they returned home later that evening, PartnerA turned away, didn’t give a greeting, and sulked the rest of the evening, to which PartnerA had no idea why. This just prolonged their disconnection and frustration with one another. 

As always, I worked to slow them down in the session, and helped them express how they each felt. 

Then we discussed mind-reading, and how we absolutely can not expect our partner to anticipate our needs and wants all the time. 

If PartnerA had stated, “man I’m so pissed right now, I have to go into work on my day off. I feel stressed, and frustrated. Can I just have a hug?” PartnerB would have totally obliged and likely went out of their way to send cheer throughout the day via text or in some other way. 

When we expect our partner to know what we need, when we need it, we set ourselves up for disappointment, and we set our partner up for failure. 

Think about it - we are complex beings, and we don’t always want the same things. Some days we want affection, and other days we want a listening ear or someone to sit next to and say nothing with. 

This is your reminder to ask  for what you need from your partner. 

If you want to be pet like a cat while you snuggle on the couch after a hard day, ask! If you need some time to decompress and want to take a long hot shower or bath, let your partner know that’s what you’re needing!

Know that if you have been stuck in a pattern of asking your partner to read your mind, it’s not always evident that that’s what you’re doing. This could show up as you feeling disappointed frequently in the relationship, and so if that’s the case it might be time to look a little deeper and work on understanding your own expectations and how you may be setting both you and your partner up for failure.

If you’d like help improving the communication in your relationship, we are here and eager to help! Click here to schedule your free 15-minute phone consultation and get hooked up with one of our amazing therapists who can walk you through improving your relationship.