Resentment is an emotion that complicates you surviving any affair. When resentment enters your marriage, the focus shifts to the anger, and dealing with it rather than the original offense.
At its very core, resentment is the intense anger you experience when you continue replaying an offense over and over in your mind. You will find that the more you replay the offense, the greater the anger builds up. The angry reactions are additive. Each time you replay the offense, you add more anger and put the anger you originally had under increased pressure.
What happens when you have large amounts of anger under pressure? The situation becomes explosive. At that point, anything that stirs emotion can become a flashpoint. Once a flashpoint is activated, the explosive process begins. It may come fast or slow, but it will come. One of the laws of explosive energy is that the greater the pressure, the larger the explosion. It applies in the physical universe, and in your emotional universe to.
I previously covered the “Affair Survival Mode.” One segment of that is resentment. Not every situation where resentment occurs leads to “Affair Survival Mode,” yet every “Affair Survival Mode” situation has a buildup of resentment.
Resentment is often what energizes your flare-ups with family members, in what is often called the “drama triangle” that occurs in family conflicts (which I cover in Module 5 of the “Affair Recovery Workshop“). Resentment often acts as the fuel that keeps your family conflicts going, and it also keeps the drama triangle of you, the cheater, and their lover going as well.
One of the problems with resentment-driven conflicts is that the more that is thrown out, the more the backlash. The backlash may come as more resentment, or as some other form of emotional discomfort.
With resentment-driven conflicts, the anger and emotion take center stage. The focus in often on hurting, or hurting back. If the hurt is deep enough, it becomes revenge. There is little attention given to the source of the problem, or solutions. Instead, there is lashing out and blaming.
When resentments are allowed to fester, they are toxic to marriages. Even though the cheater may return to you, if there is enough resentment from either them or you, the spirit of your marriage has been poisoned. Like any poison, it is potentially toxic. The longer resentment predominates, the greater the risk for your marriage.
One of the problems with resentment is that it can exists even though things look normal. With the “Affair Survival Mode” there are signs that your nervous system is disrupted or stuck. There are physical symptoms that can be seen. With pure resentment, you do not see the guardedness. You do not see the startled response, the depressed mood, the disconnectedness, the poor judgement, the despair, the hypervigilance, or the self-loathing.
Those with resentments may come across as symptom-free. Just because you do not see the symptoms does not mean that you are resentment-free.
When your heart is full of resentment, there is very little room for love.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
3 Responses
I feel boatloads of resentment. It seems that’s all I can do. I want to release it, and it’s a process. I just can’t stop thinking of how unfair this whole mess has been.
I’ve been in this relationship since I was 14! I didn’t know about the addiction until 15 years ago, but he promised to stop the porn. He has cheated since we were in high school. He was older, and controlled me. I worshipped him.
I never knew how deep the addiction was, nor did I get the love hunger issue behind it. I was raising small children with disabilities, and that was extremely stressful. I understand that stress can aggravate addiction because he started an emotional affair during this time.
It’s too much to tell I found out about his addiction which included 2 affairs lasting 2 years before and during the marriage. I have had PTSD for awhile now, and am in counseling. Our family is DEVASTATED. Our families know, and it’s embarrassing.
I just want the pain, triggers, and physical sickness to end. He seems to be trying with groups, church, etc, but the LYING IS THE LAST TO GO. HE MAY BE OUT OF TIME!!! I can’t take anymore.
Godspeach,
Thank you for commenting. It is easy to see why you have boatloads of resentment. There are layer upon layer of pain. With pain layered like that, it often spills over into and onto others. One trigger and the whole thing erupts. You have the being controlled, losing out on prime years, being lied to, the challenges of raising a child with disabilities, etc. It makes my head spin just identifying all the many layers of pain and resentment.
You must be a strong person to make it through so much. Your avatar “Godspeach” is touching. God definitely has had his hand on you. I am reminded that pearls only develop in response to an irritation. You have definitely had many irritations in your life. Many women would have given up or cracked under what you have been through and are going through. The fact that the family is devastated tells me a lot. You are definitely a survivor, managing to come through when others are unable. Working through that will take time, forgiveness and other traits.
I hope that you find hope and help here.
Once the addiction is broken, then you can start dealing with healing the other issues.
Best Regards,
Jeff