Resentment

I fought with Liza this morning.

Ruptures happen. It shows that you have a healthy relationship. What’s crucial to maintaining a resilient relationship is how you repair it. 

One reason why we choose to numb our rising levels of anxiety with a bottle of wine or two is that we are ineffective at dealing with rupture and repair. 

And with good reason.

To be effective in this department, we need to kill our ego, and that’s a challenge. 

Anyways…

Back to my fight.

As usual, I left the whole debacle feeling angry and defensive. I got out my notepad and immediately started noting down the relevant points so I could discuss them with Liza once both of us had calmed down. 

Then I answered this question.

“What do I feel about Liza, right now?”

One word stood out amongst the many.

‘Resentment.’

I like to think of resentment as DEFCON 1 & DEFCON 2.

DEFCON 2 is a form of resentment that quickly rises and dissipates. This type of resentment is momentary in form and typically surfaces after a conflict with people outside of our inner circle. 

DEFCON 1 is resentment born from years of subconscious carpet-bombing shame and fear between two close people that exist in a long-term relationship. 

After my fight with Liza, there was a clear state of DEFCON 1. 

To deal with that, I reminded myself of the work of Patricia Love and Steven Stosny in the brilliant book ‘How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It.’

I read this aloud to myself.

My emotional well-being is important to me.

My emotional well-being is more important than everything I resent.

My emotional well-being is more important than anyone else’s bad behaviour.

My relationship is more important than everything I resent and worthy of appreciation, time, energy, effort, and sacrifice. 

When I look into the mirror and recite these phrases, I quickly see that resentment creates justification, judgmentalism, and defensive behaviour, which in turn is inconsistent with how I need to care for my emotional well-being, and the emotional well-being of my relationship.

Time is a great healer.

I no longer feel that resentment.

Until the next time.

And there will be a 'next time' because this is life.

If you are finding yourself in a constant state of conflict that leads to a rise in anxiety and shame, and you want to deepen your knowledge on this subject then sign-up for our next workshop, “Why We Numb Our Anxiety With Alcohol And How to Fix That.” It takes place on December 18 between 11:00-13:00 (PST), and here's the link to register. Be sure to click the next page and submit the payment to get full access to the workshop.