How to Fix Resentment In A Relationship — For Good
So, you’re feeling resentful towards your partner — or feeling resented by them. You want to fix this growing relationship resentment, but you don’t know how.
Maybe it used to feel easy to brush over or forgive the little things that peeve you about each other — the forgotten dishes, an ill-timed joke.
Now, they’re hotter to the touch. Anger can arise from repeated unresolved issues, and if left unaddressed, this anger can negatively impact your relationship and emotional health.
Of course it’s harder to forgive and forget — now it’s personal! Repeated slights can cause you to feel resentment over time, making it even more difficult to move past conflicts.
You think, “How can this person possibly love me if they keep hurting me this way?” When these situations happen, it’s natural to feel hurt and question your partner’s love and intentions.
Not supporting you. Not accepting you.
It hurts when you don’t feel loved in the ways you need to feel loved.
To you, loving people “the right way” feels like second nature. A no-brainer. When your partner doesn’t understand, you might even feel angry or frustrated by their lack of awareness.
“So, what’s my partner’s problem? Why can’t they get it?”
In most cases, the reason that your partner doesn’t “get it” — and keeps not getting it — isn’t because they are stubborn, trying to hurt you, or because they’re inherently dull. Sometimes, this misunderstanding can cause you to resent your partner for not meeting your emotional needs.
It’s because you and your partner have fundamentally different experiences, histories, and understandings around what it means to love and be loved.
There’s an empathy gap. Resentment can build up from things that have happened in the past, especially when those experiences are not fully understood or acknowledged by your partner.
Your partner, despite perhaps trying to understand your experience time and again, still can’t relate — they don’t feel it in their bones the way that you do.
And therein lies the path forward for me as a couples therapist… It’s important to realize where resentment comes from and how it has developed in your relationship, so you can begin to address it together.
To support couples with healing from resentment, I need to do two things:
The first step is to help couples see how their wounding in relationship — and thereby their understanding of what it means to be loved — is different.
The second step is to help each partner know what it’s like to be in the other’s world. Like, know it. Not just in their minds, but in their bodies.
To discover how to fix resentment in your relationship, let’s break these steps down a little bit more.
1. See and acknowledge that you come from different worlds.
Part of the problem with relationship resentment is that we assume our partner “get it”.
They get how deeply hurtful certain actions or words are to us.
They get the basic things that would make us feel loved.
They just don’t care.
Making this assumption is totally understandable. For us, this stuff is akin to knowing your ABC’s. Being hurt and missed in these ways are tales as old as time.
And that’s because they literally are.
For better or for worse, most of our core wounding and beliefs about love are imprinted in our earliest years of life. The science of attachment and emergent findings on the effects of developmental relational trauma teach us this. Our bodies and nervous systems have been wiring themselves around these beliefs since we were literally babies. These patterns of relating and expectations develop over time, shaped by repeated experiences and interactions. Family members play a significant role in influencing how we first understand love and relationships, often setting the foundation for our future connections.
Since we’ve moved through the world this way since we can remember, we understandably assume that this is just the way the world is, and that it must be this way for everybody.
Like fish that don’t know they’re in water, our sense of self is indistinguishable from the relational wounds of our past. We’ve lived with these wounds and beliefs for so long that we forget what they are: wounds and beliefs, specific to ourselves.
When we wake up to the reality that not everyone moves through the world in the way that we do, it can feel both tender and liberating.
You mean not everybody feels on some level like they are bad?
You mean not everybody on some level feels like they are too much?
Really?
The opportunity here is to discover that you are not just your pain story. That your pain is, in fact, just a very long and very old story.
It’s not who you really are.
Recognizing that everyone makes mistakes can help you see your partner and yourself with more empathy, which is an important step in the healing process.
And so the self that was once fused with your wounded parts begins to defuse a little.
It’s when we create this space, however small, between our wounded part and the rest of us that healing can occur.
When we’re able to see how we’ve been hurting more clearly, we can turn towards ourselves with more compassion, wrapping our little ones up in our own arms with tenderness and care.
The moment of realization that not everyone carries the same pain story as us is essential for understanding why your partner doesn’t “get it.”
We no longer assume that they do — or that they easily will.
Helping them get it becomes more of a mutual responsibility and an aspirational pathway forward in your relationship, rather than an expectation
And it is those expectations which feed your relationship resentment.
Recognizing the signs of resentment in your relationship
Before you can fix resentment in a relationship, you need to spot it. Resentment rarely appears overnight—it’s a slow burn, building up through a series of negative feelings, unmet expectations, and unresolved conflict. If you’re feeling resentful or sense that your partner is, it’s important to recognize the subtle and not-so-subtle ways resentment can show up in your romantic relationships.
One of the first signs is withdrawal. You or your partner might start to pull away emotionally or physically, putting less effort into conversations, affection, or shared activities. This distance can create a sense of isolation, making it harder to feel loved or connected, and often leads to more resentment.
Sarcasm and passive-aggressive comments are also common indicators. While a little teasing can be playful, frequent sarcasm or snide remarks often mask deeper negative emotions. These behaviors can harm your partner and create a toxic cycle, where each person feels more hurt and misunderstood.
Keeping score is another red flag. If you find yourself tallying up every little thing your partner did wrong, or constantly reminding them of past mistakes, it’s a sign that you’re harboring resentment. This “scorekeeping” can make it feel like your relationship is a competition, rather than a partnership, and can quickly erode trust and intimacy.
Feeling perpetually misunderstood or unappreciated is another way resentment can manifest. If you feel like your partner never really “gets” you, or that your needs and feelings are always dismissed, it’s easy for bitterness and frustration to take root. Over time, these negative feelings can lead to anxiety, stress, and other negative emotions that impact your mental health and overall well-being.
Passive-aggressive behaviors—like giving the silent treatment, making backhanded compliments, or deliberately “forgetting” to do things—are also signs that resentment is festering. These actions might seem minor in the moment, but they can create lasting harm and make it even harder to resolve conflict in the future.
It’s important to remember that resentment stems from a buildup of hurt, unmet expectations, and unresolved issues. If left unaddressed, it can lead to more resentment, hostility, and even physical symptoms of stress or anxiety. In romantic relationships, this can affect both emotional and physical intimacy, making it difficult to move forward together.
The good news is that recognizing these signs is the first step toward meaningful change. By acknowledging your feelings, having an honest conversation with your partner, and taking practical steps—like seeking couples counseling or working on active listening—you can begin to overcome resentment and create a healthier, more supportive relationship. Letting go of grudges and working together to resolve conflict not only improves your relationship, but also supports your mental health and overall sense of well-being.
Before you can fix resentment, you need to spot it. Learn to identify the subtle and not-so-subtle ways resentment shows up—withdrawal, sarcasm, keeping score, or feeling perpetually misunderstood.
2: Try to (really) understand your partner's world
Once you are able to see and acknowledge that your pain story is not baked into everyone’s reality, you might be open to trying on the idea that perhaps you don’t understand your partner’s reality as much as you think you do.
You’ve heard them share a thousand times about why it’s so painful for them when you show up late, or ask where something is, or shut down their ideas. For example, a common misunderstanding might be assuming your partner is overreacting when they feel hurt by a forgotten anniversary, which can quietly build resentment over time.
You nod your head with understanding for the thousand-and-one-th time.
“I get it, I get it, ok,” you say with some defensiveness and resignation.
“I’ve heard you say this already”.
But the truth is your partner is upset because they aren’t feeling “got” by you in that moment, and that’s probably because… Talking openly about these feelings, rather than letting them fester, is essential to prevent resentment from growing.
You still don’t really get it!
“Getting it” requires going beyond our cognitive understanding of our partner’s experience, and daring to let ourselves really taste their reality, taste their pain. In these conversations, it’s important to avoid blame and instead focus on understanding and validation.
But it really does get to the heart of what I’m trying to explain: Adopting a curious and nonjudgmental attitude can be especially helpful in fostering true understanding between partners.
Ask yourself...
Do you know what sensations happen for them when they feel this way?A heavy, collapsed chest? A sourness in their mouth?
Do you know what negative stories they start to tell about themselves and the world?That they’re unlovable? That the world is a lonely place?
Do you know what images or memories might arise for them?A muddled, but disapproving face? A withering tree?
When reflecting on these questions, it can also be helpful to talk things through with a trusted friend or family member, as they may offer valuable support or a fresh perspective.
Figs, Empathi’s founder, likes to joke in the counselor trainings (as he often does) that to actually understand our partner’s experience we need to take a metaphorical acid tab of your partner’s pain and have a bad trip.
Having tasted that pain so fully and completely for yourself, you return to sobriety with the feeling, “OOHHHHHHHHH. So THAT’S the s*t you’ve been talking about?!? That fing sucks!!!”
It’s a dramatic metaphor (Figs is a dramatic human).
But it really does get to the heart of what I’m trying to explain: It’s important for us to have a real, embodied experience of what it’s like to live and breathe as our partners in order for them to genuinely feel understood.
And vice versa!
When it comes to resentment, it is this feeling of mutual understanding — even more than changed behavior — that allows for things to shift.
When we arrive at an understanding that our partner isn’t trying to hurt us — and that understanding our pain, or theirs, may not be as easy as we think — we usually experience more compassion for the tragedy of the whole situation…
Two people trying to understand each other, trying to love each other, who just don’t know how to sometimes.
How sad and how beautiful.
Having this conceptual understanding is a good place to start as far as tending to resentment and disconnection in your partnership.
While it’s great to try and bridge these empathy gaps with your partner on your own, couples counseling is still the fastest and safest way to arrive at that deeper level of understanding that allows you to move past resentment back into connection. These issues are especially important in marriage, where unresolved tension can cause lasting damage, and marriage counseling can be particularly beneficial for married couples. It’s also important to avoid using manipulative or controlling behaviors, such as excessive affection as a form of control, when trying to manage resentment, as this can undermine trust and connection.
That’s reallyhow to fix resentment in a relationship.
And it is witnessing couples experience these kinds of breakthroughs everyday at Empathi that lights me up in this work.
