Guilt and Resentment

What is guilt? The best way to describe guilt is it is like a boomerang that you can throw out at someone when you are trying to get rid of it but if you are doing something or have done something to feel guilty about, it will always come back to you somehow. This may not seem very clear but think about when you have made a mistake and you try to cover it up by lies. When these lies get confronted usually the guilty person will become defensive or try to deflect the questions. This may look like this, “Where were you last night, I finally went to bed when you didn’t come home”? “What are you talking about I told you I didn’t know when I was coming home so don’t wait up. You can never remember anything you should really go get your hearing or something checked”. All of this is being said as they walk out of the room. This example is both defensive and deflective. They have thrown the problem back to the person asking the questions creating a scenario where the confronter could actually feel like it was their fault for asking.

Eventually all of this deflection and defensiveness in a relationship becomes a hot button. This is something that is used against the other person. Both partners know each other hot button and can push these buttons anytime knowing the fight that will be caused by this button. Many times this hot button will be pushed to create the fight that will allow that person to justify their own negative behavior like; to go out and drink, use drugs, have an affair, or any other behavior that may be hurtful in a marriage/partnership. This can go round and round in a marriage, it never gets talked about or resolved and the guilt and resentment just builds and builds until an explosion happens. As this continues to happen in the relationship these explosions never get resolved they just become an on-going fight. The fights will always end up about the same thing. Eventually the relationship can no longer survive because of the unresolved guilt and resentment.

Resentments can come from other places too. For instance, in a marriage if the husband works a 50 to 60 hour week and comes home to a dirty house and having to take care of dinner for him and the kids after time this may cause resentment. Another example of built up resentment is if the wife generally keeps the home up and works FT too and the husband never comes home after work and he leaves on the weekends to go hang out with his friends, leaving her to raise the kids and take care of the home by herself. After time this will also cause a lot of resentment. As the resentment builds so do the fights, these fights are never about the real issues they are always about the things that are on the surface of the relationship. What is meant by the surface is the behavior that each person is doing in the relationship. Usually this behavior is again drinking, going out with friends, withholding sex, withholding money, ignoring and dismissing the partner, watching other women/men when in public with partner or many of the other things people do to hurt each other.

When guilt and resentment are consistently the theme in a marriage or partnership the outcome is generally explosive. There is only so much most people can take and guilt and resentments are like ticking time bombs. After a while these bombs will go off and cause a lot of destruction. Many times this destruction is un-repairable. If the couple stays together they will usually end up more like roommates than husband and wife or they will get to the point where they barely speak to one another. Many times couples will try to pull the kids to their point of view so the kids will be against the other parent. When this happens the kids end up feeling like they are in a tug-o-war. The family system becomes involved in the cycle of destruction and once again the cycle goes on and on.
If you would like a free consultation please contact me at www.repairnlife.com/contact