Why resentment doesn't have to mean the end of a relationship

Australia Broadcast Center

12 hours ago

Yvonne* first hooked up with her now-husband on the sticky dance floor of a nightclub on a balmy Sydney night when they were both 23. She felt safe with him, like she'd known him for years.
They dated, got married and when the couple had their first daughter, Yvonne left her full-time job as an accountant to look after her. That was when her resentment to her husband started to build.
"I took a year off and he just continued his own life. His life was still golfing and playing squash and staying back for a few drinks on a Friday night, where I'm at home just getting on with that," Yvonne tells Ladies, We Need To Talk.
"The second [child] just kind of added that extra layer of stress."
By the time their third daughter was born, Yvonne would try to raise the issue of her husband sharing the mental load but they would end up butting heads.
He did not seem to notice the burden that she was carrying. And while there were good times, the same patterns kept repeating.
"He thought he did a lot by changing nappies, and he did help at night to settle them. But it was all the other stuff, like thinking about getting out the dinners, who has the nappy bags, what are we doing on the weekend?" Yvonne says.
"That mental load is because you are thinking of three other humans, yourself, and sometimes your husband as well."
Yvonne and her husband sought help over the years, doing talk therapy as well as trying tactics and systems to share the mental load.
But Yvonne began to notice a pattern in her husband's behaviour: He would pick up the slack while the inspiration was running hot but then it would go "out the window", she says.
"I just felt like I'd tried everything, and then it just wouldn't stick."
Things reached a crisis point last year. One particular incident became a catalyst for Yvonne to look for the exit.
"My husband smacked my daughter, and we've always agreed not to handle the girls in that way. And it was just that step too far for me," she says.
"We tried to repair, we tried everything. And I said, 'look, with all the history … I've grown, I've left you behind. We need to separate'."
So they did. Yvonne and her partner tried "bird nesting", where the children stay in the family home and each parent stays elsewhere and takes turns looking after them.
But she says "there was still that underlying resentment."
When a romantic partnership reaches this point, it's usually over. But for Yvonne and her husband, it wasn't.
So what happens if a couple chooses to stick it out and fight for the survival of their relationship? And what does it take to bring it back from the brink?
Sex and relationships therapist Toya Ricci is used to seeing couples at their wit's end. By the time they come and see her, the little sores of annoyance have turned into full-blown open wounds of resentment.
"Resentment is so sticky, it's so hard to get rid of," she says.
"A lot of it comes back to a deep-seated hurt that's been repeated over and over again. I think couples often have the same argument, but it just gets attached to different things."
Ricci says that often couples might be fighting about, say, which partner should be emptying the dishwasher, but what they're really arguing about is the deeper feelings underneath.
She says there are ways to fix any relationship in need of resuscitation. But what can be needed is something as drastic as "relationship death," especially in cases of infidelity, or where trust issues or long-term frustration fester.
"Because you can't go back to the relationship that you had before," she says.
"That's gone. But maybe that's OK. [The question is] how do you want to build a new relationship?"
By the time a couple gets to therapy, they can be ready to lash out at each other in front of a willing listener. But if resuscitating the marriage is the aim, Ricci says both sides must be willing to listen to each other and make concessions.
"I think everything comes down to what our insecurities are and what we need to feel safe. So what do they [each partner] need to feel safe?" she says.
"I usually start with their motivations. Like, why do you want to stay in this relationship? What's the benefit? And a lot of times it comes down to, 'oh, because we really love each other still and we want to make it work'. If you want to make it work, that's what helps you put in all the really hard work."
Ricci thinks that part of this hard work of repair involves being invested in the other person and their wants and their needs.
"I think a lot of times in long-term relationships, what dies is curiosity about the other person," she says.
"You should always be curious about your partner and where they're at and what's happening. So you never think that you have them completely figured out."
And while people might have preconceived ideas about what resentment means for the viability of a relationship, Ricci says it's more complex than it appears.
"Our scripts are that it's always black and white and it's always a disaster ending. But there's so many different people who have previously thought, 'I would never tolerate it', and they are able to come back from it."
Once Yvonne decided that she wanted to separate, she tried talking to her husband about their options. But he did not want to split.
"I didn't feel happy and felt very alone. I said we need someone to help us navigate this stage," she says.
The pair found a marriage coach whose approach felt unorthodox.
"She's like, 'OK, you're going to need to have relationship death,' which is basically chucking the old marriage in the bin, because that didn't work for us," Yvonne says.
"We were going into this grey zone — so you're not together, you're not married, but you're not going off shagging other people either."
Yvonne and her husband weren't living together and did not talk for months, except when necessary for taking care of their children. For Yvonne, this was a time of rebuilding herself.
"I was such a shell of myself coming out of that marriage, like I was just so depressed. My confidence was low. So it was just finding myself again and finding out who I actually am and reconnecting with that. And that was so empowering," she says.
The time apart was similarly positive for her husband. Soon, Yvonne started coming home to a clean and spotless house. And she found out he had been waiting by the phone hoping that she would ring up for a date.
After six months apart, the two met up face-to-face.
Yvonne was prepared to divorce but her husband proposed another option. He repeated that he loved her and wanted to be with her. He also agreed he would walk away if that's what would make her happier. The choice was hers.
"And I just froze and … there was just something in my body just saying: no, no, no," Yvonne says.
"And I said, no, that's not what I want. We've got all these new, amazing tools. I want to move in together and try them."
Yvonne told their marriage coach that she felt like "a fraud" for appearing to backflip on her earlier resolve.
"And she said 'Well, that's relationship death'," Yvonne recalls.
That decision has been part of the next stage of the couple trying to repair their marriage.
"[The resentment] it's there. I still get it day to day, but like anything it's about working through it."
She says there have been changes in her husband to show that he respects her in a meaningful and true way.
"He now hears me," she says. "He would always try to come in and fix it, or try to put his opinion on what I think.
"Now I can say, 'honey, I do not feel heard'. And then he'll just take a step back and he'll be like, 'OK darling, I hear that you're feeling overwhelmed'. And then, [he'll] just [give me] that validation of, 'I see you, I hear you'.
Yvonne and her husband have been back together for seven months. Yvonne knows that her marriage might be out of ER, but it requires ongoing health checks.
"We're constantly working on things," she says.
"It's always going to be ongoing but that's the amazing thing, because we are modelling this for our girls; how to repair, how to communicate effectively. And hopefully seeing them bring it into their relationships one day.
"But for my husband and I, I just hope our relationship only becomes stronger and deeper and we have a long life together."
*Surname withheld to protect privacy