This
is one of a series of Web articles
that suggests solutions for common relationship problems in divorcing families and stepfamilies. This
sub-series focuses on reducing
barriers to co-parental
(Project 10). Read
this for perspective on
this nonprofit divorce-prevention site and how to best use it.
Ideas here aim to augment, not replace, other appropriate professional
Before continuing, pause,
breathe,, and reflect - why are you reading this - what do you
+ + +
This article
assumes you're familiar with
these ideas...
-
The
premises
underlying this nonprofit educational site;
-
This overview of stepfamily
basics,
and their
-
An overview of
factors promoting healthy relationships
and a high-nurturance family;
-
This
introduction to normal
subselves (like yours) - slides or
text;
-
most stepfamily relationships
are significantly stressed, for years;
-
The common
causes of most stepfamily role and
relationship problems;
-
Perspective on stepfamily
and inclusion
conflicts;
-
Perspective on
key factors that affect ex-mate relationships; and...
-
Frameworks
for analyzing and
resolving typical role and
relationship problems;
How would you describe the normal human emotion we call
resentment? How would you finish this sentence: “I really resent
_________! Do you feel that resentment can be a helpful or constructive
emotion? Stay tuned…
Most stepfamilies follow the divorce of
one or both re/marriers. Psychological and legal
often breeds significant to
major resentments. If these don’t abate, they can add significant
barriers to child-raising teamwork. If this is true in your multi-home
family, do your co-parents have an effective way of using resentment to
discover your real needs, and fill them?
To see if this article is relevant to your situation, try this…
# Status Check: T = "true
enough;" F = "false;" and "?" = "I'm not sure," or "I don't care."
I feel a mix of calm,
centered, energized, light, focused, resilient, up, grounded, relaxed,
alert, aware, serene, purposeful, compassionate, and clear, so my
is
probably present now.
(T F ?)
I’m clear enough on the
difference between resentment, envy, frustration,
distrust, disrespect, anger, and dislike now. (T F ?)
I feel that
resentment
is a normal, useful human response that can help people identify
unmet needs, and promote more satisfying relationships among adults and
kids. (T F ?)
I feel one or more of our
co-parents feels excessive resentment toward each other now. (T F ?) Note:
resentment toward (step)kids is covered in the next book in this series.
I often feel significantly
resentful toward one or more of our co-parents now. (T F ?) If so, my
resentment/s are about a __ on a scale of 1 (trivial, occasional) to 10
(constant, major emotional distraction).
I know how to
below resentment to discover the
unmet
that cause
it; or I’m truly interested in learning how to do that. (T
F ?)
I’m comfortable enough
talking to each of our other co-parents now about significant resentments
that hinder our family teamwork; or I’m motivated to become
more comfortable about this in the near future. (T F ?)
My partner would
answer “T(rue)” to each of these items now. (T F ?)
Pause and
reflect: if you just learned something useful or interesting, what is it?
Perspective
Consider these basic premises…
Needs – discomforts – are
normal, healthy, and universal. They drive all animal behavior.
All human
emotions are valuable signs that some current needs are unfilled.
Relationship “problems” and
“conflicts” in your inner and physical families manifest as surface
needs and underlying primary needs.
The human need
for respect is omnipresent in all solo and social situations and
relationships. And…
Ultimately, every adult is
responsible for identifying and filling their own primary needs.
Notice how you
feel about these five beliefs now…
My experience
over 27 years as a therapist is that typical divorced and stepfamily
co-parents are largely
of their current feelings and the primary needs that cause them. Many can
identify general feelings like upset, bothered, or mad, and can’t
clearly identify the several emotions comprising them.
I suggest that
resentment differs from dislike,
contempt (disrespect), frustration,
envy, and
distrust. Do you agree? Often, these emotional responses bloom
together. Distinguishing between each of them can help identify and fill the
primary needs underneath. The learnable skill of
can help you
make these distinctions if your
leads your
Contempt
says “I don’t respect something about you.”
Frustration occurs when someone or something blocks an important
current need, and you feel unable to remove the block. Envy suggests
another person has something you wish you had.
Distrust results from
the need to feel safe.
Resentment
is an instinctive reaction to feeling disrespected by
a person or group. Common surface triggers for this reaction are feeling
used, ignored, betrayed, misjudged, and interrupted. Reality-check:
think of the last person you resented, and see if you felt any of these.
Premise:
significant
resentment says “I need to feel respected by (someone).” Notice the
important distinction between “You need to respect me more,” and “I
need to feel more respected.” A common (false self) reflex is to blame
the disrespectful one as being wrong or bad. For some people,
this can in-clude blaming God, “Satan,” or other spiritual targets. Your true
Self knows “I am responsible for my self-respect, and for
my needs and feelings to other people who disrespect me.” Notice your
(subselves’) reaction to that…
A common trap I’ve observed in many co-parents is the
misleading belief that “I deserve (someone’s) respect.” I
respectfully suggest this is baloney.
Like genuine trust, love, and
friendship, respect can only be
and must be earned. In
other words, you are responsible for earning others’ respect, and
telling others what you need in order to respect them. Reality check:
think of some-one you don’t resent: do you usually feel respected
enough by them? Have you requested or demanded this respect, or have you
earned it?
Resentments can range from
acceptable (no action needed) to significant (action required). Each of your
co-parents draws their own dividing line. I propose that excessive
resentment (and other barriers) clearly…
inhibits
or prevents your child-related decision-making and family bonding,
promotes
us-vs.-them competitions in or between your homes and relatives, and…
feeds
divisive
and associated
relationship
The bottom
line: if resentment is among the barriers that hinders your
family adults from cooperative caregiving, the real issues are
someone (a) feeling too disrespected and (b) not knowing what to do about that,
and/or (c) not taking responsibility for changing that. If you agree and
aren’t acting to change this, your
is
part of the problem.
If you don’t
agree with this set of ideas, what do you believe? Which of your
subselves is answer-ing?
Surface and Secondary Problems
As you know, “problems” (unfilled needs) often cause a web of other
(secondary) problems. For example, a stepchild “forgets” her stepmother’s
request to pick up her toys from the living room floor. The woman’s primary
needs might be to feel...
-
a sense of order in her home,
-
competent at
teaching her stepdaughter,
-
self-respect for asserting her needs, and...
- impactful, vs. being a passive victim in her own home.
If she chastises her stepdaughter
or gets angry, the girl can run to her father (or someone) and claim
the stepmom “is mean,” “yelled at me,” or “doesn’t like me.” If her dad
questions or criticizes his wife (“Aren’t you over-reacting a bit?”),
all three people are embroiled in a loyalty conflict and a persecutor-victim-rescuer
Stepmom can
resent the girl for ignoring her needs and enlisting her father “against
her.” The girl can resent her stepmom for “being too mean,” and the dad can
resent both of them for “not handling their own problems” or other things.
All this can happen in less than five minutes. The original set of unfilled
needs sparked behaviors that caused a mosaic of secondary needs among all
three people. Note that the girl and her father had their own sets of
primary needs which fed into these secondary problems.
How many times
a day or night does this kind of chain reaction happen in and between your
co-parenting homes? When it happens, how well can the people involved
separate primary from secondary problems, and stay focused on resolving the
former? In this example, resentment signaled that each person needed
to feel self-respect, and
respected
enough by the other two people.
Adults often
cut kids some slack in family relationship problems because “they don’t know
any better.” Usually resentful co-parents cut each other less slack, because
“s/he’s an adult” (and is supposed to) “know better.” Do you
agree?
So - if
periodic or chronic resentments hinder your co-parents from working together
harmoniously to achieve your multi-home family’s goals, what can you do?
Resolve the Primary Problems
If you've acted
on some of the other
articles in this
Solutions series, you’re already well along in preparing to reduce your co-parent
resentment barrier. Let’s review some key preliminary options for
reducing them:
ensure that your
true Self is leading your
in general, and in
interactions with your other co-parents. Signs that this is true are (a)
your feeling genuinely
(mutually respectful), despite signif-icant conflicts
with your other co-parent/s; and (b) your honest acceptance that you
are causing half of the first two “resentment” (disrespect) problems below.
accept that you all are a
stepfamily
with common caregiving
goals.
Then…
accept that each stepchild’s biological mother
and father,
living or dead, active or not, are both full
of your nuclear
stepfamily with inherent co-equal human dignity and personal
rights. Then…
reframe resentment as disrespect,
and admit you have one or more of these three barriers:
you resent one or more
other adults; and/or…
one or more adults resent
you; or…
one or more other
co-parents resents another, not you - and this causes secondary problems
for you.
Preparation
options like these empower you to apply the
communication
to your subselves and each other co-parent. Use
to separate and rank
concurrent barriers, and focus on one at a time. Use awareness,
clear thinking and
skills to identify your
them clearly, and handle
responses with respectful and calm reassertion. As you do these, use options like
these to help fill your and
each other
co-parent’s primary needs.
If one or more
of your other co-parents seems psychologically
tailor
these ideas to your situation.
Stay clear: converting
your
blame into (true Self) compassion for a wounded co-parent doesn’t mean you
have to endure their behaviors!
It means that you can assert your boundaries
with them firmly and respectfully ("We're of equal dignity")
rather than disdainfully or critically (
It also means you can choose to avoid pitying them, which
inherently sends provocative "I'm 1-up" verbal and non-verbal R-messages.
Does this look complex and difficult?
At first, it is! So was driving a car, or doing your job, when you
first began. You can do these
steps, over time if your Self is
guiding you.
Here’s how these options might sound in
action:
Your ex (sarcastic false
self): "Well, how are you enjoying the
mega-thousand dollar multimedia center you bought with my money?"
Your Self (calmly recalling
your perception that s/he's wounded, not rude, insensitive,
stupid, or bad as your Inner Critic declares): "You sound really
resentful." (metatalk observation, not a criticism);
Ex: "Me resentful? Just
because you and your jerk lawyer walked off with 90% of our assets after you
dumped me, you think I shouldn't feel resentful?"
Your Self: "You're
enraged because you feel the whole process and the outcome was so unfair,
and you feel justified in resenting me and the process." (this is
empathic listening, not agreeing!);
Ex (false self confused by
your calm respectful response): "Well, uh... you finally got
that right."
Your Self:
"Pat, I can't change your perception, or rewrite our history.
I'm truly sad you're burdened by so much anger and resentment."
Ex (sarcastically,
distrusting your sincerity): "Yeah, sure you are.
And pigs can fly, too..."
Your Self: "It's hard for
you to trust that I mean that." (More genuinely compassionate empathic
listening.)
Ex (again startled by your
reaction): "Of course it is, after all the crap
you've dumped on me."
Your Self (repressing _ your
Inner Critic’s reflex to counter-blame, and _ your Warrior subself’s
instinct to argue): "Pat, I need to know what you need from me so you'll
start to bring down your resentment over past things we can't change. Our
kids really need us to get past this together. I know you want what I want
for them..." (clear, net assertion, based on your common co-parenting
objective);
Ex (startled):
"Huh? You want to know what I need?" That's a first!"
Your Self: "I guess you
haven't heard that question from me very often, have you?" (genuinely
respectful affirmation, not defending, explaining, groveling, attacking,
giving examples,...)
Ex:
"That's for sure..."
Your Self: "Well, I mean
it now. What can I do to help lower your resentment of me and our past, so
we can give the kids the best we've got in the present?" (reasserting
what you need, with a genuine =/= attitude. You calmly expect
an attacking response now.
Ex: (angrily) "Well you
might start by admitting that you gave me the shaft! I know this is too much
to hope for in my lifetime, but you need to apologize to me."
(Expectation confirmed: your ex seems ruled by an angry Guardian
subself, and isn’t aware of this.
Your Self (calmly, with
steady eye contact): "You're saying you'd let go of some hurt and
resentment at me if you heard me acknowledge how hurt you've been by my
actions." (Note: this an
empathic-listening “
not a question. This tests to see if you're hearing your ex mate clearly,
vs. agreeing with them! Hearing checks set the stage for possible
+ + +
How does this
example of using the seven communication
(with your true Self
holding a genuine mutual-respect attitude) compare to how you usually
think, feel, and respond to a resentful co-parent? If some protective
subselves give you thoughts like "This is unreal. I could never talk like
that...", I challenge you: why not? In teaching the seven skills,
I’ve seen many average adults learn to speak their version of this
example. With commitment, patience, and willingness to learn from mistakes, you
can learn to communicate like this. Then you can teach your kids how to do
so. The
guidebook
Satisfactions offers concepts and
effective tools, and shows you the way...
Recap
This
Solutions article focuses on identifying and reducing excessive
resentments to improve co-parenting teamwork in your multi-home
family. The article began with five basic premises, and added the
proposal that resentment is a normal (not shameful or
"negative") response to feeling
disrespected.
We noted that
surface problems like excessive resentments cause webs of secondary
problems. This reality suggests the value of your Self separating and
ranking concurrent problems, and staying focused on resolving a few at a
time. The rest of the article outlines a set of preparation options, and
then key ideas for identifying and resolving the real reasons for
excessive resentments (disrespects) in three different co-parental
situations.
Key options are...
-
putting your Self
(Project-1
-
accepting each other co-parent (including ex mates!) as a full family member with
equal human dignity and worth,
-
using options like
these if another family adlt seems psychologically
(ruled by a
-
patiently applying the
Project-2 communication
to convert
disrespect into compassion and
assert respectful boundaries.
An overarching option, as with
resolving any of your surface and
to caregiving
is to do your version of
intentionally help each
other keep your ongoing internal and family
balances as you act to build
and maintain co-parental teamwork.
Option: re-do
the Status Check above now, and see what you
experience. Then recall why you read this article: did you get what you
needed? If so, what was it? If not, what do you need now?
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The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/Rx/ex/resentment.htm