Why are anger and resentment so toxic? And what can I do about it?

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

Gautama Buddha

My Mum had a special super-power. She could never be angry for more than a few minutes. A childhood friend told me that her mother was the opposite – if you crossed her she’d spend all day being angry.

Maybe my friend's mother didn’t get angry as often as my Mum did, but I was glad that it was always over so fast when Mum got mad. She would get triggered by something my sisters and I did, she’d fly off the handle, there would be shouting and maybe worse, and then she would regret her behaviour and apologise and give us all a cuddle.

However looking back I can see that my mother harboured a lot of resentment towards my father, so maybe she was getting triggered more easily than she might have.

We tend to see resentment as being a low-level anger which persists over a long period of time. I felt a lot of resentment towards my ex, and I suspect it was mutual. We were caught up in a toxic situation that persisted for years so the resentment wasn't so surprising. And it impacted our health.

The toxicity of resentment manifests in all sorts of ways. To quote Mark Twain, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” It erodes us from the inside, impacting our minds and bodies via the stress response. It can lead to poor mental health, a weakened immune system and even auto-immune disorders.

But why do I feel so much anger & resentment towards my partner?

The truth is our feelings don’t last more than about 90 seconds, unless we feed them.

You may have heard the story of the old man who kept two tigers, one of whom was placid while the other was aggressive. His grandson asked which tiger would win if they fought and the old man replied "It depends which one I feed the most."

Of course that’s what most of us do: when we feel angry we feed the angry tiger within us.

Maybe your partner does something which crosses your boundaries in some way. Then you have some angry thinking, such as:

• Why can’t she learn?

• He really doesn’t care! Or he wouldn’t do this.

• They are so irresponsible!

• It’s not fair, he always gets his needs met, and mine are ignored.

And with those thoughts comes the angry feeling.

But it doesn’t stop there. Because once we start feeling angry, it seems to trigger more angry thinking, and so we keep the feeling alive for a lot more than 90 seconds.

While anger may subside, as my mother’s did, to be swiftly followed by an apology and a hug, resentment persists over a long period of time. (If you look up the word ‘resentment’ on Google, there are a lot of definitions and explanations, which are not all the same. So I’m going to stick to a very simple definition, because I'm talking here about a bad feeling which may persist over months or years).

However it is not true that the resentment we feel is there all the time. Like any feeling it is only there when we are creating it in the moment. It’s like a bad habit: we’ve been repeating the resentful thoughts over and over again for a long time, so it’s not easy to break the habit.

Often the original event which triggered the resentment has long since passed and hasn’t been repeated. And yet we continue to feel the resentment, because it’s come to occupy such an important space in our inner world that we don’t want to let it go. Or it may be that we feel resentment precisely because our partner repeatedly crosses that boundary.

But surely I’m right to feel anger if someone has upset me or crossed a boundary?

Well, maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong, but is that the only criterion?

What’s the answer when you ask yourself honestly, “does it work most of the time?”

Does your partner change their behaviour because you flew off the handle at them? Or do they dig their heels in and tell you that you’re:

• too precious

• unfair

• too tetchy

• or.. just plain wrong

Or maybe they slam out of the room or storm out of the house.

Yes, you are right to feel anger; it’s what you're feeling and all feelings are equally acceptable. But maybe not so right to fly off the handle and shout at them.

What you can do to stop the resentment

There is another way. There's no point trying to suppress your feelings - they just spring back up like a beach ball being held under the water. But you can still adopt another approach even while you're feeling angry or resentful. You can employ your own curiosity and compassion.

When you get curious about why you're angry and why your partner does things which you find hurtful, you'll start to uncover deeper truths which will lead you to a more compassionate approach. And it gets easier to let go of anger so that it doesn't end up in a shouting match.

Curiosity and compassion are an excellent antidote to judgement and anger. When you start to practise using compassion and curiosity you start to see things differently. At first it feels awkward and unnatural. You have to pause, take a breath, bite your lip and then choose to be curious instead of expressing your anger.

But the more you practise this, the easier it gets!

To find out more about this approach download my relationship guide, Three Steps to a Magical Relationship.