Latest / The Divorce Decision Podcast / Ep. 70: Has Self-Abandonment Contributed to Resentment in Your Marriage?

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Ep. 70: Has Self-Abandonment Contributed to Resentment in Your Marriage? · The Divorce Decision Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Divorce Decision Podcast, the show for couples asking the most painful question in marriage.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Should we stay or should we go?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: If your marriage feels heavy, confusing, or painfully uncertain, you're not alone.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're leaning towards divorce or hoping to rebuild your marriage, my desire is to help you find clarity.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Carrie Hoskins.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get started.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there everyone.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Divorce Decision Podcast.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm genuinely happy that you're here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Carrie Hoskins, and today what I want to do is talk to you about an aspect of resentment that often gets overlooked.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to continue.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know I have talked about resentment in the past, past episodes.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it's like specifically 61 and 62.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to continue talking about this because resentment plays such a big role in a marriage.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, honestly, resentment plays such a big role in any relationships, but specifically a marriage, and especially when your marriage is struggling, to the point where you are questioning divorce.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it really affects how you think about your marriage.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: It affects how you think about potentially rebuilding your marriage, and it affects your ultimate decision about whether or not you want to get a divorce.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's super, super important.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the aspect that we're going to be talking about today is the part where you abandoned yourself.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to think about the resentment that you have towards your husband or your wife.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're frustrated about the debt you're in or where you live, or maybe there are career opportunities that you passed up for the family, or maybe you're resentful about the fact that you've spent so many years putting everyone else's needs ahead of your own.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I start working with people and we begin, you know, uncovering and unraveling what's really behind their dissatisfaction and their unhappiness, these are a lot of the things that come up.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they blame their spouse for them.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: They blame their spouse for the debt, for the house, for the missed opportunities, for the sacrifices.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's generally where most people stop with the blame.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, in many cases, the resentment that you feel towards your spouse isn't just about what they wanted or what they did or didn't do.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's also about the ways that you went along with things that weren't right for you.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the hard part, you guys.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You help create the circumstances that you're actually resentful about.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, I know that sounds awful and it's a kind of a hard pill to swallow, but it's important.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's important because until you see your own part in the resentment, you can't tell whether you're done with your marriage or just done with the way that you've been showing up in it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I do, however, want to just like throw a caveat in here.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're feeling resent, like resentful or resentment towards your spouse because they have some type of addiction, whether it's drinking or drugs or gambling, porn, sex, whatever it is, that's a different can of worms.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I am going to be talking about that specifically in a future episode.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually currently working on it, but it's kind of complex.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really trying to treat it with care.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's taking me a little longer than expected to get that episode done, but it is coming.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So today, really, what I want to do is I want to focus on, you know, the type of resentment that's created by a little bit more, I'm going to call mundane, everyday types of things.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want to do is walk you through how self-abandonment contributes to your resentment because it is kind of sneaky.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you some things to consider as you reflect on your own specific situation and your marriage so that you can figure out whether you truly are done with your marriage or you're just done with the way that you've been showing up in it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So in the context of marriage, self-abandonment happens when you repeatedly disregard your own needs, preferences, opinions, or values to accommodate your husband or your wife.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it can look like saying yes when you want to say no, keeping your opinion to yourself so you don't start an argument.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Letting your spouse make the decision because it's just easier.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Letting go of friendships or hobbies because your spouse doesn't enjoy them.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Telling yourself it's not a big deal when it actually is a big deal.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Pretending you're fine so they don't get upset.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just going with the flow because it feels easier.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, show of hands.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: How many of those have you ever done?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm raising my hand too.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: These are very normal things.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: However, they create big problems if you're not on to yourself.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, you guys, marriage 100% requires compromise.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're two different people, you're not always going to want the same things.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're going to do what your husband wants because it's important to him.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or you're going to do what your wife wants because it's important to her.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's marriage.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you're going to spend money on something that wouldn't have been your first choice.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not your fifth choice.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you're going to put your own plans and wants on hold because your family needs you.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is normal.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a big difference between making a compromise that you're okay with and that you can live with and generally feel good about, and repeatedly agreeing to things that go against what really matter to you.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you had, I'm going to give you a couple examples here, okay?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you had an opportunity to take a great job in another state.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just I had to tap into some of my former, former clients here for this, right?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you had an opportunity to take a great job in another state.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: It would have been a significant career advancement.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: More money, more opportunity, but your wife didn't want to move because she wanted to stay close to her family, right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you talked about it and eventually you guys agreed to stay like where you were.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, maybe you told yourself it was the right thing to do.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: But now, 15, 20 years later, you're frustrated with your career, you feel like you're drowning in debt, and you wonder, your brain goes back there, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Where would you be if you had taken that opportunity?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And now you blame your wife because you passed it up over a decade ago to stay close to her family.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've spent years organizing your life around your husband's career.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you handled most of the parenting, you stayed home when the kids were sick, you adjusted your work schedule, passed up opportunities, put your career on the back burner, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And those decisions made sense at the time.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But now your kids are older, your husband has a successful career, and you're looking at your own life, wondering what happened to all the things you wanted, and now you're resentful.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, can you relate to either of those in some way?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be a career, it can be anything, okay?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: The way that the money is spent, or the way that you spend your free time, or ways that you've sacrificed emotional or physical connection.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But here is getting back to those examples, what I want you to notice.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Resentment doesn't always like show up when you make the decision.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, a lot of times you start feeling resentful years later when you start to see what that decision cost you.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe you thought it was the right thing to do at the time.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you didn't realize how much you would miss what you gave up, or maybe you knew that you weren't happy about it, but you just didn't want to fight.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the bottom line is you played a role in where you are now, in the situation that is creating a lot of the resentment.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I also just kind of want to throw this out there for those of you who go along with things to avoid disagreements.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you repeatedly say yes to something that you don't want to, you're not necessarily resolving the conflict.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you just agree because you think it's going to settle things faster, you're not settling it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: What you're doing is you're postponing it and you're adding to the resentment along the way.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So again, think about the areas that you're holding on to the resentment.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: What part of yourself did you abandon in those areas?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what would happen if you decided today to stop playing that role?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because this is really important.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Holding your boundaries and saying no instead of just giving in and saying yes really can go a long way helping you feel less resentment.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And once that happens, right, once there's less resentment, it's much easier to get clear about what you want.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to help you figure out whether you're willing to work on your marriage and see if things can change or not.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where you can learn something really important about your marriage.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's to look at once you start doing those things, once you start holding your boundaries, once you start addressing the issues instead of putting it off.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Once you stop doing things, accommodating when you don't want to accommodate, as an example, your spouse is going to respond.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what I want you to do is notice how they respond.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: How does your spouse respond when you begin advocating for yourself?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're surprised.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're frustrated because this isn't how the two of you have operated for years.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're willing to listen.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you begin making decisions differently, or you discover that there is room in your marriage for both of you to get what you want.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that creates an opportunity to rebuild a healthier relationship.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another possibility.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: You start becoming more assertive, and your husband or your wife has absolutely no interest in the change of the dynamic.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: They expect you to keep giving in.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now you're learning something else that's important.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't simply that you've been putting yourself aside.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your spouse may not be willing to be in a relationship where your needs matter as much as theirs do.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that's really valuable information if you're trying to decide whether or not your marriage can be repaired and if you want it to.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them they're learning in a really good way, good things about their spouse.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and others are like, wow, I had no idea.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, in a in a more negative way, um, how much their spouse is resistant to changing that dynamic.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is this works and it's really, really useful.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And here's something else that I just want you to consider.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you start speaking up, and even if your spouse like responds well, you may decide still that you don't want to stay in the marriage.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe you have too much resentment.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or once you finally start thinking about what you want, you might realize that you just simply want a different life.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: The life that you want and the life that they want are two completely different versions.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what I want to do is I want to leave you with three questions for you to think about this week.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: All right, here they are.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: First, what am I resentful about and what was my role and how we got here?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I would really suggest writing your answer down, right?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, what am I resentful about and what was my role and how we got here?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Pick one thing, the debt, where you live, who handles what in your house, like the chores, um the emotional connection, whatever it is.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then ask yourself, why did I go along with it?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So again, like maybe you thought it was the right thing to do at the time, maybe you wanted to keep the peace, maybe you didn't feel like you had a choice, but those distinctions matter because not every decision you regret was self-abandonment.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, sometimes uh you make a thoughtful compromise and it just doesn't work out, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So those distinctions matter, like figuring it out matters because not every decision that you regret was self-abandonment.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you make a thoughtful compromise and it just doesn't work out.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just really want to get clear that sometimes there isn't somebody to actually blame, but we just inherently will blame our spouse.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't want you to blame yourself either if there was no self-abandonment there, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're just trying to figure out and understand how you got here.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: The next question: what parts of myself have I given up that I want back?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is probably one of my favorite questions.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love this question because it moves you away from what you're unhappy about and toward what you actually want.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to feel financially secure, maybe you want to spend your money differently, maybe you want more time with your friends, maybe you want to take ownership again of your own opinions and be able to express them because somewhere along the way you stop sharing them.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then you want to ask, what's one thing that I could start doing differently?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not five years from now, not after a divorce, but now.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the last question: if I started showing up differently, would my marriage have room for that?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, like I said, how your spouse responds when you start speaking up tells you a lot.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know the answer to that yet, it's definitely worth finding out, trust me, okay?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to assume that divorce is the only way to live differently if you haven't tested whether your marriage can change.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I also don't want you spending the next 10 years waiting on someone who has already shown you that they won't, which is why it's really important to do some of these things.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now here you guys is my final thought.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at your role isn't about blaming yourself, and it's not about excusing your spouse.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that you have to stay.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you have to go.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It matters because if you've spent years setting aside what's important to you, that pattern follows you whether you stay married or not.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you can't go back and take the job or undo the debt, but you can start making different choices today.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as you do, you're going to find out whether your marriage can make room for the person that you want to be.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friends, if you are questioning your marriage and you're still not sure where you are in the like that decision-making process, I encourage you to go take my free quiz.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Should I Get a Divorce?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to help you identify which of the six stages of the divorce decision that you are in.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's just really important for you to know because it helps you figure out how to move into the next step, whatever that next step is.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the link is in the show notes, and you can also find that quiz at kahoskins.com.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to the Divorce Decision podcast and spending your time with me today.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to talking to you next week.