I am really struggling with resenting my DH. He got a great job a couple weeks ago (after being unemployed for more than two years) and promptly was fired for something, details are vague. This is the third job he's had in three years, he gets fired or laid off every time. When he's home, he putzes around the house and spends hours shopping online or creating rants for message forums. I have SO MUCH resentment built up towards him for the last 22 years of this; if it wasn't for me, we would be homeless. I am not ready to divorce, I want to make this relationship work, but he sees no problem with his behavior and refuses to get help or change.
So once again, it has to begin with me. How do you let go of resentment and stop "feeding the beast"? I don't want to feel angry and bitter all the time, but it's so difficult.
I'd like to know also...
Submitted by Second Chances on
How to let go of the resentment. I too feel angry and bitter a lot of the time and that makes me more angry. But I'm not an angry person. I'm just in a crappy situation. I don't have an answer for you but I sure share your feelings and frustration. And I'm sorry you find yourself trapped... you wrote that you're "not ready to divorce"... but is there any other option? I've only been in my relationship for 2.5 years; we live together but are not married. And there is certainly NO marriage anywhere in the future for us. <sigh>
Best of luck to you.
Stop Trying to Change What you Can't....
Submitted by kellyj on
instead, focus on changing what you can. That means you.
I'll share a recent event as example of what I am talking about.
I've worked for the same company for over 20 years ( that must be some kind of record these day, lol) A co-worker whom I dealt with directly on a day to day basis was secretly going behind my back and implicating me with wrong doings to my boss and other co-workers. I later found that he had been doing this for years to cover for his own mistakes and incompetence and it now is clear that he was trying to sabotage me in order to get rid of me so he could have my job.....a cheap way of getting promoted.
I didn't realize he was doing this and it hadn't even crossed my mind that he would.......he posed no real threat to my job since his skills, general knowledge and performance were clearly less than my own even though if you asked him.....he would disagree with this....and did quite often. He basically was in competition with me instead of being a team mate working together for the same goal. This part was at least was very apparent to me and I had become increasingly resentful of the lack of willingness to share the work load and work with me instead of always trying to prove himself as...as good or better than me at nearly every turn in the road.
As time went on......these problems worsened as I found myself not only having to do more work than I normally would have because of his passive aggressive lack of participation......my bosses attitude toward me started to shift to one from being supportive to blaming me for all the woes in our department. I am the foreman so I am responsible for my departments performance but.........what do you do with someone who will not take responsibility for his own actions ( nor can see himself in the situation accurately; thinking his skills and performance greater than they really are in reality, and having an over blown sense of himself yet.... a seeming lack of self confidence and outwardly appearing very insecure, tentative and anxious much of the time.
It finally got to the point where my boss was hammering on me for the shops lack of performance and I became increasingly aware of a negative attitude coming from him and other employees who depended on our department to enable them to also perform efficiently and problem free. I became so resentful of the entire situation that my own performance dropped and I adopted a "who give's a shit attitude" and almost quit.... That was until another employee told me what my co-worker was doing behind my back. I was livid. Now resentment turned to anger and I was inconsolable for about a week and couldn't even speak to my co-worker in fear that I would strangle him right there on the spot. ( I picture the scene in "A League of Their Own"...when Tom Hanks has his hands held up to one of his women baseball players throat as if he is going to kill her by strangulation....that was me. lol)
As much as I wanted to exact some kind of revenge on my co-worker and in essence....do the same thing back at him.......I stopped myself and realized that I was reacting to my co-worker and was letting him dictate how I performed and perceived my own job (as a negative ) instead of doing my job to the best of my ability regardless of anything that my boss, my co-worker or any other person at my job felt about me either good or bad. I decided to do just the opposite of what my emotions were telling me to do and focus on only......what I could do better, more of or change in myself to do my job and responsibilities to the best of my own ability. If I was doing that....then everything else would play out to be whatever it would be. But regardless of the out come.....I would walk away knowing that I had done everything I could have done to do my job at the highest level possible.....for me, no one else. This changed my perspective completely. I was no longer working for my boss or other co-workers but for my own self esteem and self worth as a valued and competent worker no matter where I worked. I wasn't sure at the time that I would even be with my employer for very long thinking that my termination was immanent.
Now....my performance sky rocketed. I found several new techniques to perform even better than before. I developed new methods to alleviate the inner department glitches in our company that have inherently plagued us for years and took time away from my own job to work with other employees to employ them.....together. I established new rules and procedure (boundaries) for my co-worker in a very assertive manner ie; I gave him no choice...like it or not. His problems, incompetence issues and lack of performance were now under my control. I took time to teach him new skills, show him how to do things better and insisted that he do them my way. I took the freedom he had to do what he was doing away him....both to sabotaging me and the company...and to himself.
The net effect to this story was that my co-worker was ultimately fired. I actually had the chance to tell my boss to either let him go or keep him and I chose to say the latter under the condition that he work with me and does what I tell him to do with my bosses support of me in doing so but......my co-worker ended up resisting this so much my boss finally lost his patience and fired him for lack of performance. Other employees now saw what was actually happening before and lost respect for my co-worker and what he had attempted to do...... and when my boss saw the performance level of our department spike upward dramatically as well as the inner workings between the other departments.....he too stopped hammering on me and took the reigns off me and let me go.....having the freedom to continue on the path I was now on since it was clearly working ie: more money in the tlll at the end of the day.
Bottom line to this story is this. I did nothing more than simply change my attitude and do the same job I had done for over 20 years even better than before. I did this for myself. I was no longer working for just a paycheck......or for my boss or my co-workers based on their contingencies and attitudes about me.....I was working for myself......for my own net worth, self esteem and satisfaction that I was doing the best I could at performing my job and making sure I did not overlook anything new that I could change or do better in order to accomplish my goal. The moment I changed my perspective to this......all the anger, negative emotions and resentment disappeared. I stopped worrying about getting laid off...about what my co-worker might be doing behind my back....about anything my other co-workers might have said in the past to disrespect me including my boss. I was now working for myself and taking control of only the things I had control over and then doing them to the best of my ability so I could walk away each day knowing that I did and never having to look back over my shoulder out of insecurity or fear, with my head held high and the attitude to go with it.
This all happened within the last 2 years.....I've continued to do the same thing to this day and anytime I feel myself slipping away from this way of thinking I tell myself the exact same words that I just wrote in the last paragraph. " I'm working for myself and the benefits that working this way brings to me." Anything anyone else does in relationship to this is irrelevant.
I now look forward to going to work every day mainly because I really do love the work I do and this has a lot to do with this story but....it went from dreading each day and all the people in it to looking forward to each day and seeing others as team mates instead of adversaries
Perspective and attitude is everything!! Changing these two things changes everything!!
Jjamieson....what a terrific post
Submitted by dedelight4 on
WOW....This is one incredible story. I LOVE, love, love how you handled yourself in this very difficult situation. Plus, you came out on top, even better and with a great perspective on the whole thing. Just like you said.......perspective and attitude. Wow. This really makes me think and want to do this as well, not for my DH, but for me....and in the long run...for everyone else. Nice. Thank you.
Responsibility and Victim Mentality
Submitted by kellyj on
This is a good example of taking responsibility for your emotions. I haven't always had success stories like this in my past like this one and the times I haven't was when I let my emotions "get the better of me" ( literally ....the best parts of me ) and I became a victim to them. It's one thing to be angry and have the need to vent or the need to share negative feelings with others for support in the moment........but if you can never move from this place and use your emotions to direct you to take action based on what you know will be the best thing for you ( and others) according to what you believe in.......then you are doomed ( trapped ) into living with these negative emotions and always blaming someone else for how you feel. This is victim mentality and it appears to run rampant in many people these days. This is a different kind of taking responsibility that gets overlooked when the word "responsibility" gets used......compared to what people commonly associate with the word ie: paying bills on time, chores, raising children and being a parent etc......
This can easily be applied to the things that I am reading in these posts too .....in reference to the spouses who have ADHD and the ones who have to live with them. If we (ADHD spouses ) have things about us that make us unreliable in certain ways (pick one) whether we have control of them or not......and these things cause anger and resentment on the side of the non-ADHD spouses.........it might be beneficial for everyone concerned to simply stop relying on us for that one given thing ( picking your battles ). By doing this......you are taking responsibility for this (thing) instead of trying to make the other person responsible for it on your behalf......which might be something that they can't, won't or don't want to do for you in the first place. It doesn't matter the reason why if they aren't doing it and you need ( or want ) them to. Once you take responsibility for this yourself ( and I mean...willingly without resentment with a positive attitude for it like in my story) the anger and resentment towards that thing will disappear and yet you've done nothing more than change your own relationship to this (thing) itself.
The one thing that is required first however is to fully commit to either staying or leaving. If you are going to leave....then leave. You are free to do this at anytime. No one is literally locked or chained to being in a relationship with someone ( unless your into that kind of thing ha). If you feel trapped or victimized by your partner because of something he or she is doing or not doing......and you need them to (or stop)...then you are doing this to yourself because you are taking away your own freedom to leave as an option. (which is always an option even if you convinced yourself this isn't true).
Once you start from this premise you can make the choice. You are not a victim to anyone else no matter what they do. And if you choose to stay.....then you need to choose the things that are within your power to change if you want or need them to. Again...this is your choice to also make someone else responsible for the things that you think you need from them......or not?
When I was in college....my roommate and I ( also my best friend growing up) lined up pretty well as far as the needs and wants we had for one another. House cleaning was not high on the priority list. If it was for my roommate.....then there might have been an issue. But......it wasn't and there was no issue with my tendencies for clutter and doing multiple projects inside the house.
Now......I don't want to live like this anymore and so......I have to take responsibility for my messes. My spouse is potentially the worst choice I could have made for a partner since she is a neat freak and has a high need for things to be kept in order. You couldn't have asked me to do anything that is more difficult to do than this. I can build an entire house from scratch, I can build a car from the ground up, I can make my own furniture, make a guitar or do an entire list of things that many people could not imagine doing themselves........but ask me to do things that fall under my ADHD symptoms, and these things are very difficult for me to do or not do compared to someone who doesn't.....for me, this would include a lot of simple duties that most people are taught to do when they are young and able to do them with relative ease on a consistent basis. Making me responsible for these things are going to be problematic from the git go. In my case.....I'm accepting the responsibly for them not having them applied to me or given to me by someone else based on their own wants, needs or expectations for me to accept them.
I chose to be with my spouse and with that.....I'm choosing to take on the responsibility of keeping the house clean despite my limitations. If I fall short of this......then I also have to accept the fact that my spouse is not going to be happy about it. There is no resentment on my part because her displeasure with me is legitimate. If she gets carried away with her own expectations that are out of scale with my ability to perform them....then I get to say this too as long as I am trying to do the best I can and actually doing something about it.
There are some things that I know that I'm going to fail at consistently and it would be best for all concerned....not to make me responsible for. If I tell people this up front and they still require me to adhere to their needs for me to do it...... this is likely to become a lose/lose for everyone. Best just not to go there and pick something else where I can be much better at doing consistently. (pick your battles)
This is where the anger and resentment begins and ends. It's much harder to stop doing things sometimes than it is to learn to do something new. In my case and with ADHD symptoms in general........I would strongly agree with this statement.
Jjamieson, you say it well
Submitted by dedelight4 on
Hey J. I love you you elegantly verbalize what you are doing. I wish my ADHD husband could do the same. He will not talk about his ADHD, and now thinks he's "stopped doing the things he was doing before". (done...over with) So, he doesn't think there's a problem any more.
I hope you keep writing because others can use your strategies in their own lives, if they so choose.