Living With a Resentful Or Angry Partner

The biggest challenge of living with a resentful or angry person is to get anger management help yourself. The high contagion and reactivity of resentment and anger are likely to make you into someone you are not.

The second biggest challenge, should you decide to stay in a relationship with a resentful or angry person is getting him or her to change. Four major thorns are likely to obstruct transformation:
o Victim identity
o Conditioned blame
o Temporary narcissism
o Negative attributions
Victim identity breeds entitlement

Resentful and angry people see themselves as merely reacting to an unfair world. They often feel offended by what they perceive as a general insensitivity to their "needs." As a result, they are likely to feel attacked by any attempt to point out the need for anger management help, much less the effects of their behavior or others.

Driven by high standards of what they should get and what other people should do for them, the angry and resentful frequently feel disappointed and offended, which, in turn, causes more entitlement. It seems only fair, from their perspectives, that they get compensation for their anger management help. Special consideration seems like so little to ask! Here's the logic:

Conditioned to blame
Most problem anger is powered by the habit of blaming uncomfortable emotional states on others. The resentful or angry have conditioned themselves to pin the cause of their emotional states on someone else, thereby becoming powerless over anger management help. Instead, they use the shot of adrenaline-driven energy and confidence that goes with resentment and anger, in the same way that many of us are conditioned to make a cup of coffee first thing in the morning.

The law of blame is that it eventually goes to the closest person. Your resentful or angry partner is likely to blame you for the problems of the relationship - if not life in general - and, therefore, will not be highly motivated to change.

Temporary Narcissism
I have had hundreds of clients who were misdiagnosed by their partners' therapists or self help books with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Although it is unethical and foolhardy for professionals to diagnose anger management help, it is an easy mistake to make with those who are chronically resentful or angry. Indeed, everyone is narcissistic when angry or resentful.
In the adrenalin rush of even low-grade anger, everyone feels entitled and more important than those who have stimulated their anger. Everyone has a false sense of confidence (if not arrogance), is motivated to manipulate, and is incapable of anger management help, while angry or resentful.

Negative Attributions
States of anger and resentment feature narrow and rigid thinking that amplify and magnify only the negative aspects of anger management help. The tendency of the angry and resentful to attribute malevolence, incompetence, or inadequacy to those who disagree with them makes negotiation extremely difficult.

We are all likely to devalue those who incur our resentment or anger. Even if we do it in our heads, without acting it out, the negativity will almost certainly be communicated in anger management help.

The Healing Emotion
You can easily get stuck in a Pendulum of Pain living with a resentful or angry person. This leads to a tragic Catch-22: "When my partner heals whatever hurt seems to cause the resentment and anger, then he/she will be more compassionate." The truth is your partner will not heal without more anger management help.

Compassion breaks the hold of victim identity, habituated blaming, temporary narcissism, and negative attributions by putting us in touch with anger management help. Your compassion will heal you but not your partner.

Because your partner cannot recover without developing greater compassion, the most compassionate thing for you to do is insist that he or she treat you with the value and respect you deserve, if you are to stay in the relationship. You are most humane when you model compassion and insist that your partner do the same.

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