Note to the hurting

There is a type of bitterness in Scripture that is a healthy response to trauma, oppression and abuse. We experience it as we plumb the depths of the loss, and the enormity of the wrongs we have experienced, and begin to move toward healing. We feel and express agony, grief and anger, accompanied by a deep cry for justice.¹

This post is not about that. It is not a call to “let go” of uncomfortable emotions that are in process and need to be felt.

Rather, the resentment addressed here represses and corrupts those emotions. Ultimately, it cultivates the cruelty and injustice that it hates.

This is a plea not to suppress anger and grief in such a way that they morph into something malevolent. It’s a call to recognize such malevolence in someone else when it is turned against you.

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Time and again in recent years, I’ve tried to tell someone, “What you have believed about me is not true.”

But even when I said it, when I tried desperately and at length to show it, when I further explained, “I am for you, with you and not the one hurting you!” I have rarely been believed, or even heard.

Resentment has blocked the way.

Counted as the enemy

It’s often said, “Resentment is like taking poison and expecting your enemy to die.”

Online posts about resentment typically start from this assumption. Many of them quote some version of it.

Rightly, these posts expose the devastating effects of resentment on the person who harbors it. But in so doing, they downplay something else:

The person filled with resentment is not the only one hurt by it.

Maybe the authors fear that saying as much will only feed resentment. For resentment tells us, “They have hurt you. A lot. And you’ve been powerless to do anything about it. You have good cause for wanting them to hurt too.”

Truth is: If someone is set on controlling and mistreating you, you do have good cause for anger. But festering resentment is very different from healthy anger. And resentment aimed at an abuser likely will not affect them, except possibly to amuse them, or to make them feel more powerful still. So in that case, your resentment only poisons you.

But also, the more resentment festers, the more likely it is to land where there is no just cause. Pia Mellody tells why:

Often, in reaction to something someone has told us, we experience a very uncomfortable emotion and go to resentment or self-pity, even though there has been no boundary violation. [In this case], the resentment is invariably provoked by some false information that we have made up in our own heads as to the meaning of what has been said to us.

And, invariably, we make up such information because we are feeling bad about ourselves before the provocation. We make ourselves the victims of a violation that did not occur.²

Wherever resentment lands without cause, the persons on the receiving end suffer from it. They suffer from being counted and treated as the enemy, when they are not.

Discounted by the experts

Several articles by Steven Stosny showcase the dangers of harboring resentment, and urge people not to continue in it.

Stosny says, “Dragging the chain of resentment through life is like carrying around a bag of horse manure. You want to smear the bag of horse do-do in the face of the person you resent. So you carry it around, waiting for the opportunity, and carry it around, and carry it around, and carry it around. And who stinks?”³

He explains: “Resentment requires an attribution of blame: ‘It’s someone’s fault that I feel bad or powerless.’”⁴

Also: “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.”⁵

What’s more, “resentment greatly distorts thinking” and over time “becomes a world view or way of life.”⁶

In one post, Stosny writes:

Chronic resentment in intimate relationships inevitably leads to some form of verbal or emotional abuse and, eventually – if the couple hangs in there – to contempt and disgust.⁷

Yet in another post he maintains, “The biggest challenge of living with a resentful or angry person is to keep from becoming one yourself.”⁸

I think not.

It’s definitely a challenge for the person on the receiving end of resentment not to become resentful too. But by far the biggest challenge – when wrongly and relentlessly treated with animosity – is to see and to overcome the abuse.

One online article simply titled, “Resentment,” briefly mentions two other issues that deeply affect those resented without cause:

“If left to bubble under the surface, resentment can end relationships.”

“Resentment can also be broad and applied to large groups of people, often with drastic consequences; for example, racism and religious persecution often develop from deep-seated resentment.”⁹

How can we acknowledge that resentment causes abuse, destroys relationships and creates large-scale enmity against whole groups of people – and then maintain that it only hurts the one who harbors it?

Yes, resentment is poisonous to the resentful, even when it is “broad.”¹⁰

Yet the danger to the resented person or group is also real and, in some cases, extreme. This is especially true if the resentful feel like victims but actually have privilege and power.¹¹

Resentment tells a mom her newborn is the cause of all the hurt and disappointment in her life – and goads her, from that moment to her last breath, to reject her child.

Resentment blames the buried pain of childhood abuse on anyone misidentified with the abuser.

Resentment attaches to people who shine a light on things others do not want to see – even when the ones shining the light speak from love and concern, or when their sole intent is to face and deal with their own stuff.

Resentment fuels centuries of oppression, decades-long domestic abuse and brutal attacks that take multiple lives in a single breath.

And yet, like everything that is both toxic and hidden, resentment can appear, even to the experts, to be relatively harmless to those it is directed against. It can be missed, until too late, by the people in its sights.

A poisonous stew

Resentment has been described as:

• bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.¹²
• indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury.

What we call resentment is in fact a toxic mix of emotions that have been buried and held.

Instead of facing, feeling and appropriately dealing with anger, self-pity, envy or offense, resentment goads us to swallow them and make sure they stew. The longer the mix simmers under the surface, the more poisonous it becomes. In the process, it produces malice, revulsion, hate.

“Though resentment can be fleeting, dissipating when someone realizes an event was misinterpreted or receives an apology from the person who committed the offense, it can also be a persistent emotion.”¹³

By its very nature, resentment tends to persist.

“Resentment is like rust. It spreads and ends up debilitating an entire structure and identity.”¹⁴

“You can stay resentful for years on end.”¹⁵

Reality or not

“Persistent resentment might stem from a serious matter.”¹⁶ Indeed, “a lot of resentful people have been victims of complicated and hurtful situations where they didn’t see any other way out than bottling everything up inside them as anger.”¹⁷

Yet even when it is triggered by real wrongdoing: “The human emotion of resentment is one of the most futile and destructive emotions.”¹⁸

Many times, resentment occurs in people who feel victimized when they are not. For resentment may arise when privilege is threatened, or narcissistic supply withdrawn.

Thus resentment “may come from a true, imagined, or misunderstood injustice.”¹⁹

What’s more, “A person may become resentful as a result of a slight injustice or a grave one, perhaps harboring the same bitterness and anger over a small matter as they would over a more serious issue.”²⁰

And: “Nobody resents just one thing.” “Instead, each new incident of perceived unfairness automatically links onto previous ones, eventually forging a heavy chain.” “The chain of resentment makes us look for things to resent.” “No offense is too trivial or too unrealistic to be added as yet another link on the chain.”²¹

The longer resentment seethes in darkness:

• the more likely it is to blow things out of proportion;
• the more prone to blame something or someone that did not cause the offense;
• the more often it imagines injustice where none exists.

Obsessed with revenge

Ultimately, resentment can produce hatred obsessed with revenge. The story of King Saul clearly shows this progression.

Saul resented the young man David, because David did good for the king and the kingdom, and got praised for it. Repeatedly, Saul accused David of treason. Relentlessly, Saul tried to kill him. More than once, David had to run for his life. He spent years hiding in caves and living in exile.

“They bring down trouble upon me,” David cried. “In anger they bear a grudge against me” (Psalm 55:3 NASB). It all began with one man.

This friend of mine betrayed me – I who was at peace with him. His words were oily smooth, but in his heart was war. His words were sweet, but underneath were daggers. (Psalm 55:20 TLB)

Determined to kill David, Saul painted himself as the victim of David. People who wanted to stay on the king’s good side bought into the lie. Ultimately, Saul’s resentment destroyed Saul. But for years, David endured its torment:

Those who hate me without cause are more numerous than the hairs of my head. Those who want to destroy me, my enemies for no reason, outnumber me. (Psalm 69:4 NET)

Those who hate me without reason … devise false accusations. (Psalm 35:19-20)

They hid their net for me without cause and without cause dug a pit for me. (Psalm 35:7)

They have spoken against me with lying tongues. With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. They repay me evil for good. (Psalm 109:2-3, 5)

My heart is in anguish within me. (Psalm 55:4 NASB)

What resentment hath wrought

Other stories throughout the Bible affirm: Resentful people hurt themselves. And often misdirect their resentment. And profoundly hurt other people too.

Cain resented Abel, even though Cain’s real problem was Cain, and his quarrel was with God. No matter. Cain invited his brother out to the field, and killed him.

Jacob resented Leah for the rest of her life, after Leah posed as her sister Rachel on the day Rachel and Jacob were supposed to wed. No matter that Jacob needed (and received) forgiveness for his own profound deception. He had posed as his brother Esau, on the day Esau was supposed to receive a blessing from their dad. 

No matter that the primary instigator of the wedding deception was Laban, Rachel and Leah’s dad. Jacob refused to forgive Leah, even when she tried again and again to make up for the wrong she had done. Adamantly, he hated her, while at the same time using her penance to get himself many sons.

Leah and Rachel resented each other. After the wedding deception and their marriage to the same man fractured the sisters’ relationship, each wanted what the other had. Rachel was loved; Leah was fertile. No matter that the real source of both their pain was patriarchy and polygamy. The sisters’ resentment manifested as jealousy of each other.

Joseph’s brothers resented Joseph. That’s not a surprise. The sons of the hated wife resented the sons of the loved. No matter that … Well, you get it. Joseph’s brothers took their revenge by way of stealth attack. They kidnapped Joseph, threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery. Then they told the father who had scorned their mom that a wild animal had killed his favorite son.

High-ranking officials in Persia resented Daniel for snaring the top spot. Unable to find grounds to bring charges against him, they manipulated the king, maliciously accused Daniel and got him thrown into the lion’s den.

Did Mary, Jesus’ mother, resent the women who traveled with Jesus during an earthly ministry that frightened her and left her out? Mary went so far as to go with her other sons to get Jesus to take him home. Surely, she left stunned and hurt, after he refused to see her, after he looked at the people gathered around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”²²

The religious leaders deeply resented Jesus for being who he is. They took every passive-aggressive tack they could take, before finally inciting his arrest and death.

We may point to the ways God worked in all these situations, to overcome evil with good. That does not change the fact: The suffering caused by resentment was real and deep.

Surviving the poison

So yes, resentment is poison. It slowly kills those who wallow in it. In the process, it turns them into someone else, someone ever-more-bent on throwing ever-more-wildly, ever-more-poisonous darts.

Resentment fills the resentful with an active desire to hurt others and a delight in their pain and loss.

Resentment paints bullseyes on the wrong backs, and taunts, taunts, taunts the resentful to take their best shot.

Anger felt and rightly expressed can move us to speak truth, expose wrong, seek justice, call to account. Resentment perverts justice. It multiplies wrongs.

Please, please, ask God the Spirit to help you recognize resentment when you see it, whether it’s simmering within you or directed at you.

If you find resentment in your heart, own it. Ask the Lord for grace to trace it to its real source, and to pull it up by the roots.

If someone who resents you has cause to be angry with you, face that too. Confess it to God and to the person, and turn.

But also, please, please, do not ignore resentment that accuses and blames you, falsely, relentlessly. It is not your imagination. It is not harmless. It will not just go away.

Recognize the danger, even when the resentment is coming from someone you want very much to trust. Be wary, be prudent. Physically flee, if needed, as David did from Saul.

And remember: Sometimes in trying to survive Saul’s vendetta, David did what was wise and right; sometimes he did not. But each time David lost his way, he got back on track. And ultimately, he overcame what threatened to take him out – because, repeatedly, he cried to God for help; earnestly, he told his Lord, “I trust in you.”

If ever you are resented without a cause, you won’t handle it perfectly either. Yet Spirit-to-spirit, you too can overcome.

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This post was significantly revised January 16, 2021.

Image by Jalyn Bryce from Pixabay

Helps for overcomers

Whether resentment is eating us up from within or attacking us from without or both, we overcome it the same way we do all things in Christ – by his Spirit and his grace. I’ve written a lot on both these subjects. If you want to know more, here are some key posts to get you started.

• Heartcry
• The blessing of mourning
• Spirit to spirit: A matter of life and breath
• Humble your soul, release your spirit
• I will fear no evil: Resting in God’s very present help
• The truth will set you free

Online articles quoted

Steven Stosny, psychologytoday.com

• Chains of Resentment
• Living with a Resentful or Angry Partner
• Overcoming Chronic Resentment and the Abuse It Causes

Others

• “The Psychology of Resentment: What Do Resentful People Hide?” Exploring Your Mind.
• “Resentment,” GoodTherapy blog.
• “Resentment,” Wikipedia.
• “Resentment, What Does It Mean and What Causes It?” The Tapping Solution.
• “The Uses of Resentment,” Theodore Dalrymple, psychologytoday.com.

Footnotes

1. For an exploration of biblical bitterness, see Rebecca Davis’ post and video, “The good news about Biblical bitterness,” at heresthejoy.com. ↩︎
2. The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love, by Pia Mellody, Lawrence S. Freundlich (HarperCollins e-books). Also see Brené Brown’s teaching on “the stories we tell ourselves” in her book, Rising Strong. ↩︎
3. Chains of Resentment post ↩︎
4. Chronic Resentment post ↩︎
5. Resentful Partner post ↩︎
6. Chronic Resentment post ↩︎
7. Chronic Resentment post ↩︎
8. Resentful Partner post ↩︎
9. GoodTherapy post ↩︎
10. See “How the politics of racial resentment is killing white people,” for a look at the striking ways whites who resent other races are “dying of whiteness.” ↩︎
11. For stunning examples, do an online search of “resentment in Hitler’s Germany” or “racial resentment,” or see today’s news. ↩︎
12. Tapping Solution post ↩︎
13. GoodTherapy post ↩︎
14. Psychology of Resentment post ↩︎
15. Chains of Resentment post ↩︎
16. GoodTherapy post ↩︎
17. Psychology of Resentment post ↩︎
18. Uses of Resentment post ↩︎
19. GoodTherapy post ↩︎
20. GoodTherapy post ↩︎
21. Chains of Resentment post ↩︎
22. See Mark 3:20-22, 31-35. ↩︎