00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 290, "Resentment and Contempt in Our Relationships." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Well, hey there, everyone. Welcome to the podcast today. So glad to have you here. Before we jump in full force, I just want to remind you that if you are interested in a discussion group about physical and emotional intimacy, go over to my website, tanyahale.com. Go to "contact me," scroll down just a little bit and there's a place where you can sign up for my "weekend win." It's just a quick email that you get on the weekends that just gives you some coaching concepts and some ideas to think about. And also important is that it's going to get you on an email list so that when that class, that discussion group, is available, you are one of the first people to know about it. 

01:03 

Also, just a quick reminder that if you've been thinking that this is maybe a good time for you to start looking at some one on-one coaching to help you really up level your game in what you have going on and figure it out at a deeper level and get through it with more courage, with more confidence, coaching is a great, great option. And this is a great time because I have just moved my free consults from a 30 minute consult to a 90 minute consult. And the reason I have done this is because I just felt like a lot of the consults we weren't able to get very deep in the concepts that you needed some help with and some insight on. And so I felt like the 90 minute really gives me time to work with you to actually do some coaching with you to help you see patterns, help you see things that really can use some attention from you. And then also to talk about coaching and help you understand how it can help you and hopefully get you on board to do some of the most difficult and most challenging and most meaningful work of your life. 

02:12 

So that being said, let's jump into today's podcast. I love this topic. We're talking about resentment and contempt in our relationships. Now, not that I love resentment and contempt, but I love the insight that I've been able to gain this week. So one of the favorite things about this work for me that I get to do is the constant evolution of concepts that I work with. So often when I'm working with a client, they will ask a question or share a situation and a concept we're working on will expand for me, and I will see aspects of it that I hadn't connected before, put pieces together. So such is the situation and the topic for this week. 

02:48 

I do a lot of work with clients on helping them to see how their one-up and one-down behaviors are compromising their relationships. And one of the trickiest parts is that we often don't even recognize the behaviors as being one-up or one down, because our primitive brain is just doing what it does. It's always seeking to either conserve energy, avoid pain, or increase pleasure. And often what our primitive brain thinks is going to do these things are behaviors that can be pretty destructive to our relationship. And they are patterned behaviors, patterned thoughts in our brain that our brain knows, "oh, I don't have to use any extra energy to use the same thought that I've already used a lot of times." And so it pulls upon these patterned thoughts, these patterned behaviors, and they, these often show up in the form of one-up and one-down behaviors that are destructive. 

03:43 

So to quickly review, one-upping in our relationship is when we put ourselves in a position, figuratively, meaning in our minds, as being better than the other person or more important than the other person. It could be better intellectually, it could be better with common sense, with our ability to make more money, to manage the house, to parent better, to being a better spouse. Basically any way that we can think of that we believe makes us better than the other person. Now we all have strengths, we all have weaknesses that are different than the other people in our lives, and that's not what we're talking about here. More so we're talking about when we really think we are better and they are lesser. One-downing, by contrast, in our relationships is when we put ourselves in a lower position, and again in many of the same scenarios, in our intellect, in common sense, in money making, parenting, managing the house and family, ways that we see ourselves as  lacking and not as valuable or not as important. 

04:44 

I am really starting to understand that these approaches in our relationships, particularly in our more intimate relationships like marriage, are so damaging. And here's why: when we're in a one-up position, we create feelings of contempt. And when we are in a one-down position, we create feelings of resentment. And contempt and resentment are incredibly destructive to the emotional intimacy in our relationships. Let's take a closer look at how and why this happens. When I see myself in a one-down position, meaning that I see myself as less important, as less valuable, then the feeling that is created by those thoughts are ones of being insignificant, subordinate, or less than. When I have those feelings, the actions that are created are not advocating for my wants and needs, not moving into vulnerability, not sharing my feelings, acquiescing my desires, not sharing my desires, not sharing my ideas, moving into submission.;" See how that comes about from those feelings of being insignificant or subordinate, right? These actions then create a result in my life of showing up as though I'm not important. 

05:58 

And here's where it gets even more interesting, because when I show up as not important, okay, when those actions we just talked about, when they move into my next thought model, they become the circumstance in my next model. And when I show up that way, my thoughts might be, "I'm not being seen or heard. I don't matter to this other person. I have to always be the one to give in. They don't care what I want. I'm always being taken advantage of." Okay, thoughts like that. And what feelings are those types of thoughts most likely to create? A feeling of resentment. Resentment is defined as "a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, an insult, or an injury." Resentment is an emotion that creates actions of avoidance, emotionally or physically disengaging, passive-aggressive comments, shutting down, not speaking up. It basically shows up in behaviors that are destructive to our relationships. I always imagine resentment showing up in our hearts in a way that it displaces love. So I like to imagine that our heart has 100 units available in it. When I put 20 units of resentment into my heart, I now only have space in my heart for 80 units of love. And the more my resentment grows, the less space I have in my heart for love. And the less love I feel, the less loving behaviors I engage in with the people in my life. I find myself getting easily annoyed by small behaviors that really aren't that big of a deal, but they seem big when they are seen through the lens of resentment. 

07:41 

For example, think back to when your relationship was new and there was no resentment in your heart. Your spouse could come up behind you when you were doing something and hug you and maybe nuzzle your neck. And you would stop what you were doing and enjoy the connection. You would turn around, you would respond positively to this bid for connection. When resentment is overtaking our heart, he can show up to hug and nuzzle you from behind and you will get annoyed and shut him down. Maybe tell him to leave you alone and stop it, and "I've got things to do and you're bothering me" and you're thinking that he's just so annoying. Notice that his bid for connection is being shut down. The sliding door was open. He opened it and said, "hey, do you want to come in here and connect with me?" And you chose not to step through it. In fact, you actually chose to slam the door in his face. Resentment is not pretty in our relationships and it does not have us showing up well. It shows up in subversive, passive-aggressive ways and it sends the message that the other person is not valued or cared for. So notice that the beginning thoughts in our one down thinking that were not important, that what we want doesn't matter, shows up in our behaviors of treating the other person as though they are not important, that they don't matter. Fascinating, right? 

09:06 

If you are seeing this behavior in yourself, first of all, refrain from beating yourself up and rather look on it with curiosity, with fascination at how the thought model plays out for you. Beating yourself up will only shut down your ability to see it with curious eyes and figure it out and see it more clearly and make adjustments. Okay, so what makes this so tricky is because we really do at these times see ourselves as victims to our circumstances and to their behaviors. We see that they have put us in this disempowered place. We often think that we are doing what we should be doing to have a good relationship to keep the peace. Like we're not yelling, we're not talking back, we're keeping our mouth shut even when we don't want to, and we're often doing what we were taught to do when we were younger. We are keeping the peace at all costs. We are people pleasing in an attempt to make everyone happy. And this is when we see ourselves as a victim, helpless to make changes in the relationship because of them. We feel stuck and we feel powerless. And it shows up in underlying resentment that manifests itself in dangerous and damaging ways to our relationships. 

10:27 

Alright, so now let's look at the one-upping thoughts. This very often will be manifest in thoughts such as, "oh he's such a baby. He's so incompetent. Can't he do any more? anything right? I swear he's never going to grow up. I don't have three children. I have four. He's so selfish. What is wrong with him?" So when these are our thoughts, what feelings do we create? We create contempt. Contempy is defined as "the act of despising or lack of respect for something or someone." Now, I know "contempt" seems like a very strong word and a lot of you probably just went, "I don't have contempt for my husband," but I want you to hold out here. Let's get real and let's get honest with ourselves about how we often show up. If you have struggles in your relationship, there is most likely some contempt going on. When we despise someone or don't respect them, we treat them as less than. We talk down to them. We overlook them. We demean them. We disregard their ideas and opinions. We dismiss them. We don't listen. We think we're smarter than them. We don't allow grace for human foibles. Are you seeing the pattern of behaviors going on here? 

11:42 

And more importantly, are you seeing these behaviors or ones like them in your relationship? If you are, you are moving in a contemptuous space. And this is dangerous and damaging to your relationship. And again, notice that the more contempt you have in your heart, the less love you are able to fill for your spouse. It's that same hundred units in your heart, that we hope is filled with love, but when we start filling it with resentment or contempt, it takes the space that love fills and we have less love in our hearts. What makes the one-upping so tricky is because it all seems so reasonable in our minds. We think "if they would just _____, then we wouldn't be in this mess." Moving into blame is so easy from this space of contempt. We see them as the reason for our difficulties. We see them as not pulling their weight, as not stepping into partnership, while all the while not realizing that our contempt for them has pushed them into a corner where they can't do anything right. They are damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. So they shut down and don't engage at all emotionally or physically. And it's all so darn subtle. This is why working with a coach to clean this up can be so valuable because it all makes sense in your mind. It all seems reasonable, even expected. And so our brains don't even question our behaviors. It doesn't even get on our radar of something being out of whack. Working with a coach, with someone who will notice the patterns of behavior and call you out on them, help to bring them to your awareness, and this can be so, so valuable. 

13:37 

The next really tricky part of this equation is trying to figure out what equal looks like and sounds like. When I work with clients and we identify their one up or their one down behavior and then I ask them what it would look like or sound like to show up equally, they often get stuck. Because guess what? Many of us in these dysfunctional relationships have never shown up equally. We don't know what it sounds like. We don't know what it looks like. And these clients will struggle to think outside of the one-up and one-down box because it has been part of the air they have been breathing for so long. So let's look at some examples of what equal looks like. Stepping into it equally will look like...oftentimes when I work with potential clients, they want to speak with their spouse about making a big financial decision to work with me. 100% get it. It's a lot of money and that's one of the things that we often put on the table with our spouse, you know, if I'm gonna spend a lot of money...and many women will automatically approach money from a one-down position, a place where they consider their wants and needs, for the money, as being less important than what their husbands would want to spend the money on. Less important than what their kids need or maybe thinking they don't deserve it. Because their husband makes more money, or he makes all the money so he gets more say. So when they are considering that they want something expensive for themselves, they see it as selfish and unreasonable. So they will approach their spouse in a one-down position saying something like "I know it's a lot of money and you said we don't have a lot of money, but I was hoping you would reconsider and allow me to do this coaching." Notice the one-down? It's a space of asking for permission. Something that someone in a subordinate position would do. This is a space of submission, of not feeling that they are equals, that they have an equal say of how to spend the money, of not feeling that their wants and needs matter. 

15:46 

So in this situation, now whether it be talking about coaching or whether it be wanting to spend money on something else, what would equal look like in the case of wanting to spend a large amount of money? The thoughts of equality are ones that consider that the money belongs to both of you and not just him, that you have as much right to determine how to spend the money as he does, that your wants and needs and desires are just as important as his. Notice I'm not suggesting that we stop swing way to the other end of the spectrum and go into the one-up position and demand that you get to spend the money how you want. "You're behaving this way so I get to behave this way" or "you're spending money on this so I get to spend money on this." We're not moving into that either. We want to be stepping into equality. So if this is difficult for you to  imagine, take the scenario out of a marriage and see yourself working with a 50-50 business partner and figure out how would you approach the conversation. If you were in a 50-50 business situation and you had something that cost a lot of money that you felt would be beneficial for maybe you, a conference that you were going to, or maybe for your business, how would you approach it? 

17:06 

Okay, so let's take that then into this marriage situation. How do we approach this discussion about money from an equal partner position? Equal might sound something like this. "This is something I'm considering spending this much money on. I feel this is important because..." list all your reasons, talk about why you feel it's important, and then you can finish up with, "what are your thoughts?" Notice we're not sitting across the table from each other and making it a you-versus-me stance. We are scooching our butts around the table, sitting cheek to cheek and discussing it from a place of creating collaboration, because what you want is as valid as what he wants. He may not understand why you want what you want, but you want it and that's okay, you get to want what you want. 

18:00 

That is the equality in a relationship. And being able to approach these types of conversations from a place of equality really requires that we see ourselves as equals, that we move out of the mentality that either they make the money so they have more of a say or they make all the money so they're more important than we are when we choose to partner up, we are partnering up with money as well. I know that this is just one example of how we do this, but I think it's a pretty good one and I have a personal example that I wanted to share with you around money. Sione and I had an experience right after we got married that really shocked me into stepping into money equality. I felt very equal with him, but when we got married almost two years ago in March, I was teaching school in Utah and we know how much money teachers make and he is a doctor here in Indiana, meaning he made a lot more money than I did. And I wanted to finish out the school year, which meant I stayed in my house in Utah for another three months while he was living here in Indiana. And when I got married, I no longer got the alimony payment that I was receiving and that was helping me to stay afloat with the expenses that I had. And I didn't have enough money to cover my expenses. And after two months, I was behind and it was stressing me out. And I was scared and I was hesitant to talk to Sione about it. Thinking that I should be able to figure it out, right? I'm a grown adult woman. I've been on my own for a long time. I know how to do this. But a few months in, I was needing some help. And I don't remember all of the particulars of what was going on and how I brought it up at this point. But I did bring it up one time when we were chatting and I was crying. And I was in so much shame about needing to ask him for money. And it was that painful, heart-wrenching, ugly cry shame that we feel sometimes. 

20:07 

And when I finally couraged up and told him of my dilemma and how I was building a credit card balance, which was not my norm, he asked me how much money I needed. And I told him and the money I needed was immediately Venmo'd to me by him. And then he said something that hit me like a ton of bricks. He said as near as I can recall, "when you put me in a one up position because I make more money than you, and when you don't see this as your money as well, you are keeping us from being equal partners." And we had spent so much time talking about how we really wanted to be equally yoked and I didn't see that I wasn't. I didn't see that I was one-downing myself. I just thought I was trying to take care of myself. So I made a course adjustment on how I viewed us in the relation to our money and he's regretted it ever since. Actually, really just kidding, he has not regretted it but I did make the adjustment and I realized that he wanted an equal partner. 

21:28 

And I believe most men want equal partners. I think we all just have these societal views of showing up in relationship in one-up and one-down. And when I talk to friends and people who are dating after divorce and they're just always like, "I don't think there are men like Sione out there," and I'm always like, "I think there's a lot of men like Sione out there." I think there's a lot of men in marriages like Sione who want this equal partnership and yet we've created these patterns and these painful places where we are always in protective mode and so it just seems like we don't want equality. This shift from me required that I start seeing us as partners in all things, that I viewed us as equals, even though we weren't equal in all the things that we contributed to the marriage. Because. of course, we contribute different things in our marriages and we can't see those things as making us better or worse than. Sione contributed more money but I contributed all of these amazing tools that I teach you and that we've been able to incorporate into our marriage. and we could add hundreds of other things that we each contribute that are different than the other person, but neither of us think that we are better than the other one for any of it. We truly see ourselves as equals and treat each other accordingly and and as a result there has been little to no resentment or contempt in our marriage. 

23:01 

Okay, so here's another example that I want to share with you. Often when we're planning events in our families, one of us will take point. Okay, so we just finished Christmas. So let's use that as an example. Many women just take the lead on all things Christmas. We have these grand ideas. So we plan and we prepare all the meals, we buy and we wrap up the gifts, we do the bulk of the decorating and any other preparations that we feel are necessary for our magical Christmas. And in this process though, we often don't involve our spouse in the planning and the preparing. We get really run down. We get frustrated. We get angry at their lack of involvement. We may tend to start taking a one-up position. They're not helping with the gifts. We are doing most of the work in the kitchen and then we find ourselves not asking for help because then we couldn't play the martyr card and talk about how we do all the work and they are just doing the fun things like playing games with everybody while we're stressed out in the kitchen 

24:00 

Okay, I know most of us Identify with this at some level right in this scenario, we might say things like "you just expect me to do everything. I have to do all the work. If it wasn't for me, Christmas wouldn't come. It's a good thing I'm here. No one would get any gifts." Any of this sound familiar? For some of you, I'm pretty positive it does and even if we keep these thoughts in our heads and don't say them out loud, they are oozing out of us. We are still one-upping and we go into contempt. Let's look at the one-upping that's going on here. First, did we discuss Christmas as equals as partners or did we just make some decisions about what we wanted to happen? When we make all the decisions and just expect them to be on board and even do things they don't know that we would like them to do, we are one-upping. Then when we get angry with them and create contempt around their lack of involvement, we are one-upping as well. Equal partnership here would look like a discussion where we both decide what we would like to happen. And it's okay if one person does more more stuff because they have more time or they love doing it more. But let's be Christmas partners. Both of us involved in creating the Christmas or the birthday or the vacation that we want. Who are we inviting? How are we going to accommodate them? Will we be playing games? And if so, what games? And if there's prep, who's going to do the prep and how's that going to work? Are we going out to dinner sometime or are we going to be making dinner? What activities are we planning? What are we going to do for gifts? All of these types of things can be done and talked about together. Your spouse may say, "oh, I don't care. You just do what you want to do." But if you care whether he is involved in the execution of whatever is planned, then that needs to be part of your we are equals discussion. We have to approach it as equals. 

26:06 

And maybe together you decide that Christmas this next year looks very different than it did last year. We may find ourselves totally stressed out with all of our plans, but also resisting asking for help, because we may see that if we ask for help, that we are one-downing ourselves, believing that, "well, I created this mess, so I should get myself out of it." Maybe even thinking we're less than because we need to ask for help. Even if you created the problem by being heavy-handed in the decisions, equal partnership could sound like, "oh, I got myself in a little over my head this year, and I really need some help from you getting things done for Christmas."?Okay. Then later on we can follow up with, "I would love it if next year we plan together what we want to do and execute it as a team." 

27:00 

Now, some of you are cringing because you want Christmas to be your Christmas, done your way, and you know that your husband doesn't care about all the little things that you care about. Again, let's look at what equal partnership means and what it looks like. It means that we are creating something together. How can you collaborate to create something that you will both love and support? How can you create a space where you will both be invested in the outcome? It always makes me cringe a bit when I hear men talking about how their wife does all the stuff, and they're just along for the ride, they just do what they're told, they don't have a voice, they don't really love going to Disneyland, but "what's a man to do when the wife wants what she wants? I'm just keeping the peace here." These men are in a one-down position. 

27:58 

Now, they may choose to put themselves there, or the wife may go in a one-up position and have all the say, and so he doesn't feel like he has any. Either way, we've got some work to do. We're not always going to have the same ideas about what makes Christmas Christmas, or what makes birthdays birthdays. But now you are a team, you're a partnership, you're equals. How do you step into that? How do you become collaborative rather than combative, or rather than compromising and creating another one-up, down-one space? Because that's what compromise does. Compromise says, "okay, yours is more important, mine's less than, right?" We don't want to compromise, we want to collaborate. When we step into 

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contempt, into this one-up place, treating our spouse as though they are incompetent and are just there to do our bidding, we are not being equal. Contempt creates judgment, anger, condemnation, disdain, hatred, disgust, belittling, to name a few. None of those bode well in seeking to create a partnership. 

29:08 

Here's the underlying message I want to share with you today. We cannot and will not create emotional intimacy with someone that we do not see as are equal. If you are in a relationship that is struggling with resentment and contempt, look for and figure out where your one-up or one-down thoughts and behaviors are showing up, because they are, and clean them up. Do some circling back around. Let the other person know that "this is not the person I want to be in our relationship anymore," and come at the situation from an equal mentality. One-up and one-down treatment causes all of us to go into protective mode. Think about when you feel like your spouse is in a one-up or a one-down. Most specifically, protective mode comes from the other person being in a one-up position, right? Where our guard is up, where we don't step into vulnerability, where we shut down our ability to offer grace. And in that space, we are stuck and getting stucker. I know that's not really a word, but I'm going to put it in there anyway. We're getting stucker. 

30:13 

When we start treating the people we love with equality, things change. We no longer feel the need to be in protective mode and keep our guard up. We both feel safe emotionally to speak up, to have ideas, to share opinions. When one person comes in from one-up or one-down, the other will very often match the energy and come in from the other direction. And when one 

of us comes in from an equal space, the other will often match that as well. Meaning, if I come in as a one-up position, it's easy for the spouse to come in at a one-down and vice versa. Or, if one comes in at a one-up, the other one will try and one up that, right? And so we then start this little wrestling match about who's in charge. But when we can learn to come in from an equal space, the other person will intuitively start to match that as well. Learning to become aware of your one-up and one-down tendencies and behaviors and clean them up and become an equal partner will start you on a journey of deeper intimacy and connection. And isn't that why we get married in the first place? So that we can have a partner. So that we can have this intimate connection. This is totally available to you. 

31:42 

If you need some help seeing your one-up and one-down patterns and figuring out how to be more of an equal partner in your marriage, let's chat. I will help you see things that you do not see. I will help you understand and learn how to be more of an equal partner. Yes, it's an investment in time, in energy, in money, and it is some of the hardest work that you will do. I promise you that. And usually the first three or four sessions you will leave going, "ugh, I don't like her at all. She sounds nice on the podcast, but really..." But I'll tell you what, once you start seeing these patterns, once you start cleaning up these destructive patterns, things start to change and then you go, "oh my gosh, I had no idea that my partner, that my spouse, wanted this kind of relationship." It's brilliant and it's beautiful, my friends. Let's get rid of the resentment. By stepping into equality. You've got this. You want to talk to me about it. You want a 90 minute coaching session. Let's do this. Go to tanyahale.com. Go over to the "free consultation button." Find a time that works for you. It's usually only out for about two weeks, so if it's full, come back again. And let's talk. Let's get you in a better place. This is amazing work. This is the work that allows us to grow up into the kind of person and partnership that we really want. Okay, my friends, it's going to do it. Have an awesome, awesome week and I will see you next time. Bye. 

33:36 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.