I Resented My Spouse… and Didn’t Even Realize Why

S1E5

What happens when your partner can’t see the pain you’re living in? In this episode of The Mystic and The Saint, we talk about resentment. Where it comes from, how it builds, and what it actually feels like when you're in a marriage where your beliefs, experiences, and reality don’t match.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My heart, my soul, my nervous system was broken, and I was literally begging you to see it, and you just were like, I can't. I'm the mystic and he's the saint. We're opposites in every way and still choose to be married. Welcome to the conversation. I'm Sarah.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

And I'm Devin. And today we're talking about resentment.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

I felt resentment a lot leaving the church, staying in our marriage. Did you?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

More recently, I felt resentment.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

But not in the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

No.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I think that's interesting. Because I would have, if I was on your side, if you had left the church while I was still in it, I would have resented you for destroying our eternal family.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Uh yeah, I think again, that's a a really good point, a valid point from you. But that doesn't the reason I don't resent you for that is because I think that we have a long time left to figure out eternity.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

So then what do you have resentment about now?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

That's a great question. I struggle with the fact that you have kind of this uh power over the dynamic. You've been a part of the church before, now you're not a part of the church. So you get to say kind of what you want in regards to the church, and then you also be get to be very protective of where you're at right now. So I have to be very, very careful about what I say and how I approach things and our how we're doing with the kids and all of that stuff, which I'm happy to do. I don't have a problem, but where I struggle is then uh sometimes your negative experiences about the church bleed into a little bit extracurricular negative feelings.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

For example, one time we went to a party and somebody said, Oh, I've seen a couple of documentaries, are Mormons that bad. And rather than saying, like, oh, don't put Mormons in a stereotypical box. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, I said, yes, and it's even worse than what you're imagining. I didn't say it exactly like that, but I played it up and made you feel uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah, when we first moved out here, I think when we were introducing ourselves, you played it up a little bit to kind of be an icebreaker. And in some situations, even when the conversation continued, you would play it up a little bit, which was hard for me sitting there in the same room to be kind of that guy. But we've talked about it and you've gotten better since then. Yeah. But it is still something that pops up from time to time.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

And I think I didn't notice that I was doing it because for me, it felt like I was free now because a lot of the constraints that were put on me in the Utah culture were no longer here. And you even saw it and noticed it, how much happier I was that I wasn't constantly being treated poorly anymore. And it was just a non-issue now, all of a sudden. Something that we were struggling with every single day just was gone.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

And so then when people would bring it up, it was like, oh my gosh, you don't even know. Let me tell you about how awful my life was in Utah. I wasn't saying you were awful. I was just trying to talk about my experience. But I can see now, after you talk to me, that the way that I was presenting it was like, all Mormons, including this guy that I married to, are jerks and you should not talk to them. And that's not how I feel about you, but I was playing it up because that was my experience in Utah.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Yeah. So that's hard to be in the same room.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah. And I can get why you would feel resentful that I'm like, hey, that caused me harm. We can't talk about this. You we need to talk about the way that you phrase things versus saying I know this is true versus I believe this is true, and it's hard to feel like you're micromanaged. And then I'm like, well, I know everything because I was a part of that group, and so I can say whatever I want because they harmed me, and so I don't have to be as respectful, and that's not true, particularly in our marriage, but also with our kids watching.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, and again, I don't want to be unsensitive, insensitive. I don't want to be insensitive to your experiences and what you've gone through and the bad stuff that's gone on. I want to be open to that and not say, hey, you can't talk about that. It's more so just the kind of extracurricular that went along with it.

unknown 4:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

And I think that's where my resentment came from, particularly when we were in Utah. I felt like I was being gaslit all the time because especially since you do believe in the church, you are very apologetic and argumentative sometimes for a lot of hurt that's caused. So I'll say something like, the prophet said that you shouldn't consult with people about your faith if they don't believe in the church. And my mind immediately goes to our children who are being told by an authoritative figure you shouldn't talk to your mom about her faith. And then you might come in and say, Well, we don't know if that's actually what they meant. Like, I don't care if that's what they meant. That's what they said, and I don't like it. And it was that way with pretty much everything when we were in Utah, because I would say, like, I call them microaggressions, but it is 100% you get treated differently when you are not Mormon in Utah. And there are sometimes big things where they will say things to you, and then there are other times where it's just small little jabs that you might not notice if you didn't grow up in the church, but because I had been a part of the culture, I knew what they were doing. So I would come home, say this is how I felt, and you'd say, I think you might be reading into that.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

But then when we moved to Vermont, yeah, then my eyes were opened to kind of all those cultural things that when you're swimming in water all day long, you don't really know what water is. But then when you're outside of water, you can sense that something's different.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Do you feel like the resentment has gotten better now that we have left the environment that was causing a lot of the harm for me?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Your resentment?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

And yours. Or it's gotten worse for you.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, mine didn't really start until we got here. And again, it's not horrible. It's not like I'm grinding my teeth, giving you evil eyes all day long. Um I think yours has gotten better. Yeah. Well, and I think even just again, the issue of me not fully understanding, I'll say things that I don't intend to be anything bad, but that can flare up into a C you don't understand, you don't get it, you don't know what it's like to be going through this experience.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Right. Which that's been the hardest part about all of this and the resentment is because you are a white male, you don't get treated poorly in the church very often.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Or even in gin.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

It's rough for us.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

And so I think that me trying to explain these things to you, first off, they just have never happened to you. And second off, you're a very kind individual.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah. Yeah, I think I definitely think it's easier for me, from my perspective, to sit over here and say, hey, you should be a little bit more nice, or hey, why is this taking you so long to get over? Or why is this such a big deal? Or, you know, any of and all of those things. But I think that that's something that through this struggle together has been kind of nice is to try and my open my eyes more to all of those different things and learn and try and be a better.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

It was really hard when we were in Utah because it felt like there was this thing that had caused me, based off of my experiences, so much harm emotionally. I would argue gave me a pretty severe mental disorder of depression and just self-loathing that was, I feel like, handed to me. And I wanted to leave it alone. There's a saying, if you leave the church, leave it alone. I would love to. I can't when I'm married to somebody that is a part of the church. And when you're in a culture where it's their job, it's literally their soul's purpose to bring people to that church. It's hard for people that are Mormon to take no for an answer.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah. And so particularly when it's mixed and I'm still going, and what do we do with the kids?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

How do we save their souls and all of that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah. So I I hated it. I felt stuck in every single aspect of my life and like this thing that I was constantly trying to work my way through and find value and live a life that I felt like was authentic and giving me happiness, and then constantly slamming against a wall with strangers who I don't even know, being like, you shouldn't be doing that. Um, I put a lot of the blame on you because it was not only is in my external environment that, but then I have to come home and then we're also reading scriptures and we're doing these things. And it felt like, I know you didn't want it to be, but it felt like you didn't care that all of that harm had happened to me, and I was just supposed to turn the other cheek and say, well, everybody's just doing their best when that's not how I got treated.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

But then when we moved to Vermont and there weren't strangers walking up to me in the street saying, You shouldn't dress like that, uh, it was just really lovely. And it made it easier for me. It just seriously felt like it was no longer an issue. All and it was a hundred percent of my mind and my mental capacity were going to surviving in Utah. And finally, my external environment wasn't teaching me to hate myself anymore. And so I didn't look at you and be like, I you just let me out of here because that's what it felt like, like you were putting me in a prison. And so it went away immediately.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

So, what would you say to people who are in Utah who are going through the same experience as you?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

I think it would be difficult. Um, but I do feel like I have a little bit of an armor on now that I know that I'm not crazy. It's not the gaslighting of, I think you're reading into that. I think you're making this a bigger deal than it actually is. I think you should try and be kind. Instead, it's like, look, I don't have to try and be kind all of the time because I just am. I naturally am kind, but I don't have people attacking me all of the time. And so I think when I go back to Utah, probably gonna be a lot ruder, honestly, to people. And I'm really looking forward to that if we do come back to Utah.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to be rude to how how does that help you? Resentment, does it help you to be resentful?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

I don't think I would be resentful. I was resentful before because I had to turn the other cheek. I had to be the one that was the bigger person because as an ex-Mormon person, you're put into a stereotypical box. And if you are rude, it's see, look, this is what happens when you leave the church. You're an awful person. And so I would never be rude because I didn't want them to think that I was a bad person. So the only thing stopping me from standing up for myself was an external thing. It wasn't myself, but now I think I would stand up for myself more. And not necessarily like name call, but I would just be blunt and say.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Okay. So standing up for yourself, being blunt is not necessarily my mind went to like it is rude in Utah. Sure, it can be. And I think anywhere it can be construed as, hey, you should be a little bit more nice, but not me as cold, baby. That's true. That's actually true.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

That's why I love it here.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

But I uh I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with being more blunt and standing up for yourself and saying, hey, that hurts my feelings or that was not nice.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah. I understand.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

And yes, that could be rough, and that probably would be rough if we went back to Utah because people aren't used to that, receiving kind of that feedback or kickback. But I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

And for people, if they're still in a mixed faith marriage in Utah, I would just say to the person who is still in the religion to maybe stop being so gaslighty because how do they do that though?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Because for me, it was really, really difficult. I was trying my best.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, you were.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

I props to do everything I could, but it was really, really difficult to just like the water example, like oxygen. Like, how do you until it is gone, how do you describe what it is?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Because there are things, lots of things, and I don't even know the best examples of it, but it like literally just little day-to-day things where it's like, oh, oh, okay, yeah, now I see that, now I understand that. Of like just the tiniest of details throughout the day, which I'm sure you're sitting there saying, What are they? What are what are those examples?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

I can think of one. One time we were at um the swimming pool and I was wearing Well, that's a big, that's a decently sized one though. Yeah, but I mean, I don't think that that happens to a lot of people, but it's common in Utah.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Um, we were at a swimming pool and I was in a bikini, and a dad stopped his children, lined them up, and pointed at me and said, This is why we follow the law of chastity, because this woman with her body is giving people impure thoughts, and there's no reason for it. He made me a morality lesson for his children in front of me. There were people that I know who were teachers who had students taken out of their class because they were not Mormon.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

And little things like, are you drinking coffee? Oh, is that coffee?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

It's not Yeah, I think they're just like a constant probe, a constant check. Maybe the best way to describe it is um people are always trying to check in. You want to make sure you're doing a good job. So are you doing better than other people? That's really the only way that you can kind of check your progress a little bit. Yeah, it's not the correct way, it's not the way that you should be doing it, but I think culturally that kind of is what surfaces. And so there is this constant check of where are you at? How's it going? What are you doing in regards to this?

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Physically see who is following the rules and who are not.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, just little things like that of yeah, because you're, you know, who's modestly dressed, who's not modestly dressed. Is that borderline? Does that mean that you are still in the church, or does that mean that you're not in the church anymore? What are you doing there? Oh, your kids are behaving in a weird way. That means that you're not a great mom. Like what there are just lots of just constant pressure coming through in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Which then I feel like lends itself to do what I did to cause your resentment. And I feel like a lot of Mormons hold resentment towards people who are ex-Mormon because we won't leave the church alone. Or we're like Mormons are psychos, they're in a cult, or you know, we we play it up and we make it huge. Um, because that's how we were treated.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

And also that's how we were raised was to play things up. If somebody is not a member of the church, you play that up and you say they are an awful person, probably. Um, or you have to try and save their soul. And if you don't save their soul, definitely a bad person. It just was very much you were raised, I know the truth, I know what is right, and I need to convince other people that they are wrong and that I am right.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah. Yeah. I think it has good intentions that it's based, but in practice, it's been ballooned into this thing that isn't healthy for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Right. And then it makes it really difficult to have a conversation because ex-Mormons then are playing into all of the stereotypes of what an ex-Mormon does, and it makes it so which is attacking the church and being unkind and all this negative stuff. Yeah. And it's difficult because I feel like a lot of ex-Mormons would love to have like a genuine conversation, but then because we are not treated with respect, it lends itself really easily to just attack mode. I'm not saying that that's the right thing to do, but historically, when people are in an abusive environment, usually trying to have a productive conversation doesn't really lend itself to any sort of change.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yeah, and I think unfortunately, I would say that on both sides, there's probably plenty of people who want to have a productive conversation and figure things out. But unfortunately, I think lots of times those stereotypes or the more extreme versions are the ones that get kind of the attention and that encourage the battling and encourage the stereotype and encourage all of that negative interaction.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

They inhibit the progress, which lends itself to resentment.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

It felt like you refused to see the harm that was being done to me. And you weren't, you were trying so hard. But because it was literally just everything around you, it was like you're making it up. And then when we got into an environment where all of a sudden people were treating me with respect. Well, and it's refreshing for me because in Utah, you get asked, Are you Mormon? And if you say yes, the judgment goes away. But if you say no, the judgment doubles down. Whereas anywhere else, it's are you Mormon? And if you say no, the judgment goes away. And if you say yes, the judgment doubles down. I didn't realize that it was. It was just so freeing all of a sudden to not be the one.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

I would say it's similar to what you're not intentionally trying to feed into it, similar to how when we were in Utah, I wasn't intentionally trying to gaslight you. It was just this we're trying to have conversations and we're trying to figure it out and help each other learn what it is to be on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah. So is that how you do that? Is that how you get rid of resentment, resentment? Is by genuinely trying to put yourself in that situation?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

I think that's the answer to pretty much every situation. But I think Yeah, if you're gonna if you're gonna stop resenting somebody, you probably A have to forgive them for whatever it is. Uh and I think part of that forgiveness or part of that is letting it go and allowing that person to progress. Resentment, I think, holds somebody in that same place always. You're saying this is how it always will be.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

And putting sorry, putting so much fault on that person and responsibility on that person. Because I would argue that the church gave me a lot of self-loathing. But now that I can acknowledge that and I can see that, it now becomes my responsibility to take accountability for my own life. Does that mean leaving Utah? Sure. Does that mean standing up for myself when I'm being treated poorly? 100%. But I can no longer give the power to the church because I'm no longer giving it to them. So I have to take accountability in that situation and say, what's my part here?

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, I think everybody has to progress, right? We can't, the more we stick to that one same spot, the more it's just gonna continue to get worse and worse. And science, science says that uh resentment is not good. In fact, it has really bad health implications. It consumes both your mind, but it consumes your body too, because there are just so many different chronic illnesses that go along with resentment. And I think the inability to first forgive somebody, it truly consumes you, both mentally but also physically, like heart disease, all of that type of stuff, inflammation, everything gets increased when you hold on to that resentment.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

And your nervous system, because I had been doing things that were quote unquote keeping me safe in an environment that was attacking me all of the time. And so because my guard was up all of the time, it made me sick. And then I also was then putting the resentment on them. It was all feeding into itself. Whereas if I would have just said, like, let them, I'm gonna live my life, I would have probably been happier.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I think you have to just have those conversations, try and figure it out, try and get on the same page and try and create those healthy boundaries. Because you can't isolate yourself, you can't just say, I'm gonna be nothing bad as. Going to happen to me, you have to create a safe way to progress and get out of that. And I think that's how you get out of that resentment.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

And I think when we say that, people hear like, oh, I'm gonna have a lovely conversation with my head.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

There's so much pain trying to explain harm that has happened to you and have the other person not believe you or not even be able to see it. And having to try and be the one who is kind in that situation and hold your hand through it and say, you'll get it, you'll understand it eventually. When I feel like my heart, my soul, my nervous system was broken, and I was literally begging you to see it, and you just were like, I can't.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Not that I didn't want to.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah. But you were blindfolded to everything that was happening to me. Yeah. So if you are still in that environment, I would just say, you're not crazy. That's my big takeaway if we ever have to go back. Of I didn't make that up. I wasn't the one that was being the problem in that situation. And that's how I felt every single day. I would wake up and give myself affirmations and be like, don't read into things. Don't make it a bigger deal. And I don't have to deal with that here, which tells me I wasn't the one. So I just, I don't know, branch out a little bit, not necessarily go out of Utah, but just pay attention to the way that the people that your spouse or your friend or whatever is around and how they are treating them and what they are asking them, what they are not asking them. Why does your spouse feel safe around these people versus the people that they don't feel safe around? How are they treating them? What are the comments that they are making that maybe are not that big of a deal, but because they are constant?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

It's not an easy conversation because, particularly for us, it is something that is very near and dear to me. It's something very near and dear to you. Like it touches on our identities and who we are as people and what we the importance, the spirituality, all of that stuff. This is a very big sensitive topic. And so it's important to try and tread lightly and understand that it's gonna be a couple conversations.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yeah. Don't know how to teach that to somebody how to share that.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

But I think it again, you just have to give people it's not gonna similar to us, it isn't going to happen quick, it's not gonna happen overnight. You can't expect an individual to change immediately, you can't expect an organization to change immediately. Any group of people, any group of or organization, anything, it's going to take time, but you have to be open and allow that to happen and to take place while I think setting up helpful boundaries to help you feel good along the way.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah. Because, like you said, it's definitely not just shutting the door.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

So we didn't come to Vermont and say that problem's over. It's still here. We still are dealing with it all the time. It just is this gave us a little bit of a distance to work through it. So this worked for us in this situation.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

But maybe you don't need that, maybe it's a different adjustment. But I think you have to be open for the progress to happen and putting yourself in a good spot to where you can allow that. Be patient for that to happen.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah.