Resentment: The Most Unsexy of Emotions

To start, resentment is a complex emotion rooted in anger and typically involves feeling slighted in some way. In my clinical experience, because of a sense of being slighted, mistreated, or wronged, many people direct their resentment toward someone else and focus on that person and the mistreatment. And since I am a sex and couples therapist, in my office, someone else is typically their partner.

The resentment-having partner typically copes with that resentment in a variety of ways, from passive-aggressive communication to withdrawal to shutting down emotionally. (Notice I did not say they talk to their partner about it.) None of these are effective long-term strategies, but most people say they do not know another way to manage their resentment. And between the feeling of resentment and those strategies, that person’s interest in and desire for sex with their partner inevitably decreases.

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