I am a Resentment Queen. Part Three.

In which I bombe.

I spent the first day of 2025 stewing in resentment.

Here’s what it looked like: I did laundry. Specifically, I washed our bed sheets so we could start the New Year fresh. I went grocery shopping. I spent the afternoon and evening making an awesome New Year’s dinner for my family (a rice and squash bombe, very fancy).

I put away Christmas debris. I bustled.

While my husband spent the day doing something he loves: drawing. And listening to music.

I of course know all about void filling. So I can say with (some) confidence that I didn’t spend the first day of the year filling voids. We hadn’t made a plan that no one but me was following through on. There were no chores I was doing for someone else. No, I chose my activities deliberately because starting off the New Year in these ways mattered to me.

But I still felt angry all day.

Why? I wondered. And I came up with a couple answers. Hence Part Three of my Resentment Queen series.

First answer:

Envy. I envied my husband’s comfort with doing nothing but what he wanted to do. He felt no obligation to do anything for anyone else. He felt no compulsion to ring in the New Year with special rituals. He didn’t care what day it was. And he didn’t care what I did. (That is, he hoped I was doing what I felt like doing.) He was making himself happy and assuming I was, too. (Making myself happy. Not him.)

That’s a very healthy attitude. And, the day after the first day of the new year, I applauded my husband for it. The first day of the new year, however, I interpreted my husband’s attitude as

entitled.

Only entitled people think solely of themselves. Only entitled people get to be self-absorbed. Only entitled people make themselves happy. Only entitled people ignore how hard other people are working to make their new year special.

And, because I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let myself off my own hook — that is, throw my chores to the wind and spend the entire day doing jigsaw puzzles and reading page-turner crime novels — I resented my husband. Worse: I envied him. Meaning I wanted to deprive him of what I couldn’t have (because I wouldn’t let myself have it). How dare he relax when I was working so hard?

But I’m not a TOTAL bitch. I didn’t say anything to him. I just radiated anger and resentment.

Second answer:

This one has to do with my favorite psychoanalytic theorist, D.W. Winnicott. It occurred to me the second morning of the new year, after I dreamed my way through the question I went to bed with: Why was I so damned ANGRY at my husband for doing what I should have done: RELAXING?

Winnicott observed something nifty about healthy children and adults: They are good at being alone. They develop this capacity by spending time “alone in the presence of mother.” Picture it: A young child absorbed in play while mother, also absorbed in her work (or play), stands by. Ready to respond if needed. Not placing any demands on the child, who is imagining and creating and playing — and developing a sense of self and other. This sense of personal safety and stability means children and adults who are good at being alone are also good at relationships (because they know the difference between self and other), good at self-soothing (because they’ve internalized a good-enough mother), and good at being creative (because they’ve frolicked happily in what Winnicott calls “potential space.”)

It appears that my husband has the capacity to be “alone in the presence of —” well, let’s call it “the presence of another.”

I, on the other hand, have not developed that capacity. I am excellent at being alone. In fact, I crave it, as it is the only way I can release myself from my hyper-developed sense of responsibility to everybody around me. Which is the capacity I possess instead of the ability to be alone in the presence of another. Somehow I learned to expect to be needed, interrupted, imposed upon, impinged upon. These intrusions make “the presence of another” a burden, a threat, even a toxin, to me as it means I cannot do what my husband is so good at doing: whatever I want without worrying about anybody else.

What this means, I realized the morning after the first day of the new year, is that my family life is a resentment Petri dish! Living with family members means being unable to be alone in the presence of others (because I expect them to impinge negatively on me). It

guarantees my unease.

And if I can’t be alone in the presence of others, if I’m chronically uneasy, I can’t relax or regenerate or engage wholly in my own wonderful inner world. I’m always on edge, always on call. And resentful that I am.

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution kinda gal, but damn here’s one worth making: I’m going to practice being alone in the presence of my husband and children. I’m going to warn them that’s what I’m doing (for an hour, say, or the entire day). I’m going to watch my resentment-o-meter. I’m going to monitor my discomfort (because I’m going to want to get up and get busy before anyone places a demand on me anyway). I’m going to resist my urge to alleviate this discomfort. I’m going to see what happens.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, feel free to adopt my resolution for yourself. Let me know how it goes!