Resentment is the anger you feel when you experience injustice or unfairness. Some people fool themselves into thinking and believing their anger is justified. That is an unhealthy self-serving lie.
Let us normalize anger first. Anger is a normal emotion that everyone feels throughout their life at regular intervals. It is not bad or immoral to feel angry. There is a problem when you are expressing anger in unhealthy and abusive ways. Yelling at people, screaming at people, hitting people, cutting yourself, hurting yourself, hitting animals, and degrading other people, are all ways that it is unhealthy to express anger. There isn’t enough room for me to express all the unhealthy ways a person can express anger.
What do you do to express anger in healthier ways? One element is to have hope in your life. The angriest people usually do not have much hope for the future. They feel powerless. The ultimate truth to this is you cannot always choose your circumstances, but you can choose your attitude. How to have a good attitude? Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning highlights that even in the darkest and cruelest circumstances you can choose to be happy. No one can take away your choice in how you react. You always have the agency to choose how you respond. Viktor would daydream during his time in the concentration camp that he was with his wife. The vivid image of his wife and spending time with her strengthened him through nigh starvation and overexertion. Avoid mind-altering substances and things that lower your inhibitions and diminish your capacity to choose. If you are trying to overcome your anger, I would ask you to see if taking such substances overlaps with anger. Does it make your anger worse or better?
Overcoming anger takes soberness and an attitude of hope. What should you hope for? Something like Viktor had hoped for, seeing his wife again. What is something you look forward to? A peaceful home? Time with your spouse? The success of a child? Spending a beautiful winter/spring/summer/autumn day enjoying the moment? Find things that emotionally fill you and that give you peace. That is what hope should be. In a religious sense, it is hoping for a better world and place at the right hand of God.
Overcoming anger requires patience. Patience is not just waiting, though that is an aspect, patience is not waiting for the next thing to be angry at, it is also a mindset that you might not have a great reason to be angry, that you might be wrong. Patience can be thought of as a zen mindset where your emotions and thoughts can go through you without judgment. You cannot have patience without kindness. If you can do without judgment and pair your patience with kindness, your anger will have no oxygen to survive.
Explore how your resentment has hurt other people, even how it has hindered you. Without cultivating humility, patience, kindness, and hope it will be an impossible endeavor. You have been tending the plant of resentment. In order to overcome that resentment, you need to uproot that plant and instead plant the crops of patience, kindness, humility, and hope.
Burn your resentment on the altar of trust and humility. Trust your spouse, as long as they are extending trust in good faith. Surround yourself with people that want the best for you, even if the truths are not flattering.
