Saying Yes When You Mean No Is Building Resentment
You say yes to something your partner asks, even though you really want to say no. Maybe you're trying to avoid an argument, or you're worried they'll be disappointed or upset with you. So you tell yourself it's not a big deal and agree anyway. It feels like the easiest choice in the moment, especially when you don't know how your partner might react if you were honest.
The wish that you'd said no doesn't just disappear, though. Each time you agree to something you don't really want, a little more resentment can build until one day, something small pushes you over the edge. Your partner is completely caught off guard because you've been telling them everything is fine. They've been taking your yes at face value, while you've been assuming they should have known you didn't mean it.
In this episode of The RISE to Intimacy Podcast, I explain how these small, unspoken noes can quietly create resentment in your relationship. We'll look at the difference between saying yes because you genuinely want to and saying yes because you're bracing for your partner's reaction. I also share five steps to help you start being more honest about what you want and give your partner the opportunity to respond to what you're actually feeling.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
1:36 – The most common response for why clients let their resentment silently build
4:59 – How saying yes to avoid conflict can end up costing you peace and add to your resentment
7:03 – Two reasons why we say yes in a relationship, and how each impacts your partnership
9:16 – The many reasons behind the unspoken no
10:39 – Check your reason before you respond by asking yourself this question first
11:13 – Beyond the yes or no choice: the in-between answers that take the pressure off
11:48 – How to practice saying no in low-stakes situations
13:29 – How to bring up a no you’ve been holding for a while without making it sound like an accusation
13:57 – What to do when you’re genuinely saying yes to something
14:28 – Two reactions when your partner tells you they’ve been holding things in, and how to react without derailing the conversation
Mentioned In Saying Yes When You Mean No Is Building Resentment
Full Transcript
Valerie McDonnell: Welcome to the RISE to Intimacy podcast. I'm your host Valerie McDonnell, and for over a decade, I've worked as a sex and couples therapist because intimacy used to feel really overwhelming for me. I felt a lot of pressure to perform, I was disconnected from my body, and I often felt like desire was out of reach for me. But through my own trauma work, I stopped checking out of my body and started feeling connected to it again. I learned what it's like to experience intimacy without fear, without shutting down, and without numbing out. Now, I'm on a mission to help you do the same thing. This podcast exists because trauma doesn’t get the last word. You can learn how to calm your body, change the story you've been carrying, and rebuild real connection, first with yourself and then with the people you love. Let’s begin.
Welcome back, everybody. Today I'm going to be talking about resentment and relationships. And so, most of us know that things like betrayal, or unmet needs, or lack of support with the kids, and managing the house, can all lead to resentment. But resentment can also build from more subtle moments. But they can ultimately lead to having a big impact on your relationship. I always say to my clients that “Resentment is a slippery slope towards a breakup.” But, when we're talking about resentments, it's very hard to notice how they are compounding over time, and building onto that pile of resentment.
Now, almost every couple I work with, is carrying some level of resentment. But often it has been building silently, where there's no verbal indication they're giving to their partner at all. They're just holding on to it, probably creating a story about it, in their mind. And when I asked my clients “Why haven't they said anything yet?” The most common answer I get, and this is something I literally hear every single week, in one of my therapy sessions, is “I'm afraid I won't say it right.” And then I'm like “Well what does that really mean? How do you say it right?” So when I asked them that question, how I dig in a little bit further, they say things like “If I don't say it right, my partner might get really sad, or they'll become silent. They won't say anything back.” Or maybe they're afraid their partner is going to do the opposite, and they're going to yell. Or ask them a bunch of questions afterwards, and then they're like “I don't know what to do, when that happens.” And that totally makes sense to me. But I also know that if you don't ultimately take the risk of trying something different in your relationship, nothing will change.
And people can spend years, in the state of not talking about what is really happening between them. And then you might be the person who comes to see me, and says “I've been carrying 10 years of resentment, against them.” And I've spoken about that just, very briefly before, and that is, obviously not going to be a quick fix. So today I'm going to talk about like, some of these subtle ways, so you can pay attention to them. Because, the small moments do matter in relationships. And I just refer to this as like, the unspoken “No.” So it's like when you say “Yes” out loud to your partner, but in your mind it's really a “No”. And this can happen a lot. It’s not always, you know, something to worry about. But if this continues to happen where, you're consistently saying “Yes” to things that you really want to say “No” to, then that's when resentment can start settling in. So I'm going to talk about why these unspoken no, no’s tend to build the resentment, how to tell if you're giving a real yes, or if you're giving what will call a bracing yes, and how both you and your partner can move forward, once you finally become comfortable speaking these things out loud to each other.
So I have done an episode on resentment before, it's called resentment is the silent killer of sexual desire. And I talked about what resentment is, and how you can repair it. But today, again, is about one specific way it gets built, and what we can do to stop it. I've also talked before, about pushing through sex you don't want, and this is the everyday version of that same pattern. Quick disclaimer that I like to give at the beginning of episodes, is that this episode is about everyday yeses, in a relationship where it's safe for you to say no. It's normal, y'all, to worry that your partner might get upset, or cry, or shut down, or, yeah. But if you're afraid of being hurt, or threatened, or punished when you say no, please reach out to a therapist. Or, if necessary call your local crisis hotline.
So let me talk about how the unspoken no builds resentment. You say yes to something, you’d rather not do, and in the moment, of course it can feel like the easiest choice. It might be, you're trying to avoid a fight, or you just want to keep the peace. And so when that happens, we tend to tell ourselves “It's not a big deal.” But the wish that you said “No” is real. And because you never say it out loud, it just doesn't disappear, it sits there. And meanwhile, your partner just received information that says to them “They're good with this, this works for them. They said yes.” They didn't hear what you were feeling, because you didn't tell them. So then, they're going to keep making plans, or engaging in a behavior, or moving forward with something, based on what you're telling them. So if you keep saying “Yes” each little one, adds a little more weight to a pile of resentment that starts.
And then one day, something small will be like, the cherry on top. It's going to tip you over. You might snap. Or you get really cold, or you finally say something like “I do everything around here, and nobody notices.” And your partner is like “What the hell.” They're completely shocked, they're like “Well, why didn't you say anything? You said it was fine.” So both of you made an assumption, in that moment. They assumed your “Yes” really meant yes, and you assumed they should have known that it didn't. So neither one of those was checked out. And of course, if you're making an assumption based on what something literally tells you, you're probably not even thinking about checking it out. But the gap between those two assumptions, is where the resentment starts growing. So it's worth paying attention to.
Now, researchers will call this sacrifice, of course meaning you give up something you want or you do something you'd rather not do, for your partner or your relationship. And healthy relationships are actually full of a number of different sacrifices. Now, researchers found that there's typically two reasons why we say yes when we're in a relationship, where we're dating somebody. One of them they called a giving yes, and that comes from like wanting your partner to be happy, or wanting to feel closer to them, or feeling good about being someone who gives. The other one was called a bracing yes. Now, that comes from wanting to avoid a fight, or to keep your partner from being upset, or disappointed, or maybe just angry with you. Your bracing against the reaction, with that yes.
So obviously, two people can say yes for very different reasons. So on days when people gave a giving yes, in the study, they report it more positive feelings and more satisfaction with the relationship. Now on days when they gave a bracing yes, they reported more negative feelings, less satisfaction, and more conflict. And the researchers also pointed to resentment, as one of the feelings that can show up when people give in, to avoid conflict and set their own wants and needs aside. And they also found that hiding your feelings while you give something up, was linked to lower emotional well-being, and relationship quality, y’all, for both partners. And three months later, the study predicted lower satisfaction and more thoughts about breaking up for the participants.
Now, another finding from this study is, that when people believe their partners “Yes” was a bracing yes, they reported lower well-being and lower quality relationship themselves. So in other words, if your partner perceives that you're giving in just to keep the peace, or avoid a fight, it may affect them too. But these are patterns, and they can't predict how your partner is going to react. An occasional bracing yes is just part of being human. Sometimes you're just tired, so you say “Yes” anyway, and that's okay. The concern here, again, is if you are consistently giving a stream of yeses that you really don't mean, and then you never talk about it. You never mention it to your partner.
Now people keep no to themselves, for many reasons. Maybe you learned that good partners are agreeable, or that the way you receive love is by meeting everyone else's needs before attending to your own. In that case you might identify as a people pleaser, and I've talked about this before in a previous episode. Also, maybe conflict feels dangerous to your nervous system, sometimes this can be due to trauma. So in other words, like, if a disagreement in the past used to mean someone yelled, or became aggressive, or abusive, or they left. Saying “No” can feel like risking your whole relationship. And sometimes you're worried about things like maybe I'm being too much, or maybe I'm high maintenance, or I am like the one who always has a complaint. But again, eventually you're going to realize, a hundred small things have piled up. And you really don't know how to begin tackling such a big pile of unspoken resentment. Holding back a “No”, is usually an attempt to protect the relationship. It can spare you a small conflict today, but it can set you up for a bigger, slower one later. So if you're noticing that you might be doing this in your relationship, I'm going to give you five steps that you can use to start changing this behavior.
So, the first one is check your reason before you answer. So ask yourself am I saying yes to give something, or to avoid something. So, if you're unsure, you can ask yourself “If I knew my partner wouldn't be upset either way, would I still say yes?” Now if the answer is yes, great! If the answer is no, then you may be giving a bracing yes. You may be bracing against their reaction, and that's the moment to slow things down, and do something different. All right. The second step is to give yourself more options than just yes or no. So, most unspoken no’s happen, because it feels like there are only two choices. But you can try something like this “Yes, and I'd like help with this part.” Or “Not tonight but, Saturday night works.” So, in this case we're just opening up for a conversation to explore more options, than just the yes or no. And this can feel more collaborative, and help you feel like there's less pressure around it. The third step is to start small.
So practice saying no in a low-stakes situation. This might be like where you're going to eat dinner, or what you're going to watch tonight, or who gives the kids bath time tonight, right? It sounds tiny, and really that's the point. Because you don't want to start with something so big, that you are starting to become anxious just to do it. Then you're going to avoid, distract, and then maybe not accomplish it. So we want to start with something that you can practice with, that is doable, and where you can still make progress. You can start building evidence that, saying “No” is not going to cause your partner to have these big reactions. And then we're just building up confidence to get to, you know, some more, bigger moments. That you might have a little bit more anxiety around.
So in other words, we're just building the muscle of telling the truth, before the stakes are high. Also, remember you don't have to say it perfectly. Again, this is what comes up a lot in therapy. If your answer is clumsy, that's okay. If you don't say it perfectly, that's okay. It's mostly about explaining it, and you can name that up front if that helps you. Sometimes you can start the conversation with “Hey, I’n gonna talk about something, that I'm feeling a little bit nervous.” You starting off with vulnerability, now if your partner does get upset or have a reaction that you become uncomfortable with, you can ask to pause and come back to the conversation. And if you need help with that process, I will show you how you can do that, on my episode on flooding and the pause protocol.
All right, the next step is, if you've been keeping a no to yourself for a while. Tell your partner. But do it without an accusation, you want to say something like “I realized I've been saying things I wasn't comfortable with and I haven't been telling you, but I'd like to change that. Can I tell you what's been hard for me about this?” That will take the responsibility for the silence, and it also doesn't hand your partner a list of things that they've done wrong. And now the last step is, that when you're giving a genuine “Yes” when you're doing something because you want to, let your partner know. Say something like “I'm happy to do this for you.” Because that is a giving yes, and it will land differently. Also invite them to be honest, too. You can say something like “Is there anything you've been saying yes to, that you'd rather not?” In my experience, this is typically going both ways, so it's good to check it out.
Now, if your partner tells you that they've been holding things in, you might notice one of two reactions rising. One is going to be defensiveness, you might want to say something like “You never said anything.” The other one is sinking, meaning, starting to have thoughts like “So I'm a terrible partner.” Or even saying that to your partner. But both of those responses are, just, going to pull the conversation away from what your partner is really trying to tell you, in a moment of vulnerability. Now sometimes, obviously, a conversation can feel like a threat to your sense of self. I've talked about this before, like, why your partner gets defensive when you're not actually criticizing them. And if, that's something that happens, you might recognize this. So instead, if you are hearing something, and you want to have one of these reactions, try to pause first. Take a deep breath, and say something like “Thank you for telling me, I did not realize that. Help me understand what's been hard, or help me understand what's caused you to not feel comfortable telling me?” Then please listen, and you can reflect back what you heard, and then validate how they feel. This is a crucial part of healthy and effective communication. Remember, you can acknowledge your partner's experience, even if it's different from yours, and validate how they feel, even if you feel very differently. And that does not mean that you're endorsing, that they're perspective is the 100% correct one. But when you can do that, it feels very good to your partner. That's when they will say they feel seen and heard by you. And just remember previously you were working from the information that you had been given, you took a “Yes” as a yes. And that totally makes sense, but what you can do now is to help make it feel safer for your partner to be honest with you.
So just to recap, resentment often builds from small yeses, that aren't really true. Long before there was like, any big conflict that might occur around it. A real yes and a real no both give your partner something silence can't, which is accurate information to respond to. And that is what lets two people, take care of each other. So if this episode of resonated with you, please share it with your partner. And if you and your partner would like help with this, you can head over to risetointimacy.com and book a consultation with me. And don't forget while you're there, please sign up for the Quickie. It's my free weekly newsletter, where I give you tips and tricks to help you build emotional and physical intimacy in your relationships. And also, I'm very excited to say that I'm opening up my 6-week couples boot camp again in the new year. I'll be getting more details through the Quickie, so don't forget to sign up. And as always, thank you so very much for listening. I truly appreciate the time you spend with me every week. I'll see you next Tuesday.
Thanks for listening to the RISE to Intimacy podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, know that healing is possible, and you don't have to do it alone. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a rating, a review for us at ratethispodcast.com/rise it really helps others find us, and I'm so grateful for all your support. You can learn more about my coaching packages for individuals and couples at risetointimacy.com and remember, sex therapy isn’t for people who are broken. It's for people brave enough to look beneath the surface.
Comments