The Real Reason I Felt Resentful Toward My Husband
I finally realized why I was feeling so resentful toward my husband over the last few months.
And it’s not actually about him at all.
It was another cold winter Sunday with our toddler and baby.
Naps weren’t working. Tantrums. Everyone was stir crazy.
On the heels of months of illness after illness, blizzard after blizzard…
the kind of stretch that quietly depletes you before you even realize how empty you are.
By the time we finally got the boys to bed, I was completely at the end of my rope.
It felt like my nervous system was about to shut down.
I came downstairs, and Ben had forgotten to do some small thing.
Nothing major.
But in that moment, it felt like proof that I carry everything.
And just like that, it all came pouring out.
The familiar “mental load” speech.
How I’m always the one keeping track of everything.
How he doesn’t see it.
How unfair it feels.
And he snapped back.
Because the truth is, he does carry his weight.
He is an equal partner in running our family.
We both know that.
But in moments like this, one small oversight turns him into the villain in my mind.
Like he’s just coasting while I’m holding everything together.
Then he looked at me and said,
“Sara, today was hard for me too. You’re not the only one.”
And that’s when it hit me.
Yes, the day was hard for him too.
The same tantrums, nap battles, frustrations.
However…
We came into that day living inside completely different realities.
I came into that day on the hormonal rollercoaster of weaning.
Bleeding for the fifth day of my second period since having our second baby.
I came into that day after years of anxiety, broken sleep, knots in my shoulders because my nervous system, as the mother, is wired for constant vigilance.
Tracking, anticipating, holding.
A kind that feels cellular. Inescapable.
I came into that day looking in the mirror and seeing a body I don’t recognize anymore after four years of being pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding.
A body I respect deeply for what it has done.
But also one I still spend too much precious time trying to make look like none of it ever happened.
I came into that day - and every day - as a woman.
One who is carrying the invisible, yet monumental cost of motherhood in my body.
And he came into that day as a man.
And that difference is where the resentment really lies.
So when he says, “today was hard for me too,” I think:
I know it was. So can you even imagine what it was like for me?
The hard truth is, he can’t.
And underneath the resentment, I realized, is envy.
And a deep loneliness.
Because he can support me.
He can love me.
He can carry his part of the load.
But he will never live inside this experience.
He will never know what it feels like to be stretched this way from the inside out.
As these feelings poured out of me, this time through tears instead of anger, something shifted between us.
A softening.
A return.
Instead of hearing blame and criticism, he could finally hear my pain.
My exhaustion.
My grief.
He can’t fix it.
It’s not his to carry.
But he can offer grace in the moments when I snap under the invisible weight of this thing that he can never fully understand.
And when that weight is acknowledged, truly seen instead of overlooked,
It begins to feel a little bit lighter.
If you are a highly sensitive mother, you might resonate with this on an even deeper level.
Because not only do we come into these moments with a different baseline as women, we also come in with a nervous system that processes more, holds more, and reaches overwhelm more quickly.
So the weight doesn’t just feel heavy.
It can feel consuming.
If you’re recognizing yourself in this - in the resentment, the overstimulation, the snapping and then the guilt after - you don’t have to keep navigating it alone.
Explore what it looks like to work with me here.