A Resentment is an unmet expectation.
That’s a definition I heard years ago in the rooms of AA, and it stopped me in my tracks. In AA, resentment is often described as the number one offender, the thing that quietly undermines recovery if left unchecked. The word gets used a lot, but that simple definition cut through all the noise for me.
Because once I started looking honestly at my resentments, I could see how often they weren’t really about what someone else did. They were about what I expected to happen, what I hoped for, or what I assumed was owed, without ever saying it out loud.
The Job I Lost and the Expectation I Didn’t See
On December 15, 1998, I lost my job in the trade show business. I had poured myself into that role for years. I believed in the work. I believed in the future of emerging technology. I believed that loyalty, effort, and results would eventually be rewarded.
What I expected, without ever saying it out loud, was recognition. Advancement. Security. Maybe even gratitude.
What I got instead was termination.
For years afterward, I carried a deep resentment toward American companies. I told myself stories about how they operated, how they treated people, how unfair the system was. Some of that may have been true. But underneath all of it was a quieter truth I didn’t want to face.
I had an expectation that my effort would protect me from loss.
When that expectation wasn’t met, resentment stepped in to explain the pain.
The Marriage That Ended and the Future I Assumed
The same pattern showed up in my marriage.
When my ex-wife ended our relationship, I carried resentment for years. Not because I didn’t understand that relationships can fail, but because I had built my entire emotional future on an assumption I never questioned.
I expected the marriage to last forever.
I expected that commitment meant permanence.
I expected that wanting something deeply enough would somehow guarantee it.
When that expectation collapsed, resentment filled the gap. It gave me something to hold onto when the truth felt too raw.
Why This Still Matters
Here’s the part that still matters, especially in recovery, healing, and emotional sobriety.
Resentment doesn’t usually come from what happens.
It comes from what we thought should happen.
Most of us were never taught how to examine our expectations. We absorbed them quietly from family, culture, work, and relationships. We rarely said them out loud. We rarely checked whether they were realistic, mutual, or even fair.
And when they weren’t met, we often blamed people instead of questioning the expectation itself.
That’s not a moral failing. It’s human.
But it becomes a problem when resentment hardens into a worldview, when it starts shaping how we see others, ourselves, and the future.
A Different Way of Looking at It
Today, when resentment shows up, I try to slow down and ask a different set of questions:
- What was I expecting here?
- Did I ever say that expectation out loud?
- Was it realistic, or was it hopeful thinking?
- Was it something I could actually control?
This isn’t about lowering expectations until life feels small. It’s about making expectations conscious instead of letting them run the show from the shadows.
Some expectations are healthy. Others are inherited, outdated, or rooted in old survival strategies that no longer serve us.
Letting Go Without Letting Yourself Down
Letting go of an expectation doesn’t mean what happened was okay.
It doesn’t mean you weren’t hurt.
It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t grieve.
It means you stop carrying extra weight long after the event is over.
For me, understanding resentment as an unmet expectation didn’t erase the past, but it did give me a way to relate to it differently. Less bitterness. More clarity. More room to breathe.
And that still matters.
Because unresolved resentment doesn’t stay neatly contained. It leaks into our tone, our relationships, our bodies, and our sense of peace.
Seeing it clearly is often the first step toward loosening its grip.
