How do you overcome feelings of resentment?

[Wildflowers1]

My parents had a very bad divorce which I found very traumatic however whenever I tried to discuss it with my parents, I was told it wasn’t as bad as I remember it being (maybe it wasn’t but the problem is that in my head it was horrific and I still have recurring nightmares about it almost 8 years later). Although I get on with my parents now and talk to them on a weekly basis, every now and then I feel a sense of resentment and anger towards them bubbling, then it subsides. I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life experiencing periods of anger over this, if you have been in a similar situation, how did you learn to overcome this?

Therapy.

Your parents have made it clear to you that they are not the ones to be talking to about your feelings regarding their divorce. A major part of your resentment stems from repeatedly banging your head against that particular brick wall. Give yourself the gift of finding someone who will support and listen to you whilst you work your way through feelings regarding their divorce.

Another poster saying get some therapy to explore your feelings surrounding their divorce.

Also therapy. Recurrent nightmares about anything needs looking into.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. I did look into therapy but the expense of the sessions put me off a bit, however as several of you think it may work I will look more seriously into it

See your gp as you may get a counselling referral free to an nhs therapist.

Or the gp may know charities that do it fee or cheap so you could apply there. My friends gp provided a list of contacts she could try.

Your parents are dismissing your feelings. A therapist won’t.

Definitely therapy. You need someone to validate your feelings if you're going to stop being stuck with them, and it sounds like your parents are doing the opposite.

Definitely therapy. If you get a good T it's worth every penny. If you're working, you might have access through an Employee Assistance Program at no cost.

@AgentJohnson

Your parents have made it clear to you that they are not the ones to be talking to about your feelings regarding their divorce. A major part of your resentment stems from repeatedly banging your head against that particular brick wall. Give yourself the gift of finding someone who will support and listen to you whilst you work your way through feelings regarding their divorce.

Absolutely. Your experience of the divorce was not their experience, and of course the experience of whichever parent sought the divorce will have been entirely different to the one who was divorced. There's a real tangle of difficult, competing narratives here, and you need a way to explore your own hurt and trauma about your experience, rather than have it minimised or dismissed by someone else.

My parents, whom I love, have absolutely no idea what inadequate parents they were, and what a complicatedly difficult and un-nurturing household I grew up in. Any attempts to talk to them about it, however gently or indirectly, have been met with defensiveness, passive aggressiveness or tears. Or, particularly maddeningly, 'Oh, but that's just the way things were then.'

Find a good therapist who is focused on you and your narrative, and where you won't have to 'compete' with someone else's.

Could you write it down and ask them (separately) to listen to it without interruption? Therapy might be good but it sounds like you also need to be heard by them. Their understanding of it may well be different from yours though. At the end of it, they are imperfect human beings who were dealing with their own hurt and anger at the time.
I don’t know what specific issues you have with the divorce, but it is very hard to get it perfectly right.

Thanks again everyone for the ideas, did not think about charities or employee programmes so great to be made aware of these!