About the meaning of 「しわよせ」


I was discussing with my Japanese friend about the meaning of 「しわ寄せ」, and none
of us could come up with a way to say it in English. As far as I know, it
could have several meanings. The first few of which can be easily translated
as "to foist upon" or "to shift", with the meaning of forcing something onto
somebody else. There is another meaning, however. Take these lyrics for
example:

> 人前ではやさしく生きていた
>
> しわよせで こんなふうに雑に・・・抱きしめてた

The general intention is that the action 「抱きしめる」 happened as a result(sort of
backlash, or recoil) of 「人前で優しく生きる」. What's a good way to say translate this
nuance to English?




> [人前]{ひとまえ}ではやさしく[生]{い}きていた
>
> しわよせで こんなふうに[雑]{ざつ}に・・・[抱]{だ}きしめてた

First of all, one needs to understand (and appreciate) that this usage of
「しわよせ」 would only colloquially be "correct". For that reason, a dictionary
definition of the word would probably fail in this particular context.

Next, one needs to notice the _**antonymy**_ between the words
「やさしく」("gently") and 「雑に」("in a rough manner") because that serves as a big
hint as to what 「しわよせ」 could mean here.

To get right to the point, 「しわよせ」 is used to mean _**" side effect",
"counteraction", "adverse reaction"**_, etc. here.

In public, the speaker is known to "live gently", but when he is alone with
his girl, he holds her in a rather rough manner.




The very literal meaning of しわ寄せ is "gathered wrinkles", although only a few
people use this term in this literal sense
([Shirring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirring) is sometimes called
しわ寄せ(加工)).

To understand しわ寄せ, suppose you are ironing a dress. It's difficult to iron
out the wrinkles perfectly; you iron somewhere, and a new wrinkle appears
somewhere else. That's the idea of しわ寄せ; you strain yourself and do good
things somewhere, but as a result, something bad happens somewhere else.

Now let's take a look at the lyrics ([whole lyrics
here](http://www.kget.jp/lyric/59814/Rain_%E5%A4%A7%E6%B1%9F%E5%8D%83%E9%87%8C)).
I would say the lyrics of this song are vague and abstract overall, but the
first part is relatively easy to understand:

> 言葉にできず凍えたままで  
>  人前ではやさしく生きていた  
>  しわよせで こんなふうに雑に  
>  雨の夜にきみを抱きしめてた  
>

The person ("ぼく") has behaved like a gentle person everywhere else, but that
must have been stressful to him. In front of "きみ", he couldn't behave kindly
any more (雑に here means "not courteously", "crudely"). So this しわよせ is used in
the most basic and common sense of the word. Can you see, throughout the
lyrics, that ぼく has been taking a bit harsh attitude toward きみ?

**EDIT:** That said, しわよせ is not commonly used for something happening only in
the internals of one person. This しわよせで may be replaced with 反動で (as a
counter-reaction/rebound), although I'm not sure if these are suitable for
lyrics.

