The Blame Game

Post date: Mar 6, 2011 8:25:07 PM

What's the most common problem you see in relationships? This is the question I'm most often asked by people in social settings when they find out I'm a Marriage Therapist. Hands down I'd have to say the most common problem I see is "the blame game." Person A points out a hurtful thing done by person B, and person B responds with, "Well, I only did that because you..." It's an exchange I hear daily in my office. It usually goes entirely unnoticed, in terms of what just happened. The conversation goes on, A: "Well, if you hadn't have (fill in the blank, it doesn't really matter what with), then I wouldn't have..." B: "But you made me so (insert feeling here) that I had to..." Etc, Etc, Etc.

Neither person seems to see that they are just reciprocally blaming each other for their own actions, implying that what they did was caused by the other person, neither accepting any responsibility for what they contributed to the situation, and this volley can go on indefinitely. Both get frustrated, seeing that the other is blaming them (usually expressed by the statement: "Oh, so it's ALL MY FAULT then?"), but apparently blind to the fact that they are doing the exact same thing! Round and round it goes, till someone gets so frustrated that they shut down and disengage. But nothing has been resolved. So the problem just sits there, to come up again tomorrow.

I believe this blindness to our own destructive actions is trained into us by patterns of thought that pervade our culture, families, and thinking from an early age. Parents invariably blame children when the parent yells at the child. Implication: It's YOUR fault I'm yelling at you. That's just one of hundreds of possible examples. (See my May 3, 2010 post for a more in-depth description of this pattern) The effect of this blindness is often the feeling that our relationship isn't working, which again is usually attributed to the other person's unwillingness to take responsibility, while our own unwillingness goes unnoticed.

Another aspect of this problem is the tendency to talk about relationship issues as if there is ONE reality - the fact is, there are always TWO. This accentuates the problem, as we argue about "the facts" (as if there were any). No one responds to the facts. We all respond to our interpretation of the facts - and the number of different interpretations is always equal to the number of individuals involved. So we don't need to establish the facts, we need to understand each others interpretation of the facts (what I thought happened). Then maybe we'll figure out where we misunderstood each other, and often that resolves the problem. In the blame game, we simply never get there.

So if you feel like your relationship isn't working, maybe you need to focus more on what you contribute, and the effect your contributions have, rather than focusing on why you did it. The truth is, my brain controls 100% of my actions. So everything I do is 100% my fault. Another person's brain can't make my body do anything. Accepting this truth, taking responsibility for what I contribute, is what empowers me to rise above my circumstances, to stop living in reaction to others, to develop self-control, to become self-actualized, to be enlightened, to become able to define myself, to be the person I want to be, to live well, and to love well. Those are all different ways of essentially saying the same thing. To stop seeing the actions of others as the reason for my actions is the first step toward the freedom to truly be my own person.