Stopping the blame game

Part Three of my book — You and Your Relationship Journey — covers several areas that came to my attention while observing relationship habits that constantly get couples unravelled. One of these areas is the tendency to engage in consistent blaming every time something goes wrong or doesn’t go the way in which the one blaming would have liked.

Over time, I began to realise that this was more habitual than for a legitimate reason. We are so accustomed to blaming that we can do it without even realising what we’re doing. The fact is, sometimes stuff just happens! It doesn’t really have to be anyone’s fault! So when you think about it, there is often no real need for blame. Some people are caught up in the habit of consistently blaming themselves everything something goes wrong. Seriously???

Not only is blaming unnecessary, it creates a lot of drama and is hugely damaging to our relationships. It’s not difficult to work this one out. When you think about a recent time that you were blamed for something, how did it feel? How did you feel toward your partner or that person who blamed you? It doesn’t even really matter if the blaming was justified. Getting blamed stings a bit and it doesn’t put you in a good space with that person who put the blame on you.

If the shoe was on the other foot and you were the one blaming your partner, how did that feel? Did you feel good about yourself for pointing out the blunder? Or were you just letting off steam? How did your partner react? How did it affect your relationship?

The interesting thing about this is… when we do something wrong, we already know we did something wrong. We don’t need anyone to rub it in our face. That just makes us feel guilty and shamed. Most of the time, instead of implying someone has done something wrong, our reaction could easily be rephrased from “that’s your fault” or “you idiot”, into, “whoops!” if anything at all. Fundamentally, we know that making mistakes is normal. Isn’t that what we have come to believe and tell ourselves? That they make us human, not bad?

There is another side to this coin and that is taking responsibility when we do make a mistake. When we fess up and say we’re sorry for something we’ve done that’s had a negative effect on another, it takes away the need for blame. It immediately puts the other person at ease and is less likely to insight conflict. You don’t ever hear anyone say, “That was your fault!” after the other person has apologised. They are more likely to say (especially in a relationship situation), “That’s alright honey, stuff (or shit) happens.”

I hope by now you’re getting the drift about how blaming is mostly habitual, is totally unnecessary and causes damage in relationships. In my book, I explain this more thoroughly, including how we grow up in a blaming culture and why we are so quick to jump to blaming rather than immediately accepting that stuff just happens. Just as life events ebb and flow, so do mishaps occur from time to time. They also happen to all of us, not just the selected few that get under our skin.

You can read more about this in You and Your Relationship Journey, but in the meanwhile, put it to the test. Make a commitment to yourself that you won’t blame your partner (or anyone for that matter) for the unforeseeable future and see what happens. Take notice of how you feel when you shift your thinking and eradicate blame in your repertoire of reactions. Note how it unfolds in the thing that has gone wrong or the mishap that has occurred.

I’ve been doing this for several years now after noting the subtle underlying tendency to want to blame someone when my little world was disturbed in some way (she quietly laughs to herself). It’s a much better way to approach life as it relieves a certain pressure involved from pointing the finger every time our world becomes unsettled. Let’s go easy on ourselves and others too. We can afford to be more real about our imperfections, which include making mistakes. A sense of humour sure does help too!

SOMETIMES WE JUST NEED TO LAUGH!

Love and blessings, Wendy J 💜