Blaming- The easy way out!

Posted on February 27, 2021 by David Fine, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.

Blaming – The easy way out

We use the technique known as “blaming” in our everyday lives in order to avoid holding ourselves responsible for our own irrational beliefs.

For instance, have you ever been in a situation where you become irritated and blame your spouse for leaving a mess? Maybe the blaming is based on your own irrational belief that you have to clean up after the spouse( “which in reality you don’t,”) or I can’t stand a mess for even one second (“what is that about”?) and(“ why can’t you live around a mess” ?) or, Why doesn’t my spouse ever listen to me? My spouse mustn’t love me. (“Where did this belief come from, that not listening means my spouse doesn’t love me”?) The immediate response from your spouse might be, well I have lots of my own stuff going on right now and it is consuming me.

Your spouse has then turned the tables and starts blaming you. At this point in time your spouse believes he/she has to defend themselves( “which in reality the spouse doesn’t”)or maybe your spouse thinks you have no right to get upset with him/her (“where is it written that one spouse can’t be upset at the other”?) And it continues back and forth like a tennis match. The difference between this and a tennis match is in tennis, someone wins and someone loses. In the sport of “blaming”, we are all losers. In effect, we are under the misconception that “blaming” is warranted when actually what we are doing is taking responsibility off ourselves and putting it on to another. We are so threatened and consequently busy defending ourselves against our own irrational beliefs that we can’t see or don’t want to see our own part in the issue.

If we could actually stop for a minute, let down our ego and see our responsibility within this issue, the blaming would stop and the loving would begin. But it is much easier to blame than to put in the effort required to understand our part in the blaming. The funny thing with blaming is it destroys relationships but we would much rather destroy a relationship than actually take responsibility for our own part within the issue. Why do you think there are so many divorces?

So let’s look at a spouse who takes responsibility and says,” you know it is true, I don’t pick up after myself. My parents had a cleaning lady since I was young and so I really didn’t have to clean up after myself. I will try and pay more attention to this”. And then like a miracle you find yourself so enlightened by their admission that you yourself say, “I will try and be a little more patient. I can be a little compulsive. I understand why you are the way you are and maybe we can work out something that works for both of us.”