Alan Rudolph
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Seven Good Reasons to Blame Your Partner (And Why None of Them Are Good Enough)
| Posted on June 4, 2017 at 3:20 PM |
Seven Good Reasons to Blame Your Partner (And Why None
of Them Are Good Enough) Robert Solley Reason
#7 — It’s Easy! Under stress it’s often easier to
see what someone else is doing wrong than what you are doing wrong. It’s easier
to see the food stuck in your partner’s teeth than your own. To see your own
you would first need to locate a mirror and then look into it. And then you
would need to open your lips to be able to see your own teeth. And we’re not
even talking yet about finding the motivation to locate and look in the mirror,
much less to expose the ugly condition of your teeth to yourself. Reason
#6 — It’s Fun Well, OK, maybe not fun fun.
But it feels good at some level. At it’s worst, blaming someone else feels good
in a vengeful, “I gotcha” kind of way. More often there’s a venting,
energy-release part that’s somewhat satisfying. But then there’s another part
feels not-so-good, in an out-of-control, guilty kind of way. However, even the
bad part of this feeling may be more comfortable than it should be. For
example, how you would you feel right at that point if you really took
responsibility for whatever part of the conflict was yours. Because there’s almost always some part that’s yours. To really take responsibility you
might have to fight through a wall of shame. In the moment, that would be
painful — to really acknowledge that you did something wrong, were bad, screwed
up, were unthinking, or whatever it might be. See Reason #5! Reason
#5 — Accepting Responsibility and Feeling Bad Are Hard This is a corollary to Reason 2.
What makes accepting responsibility especially hard is shame, which most of us
feel to varying degrees (psychopaths are an exception). This is the feeling
that fundamentally we aren’t good enough as human beings, that we’re flawed,
inadequate, broken, defective…need I say more? So if we start to accept the
idea that we might have done something a little wrong, for some it can tap into
this big pool of “I’m all bad.” And that just feels awful! Since the
function of shame in society is to act as a sanction against violating
important social norms, it leaves one feeling alone. At its worst you can feel
totally isolated in your badness, cut off from any possibility of love from
anyone else, for eternity. Wow, no wonder it feels better to blame your
partner! But wait, there’s more… Reason
#4 — We’ve Been Taught All Our Lives to Blame Starting as little kids we were
taught right and wrong — and especially wrong. First by our parents, and then
by our teachers through the long years of school into adulthood. Right and
wrong behaviors, right and wrong answers, right and wrong everything. That
highlighted and underscored those feelings of shame for the most significant,
tender formative years of our lives (to say nothing of adulthood). We also
learned that if you can successfully deny it, or push the responsibility off
onto someone else then you don’t have to feel that shame as much. “I didn’t do
it, Gertrude did!” Reason
#3 — We Use Ourselves As the Standard We each tend to think that “The way
I do it is the best way.” Of course! We’ve spent our whole lives improving on
(or working against) what our parents taught us, so this must be the way to do
it! Perhaps the only way to do it! “If you would only do it my way!”
Well, it turns out there are lots of ways to do things, and in many cases
either it doesn’t really matter, different conditions may demand different
ways, or at any rate it’s probably not worth losing your relationship over. But
giving up ideas, beliefs, or ways of doing things, can be scary. It can feel
like something terrible would happen, or you might lose yourself. Reason
#2 — It’s Hard to Fully Accept That Your Partner Is a Different Person This is a corollary to #3. Things
would seemingly be much easier and smoother if your partner just thought about
and did things the way you do. But your partner is a different person, with his
or her own ideas, personality, and habits. At some level we’re aware of this,
but too often if our partners do something differently from how we would, we
feel anger and frustration. And we bolster our anger will all manner of
justifications and rationalizations. “But my way really is better. No,
really.” And sometimes it is. But how much of the time is it worth sacrificing your
relationship for being right, or wanting your partner to respond the same way
you do? Coming to terms with those
differences can be painful, can make you feel separate from them, can scare you
that maybe you and your partner are too different after all. But it can also
bring you closer in the long run if you can talk about and learn to accept each
other’s differences. Reason
#1 — It’s Animal Nature to Bite Back When we feel criticized or blamed
it’s natural to criticize or blame back. This is an extension of our protective
reflex to attack sources of physical threat or pain. So it makes perfect sense
that when we are hurt emotionally we would try to hurt back in an effort to
relieve our own pain. This instinct may be one of the most powerful forces
behind blame, and especially the kind of reflexive retaliatory blame that gets
us stuck in miserable escalating fights. Our best intentions can be little
match against mother nature’s hard-wiring. But again, we can become more
self-aware, learn the signals that precede blaming, and do something else
instead. Why
None of These Reasons Are Good Enough Think of a time when you have felt
blamed or criticized. Remember how it felt inside? Think of a time when you
were in a fight with your partner. Chances are, at least part of what you were
feeling was blamed, criticized, hurt, and angry. Now think of how you felt the
next day or perhaps days later (assuming that you did have some recovery from
that fight). Remember how much more clearly you could think about the topics,
how much broader your perspective was? Remember how much more you could think
about your partner’s point of view in a more open way? Perhaps you were even
able to come to some resolution with your partner in that calmer place. If not,
or if it’s hard to even get to a calmer, clearer place after a day or so, then
perhaps the pain you are causing each other is becoming chronic and this would
be a good time to seek counseling. When we feel blamed, criticized, or
misunderstood, the feelings of hurt and anger take over our minds and bodies,
making it almost impossible to have a decent conversation. Not only are we
unable to think clearly, but it becomes much more difficult to really listen to
our partners. Furthermore — since it is natural to retaliate in an effort to
get relief from the pain, we strike back, inducing all of those same bad feelings
that we are having in our partner. So now we are both not only impaired, but
caught in an unpleasant cycle with each other that’s only getting worse. Knowing how bad it feels to feel
blamed or criticized, and knowing how it cripples the conversation and
relationship, wouldn’t it seem worthwhile to learn to retrain those reflexes?
Here are two alternatives to think about next time:
Learn to catch your blaming tendencies before they come out
and hurt someone — especially your partner. |
Categories: relationships
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