Are there times that you wish that you had someone you could blame for all your problems? As a teenager, I often wanted to blame others for any problem that came along. It didn’t matter if it was car problems, girl problems or school problems, I wanted someone to blame.
After thinking through the problems that surrounded me, I had an insight. “I’ll blame my father!” It seemed logical to me at the time at the time.
How could I blame myself for the problems that surrounded me? There was a voice in my head telling me “It’s not YOUR fault!“, and I believed it. You may have even told yourself that as well.
With the confidence that comes with finally finding someone to blame, I approached him. Since he already had some controlling tendencies, I thought that this was the way to address it. I bluntly told him that “I am the way I am because you made me this way!”. He listened to me, sat back and after a few moments gave his response, which is not one that I expected. He said, “OK, Now that you realize that, what are you going to do about it?”
His response caught me off guard. I thought just blaming him was all I needed to do. I went with the intention of blaming everything on him and now, I am faced with what I’m going to do to change things. My hopes of putting the whole burden on someone else suddenly changed. At that moment, it became clear that blaming and taking action are two different things. I can blame all I want, yet eventually what matters is what I’m going to do about it.
You can blame the lover, blame the cheater, blame yourself or blame God for what happened in your life. No matter who you blame, you’ll still have to consider the question of what you’re going to do about it. Blame doesn’t fix things. It pins a tail on the donkey, but doesn’t make the donkey do anything productive.
When you’re ready to quit blaming and start doing something about your marriage situation, the resources are here. A good resource to consider is the video “Hurting People and Healing Questions“. Like my question to my father, it could be that a few well placed questions can turn your situation around. In this video, you’ll learn what areas to ask questions and the kinds of questions that can turn things around for you.
Best Regards,
Jeff
