When bad things happen, there’s a tendency of wanting to blame someone or something for what happened. Somehow when you have someone or something to blame, it gives you a false sense of control over the situation.
Blaming is easy when the situation you’re facing is pretty cut and dried. When facing a complex situation, where there are many variables, it’s not so easy. I faced one of those situations once during a JCAHO hospital accreditation survey. I was caught in a situation where following one policy for assessing a potential patient. My actions put me on a collision course with a physician following policy on what order physicians were to write, the time constraints for completing an assessment and the patient’s need for dialysis treatment.
Like going to a tribunal, I was called into the office being used by the surveyor. There I faced a barrage of accusatory questions. I wanted someone to blame, yet had been through enough surveys to know that blaming someone wouldn’t solve anything. Much like Queen’s song, “Somebody to Love” focuses on finding somebody to love, I wanted to find somebody to blame.
It was a perfect storm of crashing agendas. Like a multi-car pile-up, this was a multi-problem pile-up. I wanted someone to blame for being caught in that awkward no-win situation. Although I wanted someone to blame, there was no bad guy to pin the blame on. I had to face it and fix the situation. There were no scapegoats, but many solutions I had to explore and implement.
In the end we all got through it with a little grace, some good humor, and sound problem-solving techniques aided by an experienced consultant.
Some affairs are pretty cut and dried. You know who did wrong, and who did less wrong. Although some are clear, not every affair is that way. You may want someone to blame, yet find that it was a perfect storm situation where too many factors collided.
You may also be using blame like a hammer in bashing your spouse longer than necessary. Every time you blame them again, you push them a little further away. When you say you want them to talk to you, yet blame them or verbally attack them anytime they tell you their story, it ends up damaging things further.
The key is to take responsibility for the situation and not look for someone to blame. It’s hard, but it will help you move forward and make things better. You don’t have to accept bad behavior or tolerate it in your family.
Blaming also disrupts real conversation. When you blame your spouse, you immediately stop what could’ve been some productive problem-solving. You may feel better having put everything on them, yet it hasn’t improved your marriage relationship or solved your problems.
This is one of the dangers inherent in the “What kind of affair was it?” crowd that use their inquiry as a way of sorting out where to put the blame. This strategy amounts to ‘blaming by another name’. It looks like you’ve done something, yet in reality, it hasn’t improved your marriage communication or solved your problems.
When you’re ready to get serious about handling blame, you need the video, “Let’s Talk: Hurting People and Healing Questions” which gives you some solid ways of improving your marital communication rather than blaming. Marriages need more problem solving than blaming in making through an affair.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
