The Blame Game

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change." -Robert Anthony

I recently had a former friend get in touch with me.  She's going through her second divorce and wanted some support.  Actually, what she wanted was massive amounts of sympathy, infinite reassurances and pats on the back, gifts of self-help books and inspirational posters, and as many "Let's-go-to-lunch-and-by-all-means-I'll-treat-you-while-I-listen-to-you-complain-again-about-how-horrible-your-life-is-and-what-a-victim-you-are" sessions as possible.

Did I mention that I categorize this person as a former friend?  There's a reason for that.

While I believe it is vitally important for us to be there for each other in our times of need, when she told me that she was getting divorced for a second time, AND that she was losing the house, AND that her kids were hoping to live with the dad, AND that she couldn't believe this was happening to her AGAIN...I mentally looked at what I knew of her life and this is what came to my mind:

"Are you sure it's always everybody else's fault?"

Many years ago a trusted person said to me "The failure of a relationship is always 50/50." While I didn't believe it at the time, now that I think about it, that's a pretty spot on assessment.  Not in the sense that a person didn't pull enough weight to try to make things work out, but maybe his or her 50% was getting into the relationship in the first place.  Or maybe the 50% was not speaking up for what he or she needed but remaining meek and complacent and resentful instead.  A person who perpetually plays the victim always makes everything 100% the other person's fault, but maybe it's time for that person to examine the possibility that he or she might have contributed to the situation.  And how.

(Now of course I'm not talking about abuse here - that falls into a different category in my opinion.)

Let's take this person: No matter what happens to her, she never takes any blame or responsibility for consequences as a result of her behavior.  Current facts: A pattern of problems holding down a lasting marital relationship, children who would rather live with their father, siblings who don't speak to her, and plenty of friends on Facebook but none that come to visit her or invite her for those lunch dates she so desperately craves.   Previous facts: Years of serious credit card debt, an inability to hold down a permanent job for longer than about 6 months, a tendency toward hoarding followed by intense de-cluttering and cleaning, and then there was the airport incident.  She once flew into a rage at the airport gate when she wasn't allowed onto the plane after the doors had been closed. Why did this happen? Because she left for the airport 45 minutes before her flight was supposed to take off despite repeated warnings otherwise and couldn't understand why everyone else wouldn't wait for her. To her it was clearly the airline's fault, not hers.

Looking back even further, we can see how this repeated blame assigning is not new. She is a former model, who had had some success with print ads early in her career more than two decades ago. (How do we know this? Because she will tell you within moments of meeting her and regularly posts twenty-plus year old pictures of herself in her heyday.) So what happened?  To hear her tell it, the modeling career went south because of her agent and her first husband.  She couldn't hold down any other kind of job because she did not have any marketable or administrative/office skills.  This lacking was the fault of her parents and her high school guidance counselor, who didn't encourage her to pursue anything else career-wise besides capitalizing on her looks. Not to mention that after all that she's sacrificed for her kids she can't understand why they hate her, and she is furious with the makeup company who was clearly out to ruin her life when they discontinued her favorite lipstick color. Somewhere along the line she came to believe that the world owed her everything she wanted and is continually perplexed when people and circumstances don't constantly bend to her every will and whim.

So what can we learn from this person's experience and the choices she's made throughout her life thus far?  Well, lesson number one is for me to stay as far away from this person as possible! And I advise you to do the same if you have any similar people in your life.

But lesson number two is far more important.  If you are dissatisfied with an important aspect of your life - a relationship, a job, a living situation - I would encourage you to take a good hard look at your contribution toward how things have gotten to where they are.  Often times things happen for which we can take no responsibility; bad things happen in life and we have no control over those.  But if you're unhappy, and this is incredibly hard to do; ask yourself honestly:

What part did I play in me ending up where I am today?

Did I keep my mouth shut and go along with a move to a new state without making my voice and opinion clearly known?

Did I settle for partnering with someone who wasn't the best choice for me because in my mind "it was time?"

Am I suffering daily in a job because I think I need to keep the big house and designer clothes so that society will hold me in high esteem, which is the most important factor to me in my life?

Am I unable to maintain a relationship or hold down a fulfilling job because I always do something at some point to sabotage it? Because deep down I believe I don't deserve good things for myself?

Am I carrying around extra weight as a protective layer to keep people from getting inside to get to know the real me?

Do I feel like I'm always right and everyone else just doesn't understand me?

If friends stop calling, if birthday cards stop coming, if I find myself alone on major holidays, is it because everyone else is mean and doesn't care about me or is it because I did something to offend them?

Do I make every choice in my life based on what I believe other people will think of me?

The truth is, each of us is responsible for the choices we make in our lives, regardless of how someone treated us or the advice we have been given.  So many of us are stuck in blaming other people for how our lives turned out when the reality is that every single day we make thousands of choices that will affect how the next moment, day, week, month, or year will turn out.  The only person who is accountable for those choices is me or you, period.  And yes, we were treated unfairly, and yes, people were uncaring toward us, and yes, people didn't listen to what we had to say nor validated our feelings.  But as much as we might want things to have been different in the past and no matter how much things SHOULD have been different and COULD have been different, they are, quite simply, not.  Things are what they are, things happened as they did, and the sooner we take an honest look at how we were actually instrumental in the circumstances of our lives, the better we can deal with the consequences.  Then ultimately, hopefully, this practice will help us to make better choices for ourselves in the future.

"We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change. - Katharine Hepburn

Whenever you're looking for someone to blame, check the mirror first.