A man walks into a store, searching for a gift at the last minute for his wife for their anniversary. He browses for an hour, attempting to find just the right gift, yet leaves the store empty handed, unable to make a decision on what to purchase. The man arrives home, steamed and angry that he does not have his wife a gift, and today is their first anniversary.
When he walks into the house, his wife greets him with a hug, and asks how his day went. He immediately goes on the defensive, saying if his wife had not kept him out with friends over the weekend or insisted they go to dinner the evening before, he would have had time to shop for an anniversary gift for her. He talks to her in an angry and harsh tone, insisting that it is her fault he did not get her a gift.
As the wife grows more upset at her husband’s behavior, informing him he had an entire year to find a gift, not just a couple hours after work on their anniversary, and that rather wait until the last minute, he could have made an attempt any time in the last week, month, etc. She gets angry and says ugly words to him, then gets upset that she said such hurtful words, and blames him for upsetting her and causing her to curse and lose control.
These two people are not alone in the way they act, feel, or behave. They are both playing the Blame Game, a game many people unfortunately play. Some realize they are playing, and some simply have no idea.
How do we respond when people blame us for their bad behavior? How do we stop playing the Blame Game? The first step is the need to recognize the behavior and why these actions are occurring.
Let’s take the couple mentioned above, beginning with the wife. It’s understandable that she would become upset over her husband being upset, and more so that she would be at his blaming her for what he didn’t do. But why would she blame him when she lost control and said things that she should not have said? He didn’t cause her to say those words. She wanted to blame him for her losing control. The simple fact is she lost control on her own. Instead of accepting responsibility for her lack of control, she chose to blame him.
And now for the husband’s part in the issue. Why did he chose to get upset and blame her because he waited too long and couldn’t find her a gift for their anniversary? Was it really her fault? Why couldn’t he just be honest and say he waited and didn’t find something rather than blaming her?
Unfortunately, some people make it a habit to behave badly and then place the blame for that bad behavior on another person. In their mind, it gives them an excuse to continue to behave in an unacceptable way. As long as they don’t accept responsibility for their bad behavior, they think they don’t have to admit to how they behave and therefore think they don’t have to change. Instead of just saying they messed up, they blame another person for how they act or talk.
A classic example… Fred greets a customer in his place of employment. The customer is in a grouchy mood. As Fred cheerfully tries to help the customer, his nice mood quickly turns sour as the customer talks in a mean tone to him repeatedly. Instead of maintaining his cool, Fred ends up speaking to the customer in the same mean manner that the customer is speaking to him. After the customer leaves, Fred is upset at himself for acting that way, but blames it on the customer.
When another person talks badly to us or behaves badly towards us, it’s often difficult to maintain our cool, to not get upset at them. And when they blame us for their actions or behaviors, it’s very difficult to maintain control and not fall into the Blame Game trap. It’s important to remember that when someone starts pointing fingers for their behavior, that doesn’t mean that we have to do the same thing.
The easiest way to be healed of this dreadful disease is to simply start taking responsibility for our own actions. When we mess up, look in the mirror and blame the one looking back at us rather than blame someone else who never made us do or not do something. And when someone does blame us, don’t fall into the same trap and act as they are acting.
No one makes us behave badly. No one makes us talk in a mean manner to another person. No one makes us treat another person badly. When we fail to treat a person with love and compassion, we have only one person to blame… that human in the mirror peering back at us.
