What Happens When You Blame Your Partner and How to Stop

In my previous post, I talked about keeping a simultaneous perspective in relationships of both being an individual and a couple—you are independent and together simultaneously. This is not easy—most of us slip. When you start finding fault—blaming your partner for some act, something said, something not done—you have lost perspective on your partner as a person who has an identity of his/her own. About 100 percent of the time, things will not go well when you blame instead of discuss. When you blame, he/she is just someone who did something you didn’t like or you took offense to.

Here are a few examples of mundane but important life events that can lead to one partner blaming the other.

• Partner didn’t pay attention when you were talking—you felt “ignored.”
• Partner failed to carry out an agreed-upon task—for example, she/he was supposed to tidy up the kitchen for the company and didn’t do it. Now we have a messy kitchen for guests.
• Partner spent over the agreed-upon budget on things he/she likes.
• Partner checked out sports scores when you were spending time together.

The list is unending. You, the blamer, are often indignant: “How could you be so [insert appropriate word—careless, inconsiderate, lazy, uninterested, irresponsible, uncaring]!" The “blamee,” your partner, is highly unlikely to accept “blame” for what happened. He/she has a perspective and has an account, which you have not asked for. This sets the stage for your partner to become the counter-blamer. Now you have the “blame game”—the conflict.

No Good Outcome

Once you move to blaming, there is only capitulation, surrender, getting on your knees, sulking, a sincere apology with promises to never do it again, or a war with counterclaims from the "blamee," ad nauseum.

Above all, you miss the real chance to sort through what the issue or concern is, how to fix it, and where the accountability is. This does not happen when you opt to blame rather than discuss the situation.

I ran across a variety of anecdotal reasons or motives as to why people resort to blaming others. Here are a few:

• It can be defensive—the blamer is struggling with something and taking it out on their partner.
• The blamer is a narcissist.
• The blamer has constant stress.
• If the blamer is a woman, it is hormonal.
• The blamer has a hidden resentment toward their partner.
• The blamer is depressed.
• The blamer learned it from their parents who were blamers.
• It’s instinctive.

The Truth About Blaming

Where do we get the idea that we have the right to independently decide that something our partner did is blameworthy? It certainly didn’t come with our marriage vows; those were all about vowing to love, honor, cherish, to have and to hold, etc. When you lapse into blaming, you have forgotten that your partner is an individual in his/her own right. You have lapsed into being an individual—seeking what? Let’s look at what blaming is about.

Your spouse had agreed to tidy the kitchen for the guests that were coming to dinner one night, but didn’t do it. You are angry. You lash out with, “You are so irresponsible; I can’t count on you for anything!” You are blaming him/her for not doing an important task that had been agreed to.

• You took it personally.

Your anger is quick, and without time to think, you fall into the mental error of automatically attributing your partner’s action (nonaction in this case) to his/her character or personality trait of “irresponsibility.”

Your automatic anger is a “quick response system” reaction without appropriate reflection.¹ Reacting automatically with anger, fear, and/or hurt are clues that you are taking the situation personally. When you react personally to a situation, you are in your self-protective, “I’m in this alone” mode.

“Taking something personally” happens when an event means something special to you—something that only you can identify. In the example above, it may have been about looking good for company, feeling not cared about enough for him/her to do the assigned task, feeling overburdened with household tasks, etc. Only you can sort that out.

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• You made a mental error.

When we react automatically with such emotions as anger, fear, and/or hurt, we will likely make what social scientists call the “fundamental attribution error.”² This is the mental tendency we have to account for why people act the way they do because of something about them—for example, their personality traits, rather than because of their circumstances, such as your partner was rushed with other tasks and couldn’t get to it.

When our partners do something we don’t like, we are most susceptible to “take it personally” and accuse them of having some negative personality or character trait. Once you opt to blame, you risk that your partner will become the blamer (e.g., “You are so mean.”), and you miss the chance to be a couple and figure out how to fix the situation and accurately assign accountability.

A note about your automatic emotions: Psychiatrist David Viscott describes the ways we talk about these “quick response” emotions.³ Anger can be expressed as being irritated, miffed, teed off, irked, annoyed, furious, enraged, and burned. Fear can be expressed as being scared, edgy, jittery, having cold feet, nervous, concerned, insecure, uptight, and getting the shakes. Viscott notes that hurt is a catchall term that people use to describe all sorts of feelings without admitting to much.

Above all, it is these “quick-response” emotions that signal you are taking something personally.

More about the fundamental attribution error: Be informed that we humans tend to think that other people act because of their unique personality traits, their temperament, or individual characteristics. This is particularly true when we get angry, fearful, and/or hurt—when we take things personally. Be alert to your quick alarm system!

By the way, we also have a bias to account for explaining our negative actions because of our circumstances. No bias here, of course.

It Will Not Go Well

There is no good outcome when you “blame” your partner for something. Here are the no-good outcomes:

• Your partner, the “blamee,” will turn into a “blamer” and a conflict ensues.
• Your partner shuts down—you pay a price in the end.
• You prevent any chance to discuss the situation, find out what happened, and rectify the situation.

How to Stop Blaming: Be Informed and Be Self-Reflective

If you want to stop using blame as a way to hold your spouse accountable, you must up your “emotional intelligence” by paying attention to when you are angry, upset, or hurt by something your spouse has done that you don’t like. In other words, you must up your ability to be self-reflective rather than reactive in these situations.

Being self-reflective allows you not to fall into the mental error of automatically assuming what happened was because of some negative trait of your spouse. You now understand that we all are at risk to make this kind of mental error when we are upset with our spouses.

Talk to your partner, find out what his/her explanation is, assess together the reason this is important to you (own up to your personal take on the situation), and figure out how to get the kitchen tidied up before the guests arrive!

Once this discussion and resolution have happened, an apology is a nice thing to do.