The Joy of Blaming Your Spouse
(This continues from “Why Your Spouse is Wrong”) The second type of couple has one blamer and one self-blamer. Only a minority of folks are self-blamers. They have an uncanny ability to blame themselves for everything that happens to them or around them.
Self-blamers tend to marry the Other-blamers. That seems counter-intuitive, right? Upon closer observation, it makes perfect sense. Self-blamers are (unconsciously) attracted to those who agree with them. It’s like a masochist looking for a sadist. And Other-blamers are more than happy to join the Self-blamers in blaming them for what happens.
The question is, why would anyone actively choose to suffer like that? As we discussed above, the answer lies in our animal instincts. Nobody makes such a choice consciously. When we say “Love is blind,” we really mean that mate selection is instinctive. Remember that a similar level of anxiety can be expressed in ways that look very, very different. So the high-anxiety self-blamer will instinctively find an equally high-anxiety blamer to match. Then, the couple instinctively dukes-it-out in fight-or-flight mode.
“How can that be?” you ask. “I know plenty of couples who seldom fight. I know many couples where one spouse often blames the other, who doesn’t seem to fight back.” Exactly. You see, it’s not as simple as one loud or angry spouse blaming his or her quiet victim. The “victim” may be a Self-blamer who is throwing just as much fuel on the fire, but in a vastly different way. In some couples, one spouse will be outspoken and critical in blaming the other, and the other spouse will be introverted and self-critical, tacitly agreeing that his or her spouse must be right. There is a kind of yin-and-yang balance here, but it’s not the pretty black-and-white swirls we see in that circular symbol: it’s a balance of blame-either of self, or of the other.
We’ll address some examples next time.
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David Code is an Episcopal minister, family coach, writer, and founder of The Center for Staying Married & Raising Great Kids. Read more about his work at http://DavidArthurCode.com.
