How to Stop Being Blamed for Everything by Your Spouse
Does your spouse think everything’s your fault? That if there are problems, then you are to blame? Here’s how to end the blame once and for all without the need for marriage counseling.
It would be great if you could fix this issue in marriage counseling. Unfortunately, because your spouse will not be motivated to stop blaming you, counseling will just result in frustration. Some thing are better worked on as an individual than a couple.
The general rule is: Never work as a couple with someone who wants something different from you.
Fortunately, you can fix this issue without conflict and much faster by yourself than you could trying to work on it with your spouse. I work with many clients who are constantly blamed and feel stuck in no-win arguments. Today, I’m going to teach you some of the same skills for getting unstuck from this pattern.
Blaming you benefits your spouse
Blame plays an important role for your spouse. And, because of that, he or she will be reluctant to give it up, even if it is damaging your marriage.
Many people get upset and defensive when they are blamed. This reactivity can temporarily stop blaming behavior, but it will come back again, and again, and again.
What is that?
Reactivity rewards both blame and criticism by giving your spouse the power to provoke you with just a few words.
This means the next time your spouse is feeling frustrated or irritated, you are sure to be blamed again, since it takes away your spouse’s feeling of powerlessness to deal with something.
Getting upset can get people to suppress their behaviors, so it may seems to work for you. But because it also rewards them with the power to provoke, the behavior will continue.
People continue to do what they are rewarded for, even if it has negative side effects.
If you often are reactive, I encourage you to trade in this partially effective behavior for a more permanent solution that will make you feel better about yourself, decrease the blame, and improve your marriage.
Your solution is to have a secure response rather than a reactive one
Being secure, rather than being reactive, will create lasting change because it will take away all benefit for your spouse to continue to treat you badly.
Your goal is to take away all rewards that your spouse gets for blaming. Punishing your spouse by getting upset or withdrawing doesn’t take away the feeling of power your spouse gets.
How do you get started on ending blame?
Do what the professionals do: assess, treat, reassess.
How many of the following symptoms of blame do you have in your marriage?
- My spouse repeatedly blames me for our marriage problems.
- My spouse repeatedly blames me for his or her unhappiness.
- Both my spouse and I are dissatisfied with the marriage.
- My spouse won’t look at how her or she is contributing to our problems.
- My spouse blames me for causing his or her damaging behavior.
- Whenever I try to talk about our marriage with my spouse, I just end up getting blamed.
- When I am blamed by my spouse I tend to get frustrated and shut down.
- I often wonder if I really am to blame and why my spouse would want to stay with me.
The more of these symptoms that are present, the bigger the role blame plays in your marriage problems.
Now that you have an idea of how much of a role blame plays in your marriage, let’s take a look at…
Blame creates opportunity for growth
The nice thing about spouses who blame is that they correctly identify the existence of problems. What I mean by that is that some spouses deny that problems exist at all. Denial of problems is a more primitive response than blame and harder to work with. With people in denial, they have to be convinced that a problem exists before improvements can be made.
With people who blame, they are already aware of the existence of problems. There is some truth in what they say. That little bit of truth hurts, but that little bit of truth will also allow you to create connection.
Wait… I’m getting ahead of myself. First things first.–the way to deal with blame is to follow three principles…
Three principles for ending your spouse’s blaming
Principle 1: Take responsibility to change your spouse’s behavior
No matter who caused your problems, you are the one responsible to do something about them.
You don’t have to follow this principle– you can ignore it, dismiss it or dismiss me. But, if you do, then nothing will get done.
I recommend you stop waiting for life to be fair and start working to make it better.
The natural tendency is to blame your spouse for blaming you. And although you are likely to be one hundred percent correct, you won’t win any prize for that, except maybe feeling self-righteous.
Self-righteousness is a booby prize.
Knowing how to create mutually satisfying relationships is a far better than being right.
Have you made being right a priority over loving, and connecting, and repairing, and creating, the kind of marriage you would really like to have?
Have you?
You can focus on being right every day as you watch your relationship fade away, or you can take responsibility for creating the change that you both need. It is a choice and how you choose determines your future.
Only the motivated person creates change
The person motivated to create change creates change. That’s the one coaches want to work with. Some people mistakenly try to send their spouses to work with me when they are the ones who need to work with me.
If you have problems with your kids, learn to deal with their behaviors. If you have problems with your spouse, learn to deal with your spouse’s behaviors. They will not be motivated to stop their behaviors just because you don’t like the behaviors.
You’ve heard it said that two people can move a load more easily than one, but that’s true only if they are pulling in the same direction.
Principle one is Instead of trying to get your spouse to change, you need to create the conditions that will make your spouse desire to change.
Why should I have to be the one, you ask? Because otherwise, it won’t happen. You will be stuck, and sinking.
I bet you can feel that.
Okay, if you’re still with me I’m sure you are all fired up to go on to…
Principle 2: Work on yourself before working on your spouse
This is a common theme for whatever improvement you want to make in your relationship. You can’t build your relationship while you are damaging your relationship, even if your spouse is doing much more damage.
Some work you may need to do on yourself is to:
- Stop any needy behaviors, such as arguing, complaining, criticizing, and so on. Such needy behaviors will motivate your spouse to blame you to protect his or her self esteem and to emotionally distance from you.
- Consider if you really do need to change what you are being blamed for by your spouse. If so, then make those changes.
- Make sure you are being a desirable spouse. Don’t expect your spouse to treat you as valuable if you are not being valuable.
- Learn how to validate your spouse to give your spouse a positive experience with you.
In short, you need to behave toward your spouse the way you would like your spouse to behave toward you.
In the words of Jesus:
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12 NIV.
This is the Golden Rule that Jesus gave us. It involves, mercy, hope, and faith, and love. It will get you what selfishness and self-protection never will–the love of your spouse.
Alright, if you are taking responsibility to create the change and are using behaviors which will help your spouse to enjoy you and value you, then you are ready for…
Principle 3: Agree with blame without rewarding it
I cover this principle in more detail in my book, Connecting through Yes! Essentially, when we can find the truth in what people are saying, without being reactive, we take away their power, and create connection at the same time.
Some people call this verbal judo. I just call it being secure. Secure people are able to admit to the truth, even when it points to one of their faults. I will be the first to tell you that I have many faults and make mistakes on a regular basis. I’ve been doing that all my life because I’m a human being. If my wife blames me for something, she is likely to be at least partially right.
I don’t need to get upset about what she got right. And, I don’t need to get upset for whatever she didn’t get right. After all she’s a fallible human being, too. I don’t make it my job to correct her when she is wrong. I learned long ago that that is not a helpful approach to having good relationships.
Like it or not, there is some truth in whatever you are blamed for. People don’t blame for something with no truth in it as that doesn’t provoke others and seems crazy.
Example: It’s your fault it rained today.
If your spouse confabulates like this, then you need to learn how to love a person with a psychological illness. For most people, this is not going to be the case.
More likely there will be some truth, even if just a little, in what your spouse says.
Example: It’s your fault we don’t have any friends.
Now, just listening to that, you may not be able to identify any truth in it, and your impulse might be to see it as a blatant lie. Don’t do that. Ask a clarifying question instead, so you can find the truth in what your spouse is saying.
Example:
- Spouse: It’s your fault we don’t have any friends.
- You: What do you mean? (Clarifying question)
- Spouse: You never want to go out and do anything with other people.
- You: Yes, I too often refuse to go out when you want to.
Notice here that you only agree with the part that is true. Of course you are not the reason that the two of you don’t have friends and you don’t say that you are, but you do admit to how you contribute to the problem.
DO NOT tell your spouse that he or she is right. Full endorsement of a partially incorrect statement is not helpful. Instead, just find the part that is true and admit to that.
Tip: If you tend to say sometimes, change it to too often to create better agreement. Sometimes is a defensive word and poor agreement.
Example: Sometimes, I refuse to go out when you want to.
is defensive, whereas
Too often, I refuse to go out when you want to,
is secure.
Some other things to avoid doing when agreeing with blame:
- getting upset in any way,
- arguing with the way your spouse said it,
- trying to find ways your spouse is at fault,
- explaining why you do what you do,
- apologizing for what you are being blamed for,
- promising to do better,
- problem solving.
All of these behaviors are needy and reactive. None of them will prevent your being blamed again.
The more you disagree, argue, defend, explain, apologize, or promise to do better, the more you will be blamed. Giving your spouse the power to provoke you to either be upset or take action is very rewarding and trains your spouse to blame you (and criticize you too).
If someone tells me to jump, I don’t ask them how high. I just agree that jumping is good exercise.
With the agreement method, all you are doing is simply admitting to the true part without any reactivity and without jumping to action.
Example:
- Spouse: It’s your fault we are late.
- You: Yes, I wasn’t ready on time.
By agreeing in a relaxed way, without being reactive, you take away your spouse’s power to control, to provoke, and to create distance. In addition, you create connection by finding a point of agreement instead of a point of debate. Agreement is a powerful connection method.
In addition, the more you can admit your faults, mistakes, and contributions to bad situations without becoming defensive, the more secure you will become, and the less you will be blamed. That’s because your spouse will not be rewarded for that behavior.
That being said, do work on doing better, without promising to, if your spouse has some legitimate complaints. Your changes will not reward the blame because it will be too far removed from when you were blamed.
Agreement can be used in many potential conflict situations to avoid conflict and build connection. My book, Connecting through Yes! has helped many people to end conflict and build connection while still being secure.
Conflict is no better than avoidance for dealing with problems. Secure responding is the one that actually creates improvement.
Some people just can’t bring themselves to agree, just as some people can’t bring themselves to exercise. Both require self-discipline. If you are one of those people, I want to let you know about…
An alternative method of dealing with blame–using boundaries
Blame can be treated as verbal abuse. We never agree with abuse. Dealing with verbal abuse involves walking away as soon as the abuse happens, for at least an hour with no contact, every single time it happens and no matter where it occurs. Done well, this boundary can stop abuse in as little as two weeks, even if it has been going on for years.
I think it is better to try the agreement method first, since agreement can also create connection, whereas boundaries do not. However, if the blaming is accompanied by any abusive elements such as shouting or name calling, then use boundaries first. If there are no abusive elements, and you can do the groundwork, then work on the agreement method as it has additional benefits for your relationship.
What’s a real life example of these methods in action?
Jane was like many of my clients. She was doubtful that anything could be done to fix her marriage and was half hoping I would tell her that. That would make her feel better about leaving her husband. I told her that leaving her husband might be the best thing to do, but we couldn’t really know until she had done all that she could to improve things. If her marriage still didn’t improve, her decision would be easier to make.
She had a number of grievances with her husband, such as his rudeness, complaints, blaming, and lack of desire to talk with her or even be in the same room. It was easy to see why she wouldn’t want to stay in a relationship like that. The next thing we looked at was how she behaved toward her husband. We discovered she was negative, avoidant, and distancing. In addition, she didn’t show appreciation, never complimented her husband, didn’t agree with anything he said, and never showed empathy.
Who started the cold war was unknown, but they were both maintaining it. I got Jane to agree to temporarily put aside her negative behaviors and to start finding things to agree with–without adding any disagreement, apologies, or explanations. By realizing it was only something that she needed to do long enough to “prove” to hereself she should leave the marriage, she was willing to try. As with most people who make the changes that I had Jane do, her husband’s negativity almost immediately decreased as soon as she started to agree in a nonreactive manner. Jane still had a lot of work ahead of her, but she could now see a light at the end of the tunnel, whereas before that it was just dark.
Agreement won’t get you all of the way, but it can get you started.
Common questions about agreeing with the true part of blame
Won’t my spouse be rewarded by my agreement?
A little, but it also frustrates your spouse because you are not reactive and don’t jump to do what your spouse wants. It’s a net loss of power for your spouse.
Why should I agree if my spouse is more to blame than I am?
Because the goal is to improve the relationship and stop the blame. The goal is not to win by proving your spouse to be more wrong. There is no reward for making your spouse wrong, but there is a big reward for stopping the blame and being secure.
How do I make my spouse agree with things that I blame him or her for?
You don’t. You stop blaming, which is a needy behavior that damages relationships. Instead, learn how to use positive requests and boundaries. Be the person you would like your spouse to be.
What if my spouse asks why I did the thing I agreed with?
Then give a simple, honest answer, without being reactive.
For example:
- Spouse: It’s your fault we don’t have any friends.
- You: What do you mean?
- Spouse: You never want to go out and do anything with other people.
- You: Yes, I often refuse to go out when you want to.
- Spouse: Why do you do that?
- You: Because I prefer to do my own activities.
Another example:
- Spouse: It’s your fault we were late.
- You: Yeah, I wasn’t ready on time.
- Spouse: Well why weren’t you?
- You: Because I didn’t realize I needed to iron my clothes and it took extra time.
If you can’t give an honest answer to a why question, then you also believe you are doing something wrong or believe that you should never make mistakes. Work on seeing yourself as a human being who makes mistakes just like everyone else. And work to improve behaviors that would bother any spouse.
Answering questions is not needy. Explanations are only reactive or needy when they are not asked for.
I get too upset to agree when I am blamed. How can I work on it?
If you have a tendency to be reactive, then focus on just listening carefully. Then admit your spouse may be right and say you will think about it. Then get some space to calm down, think about what is true, and then get back to your spouse with your non-reactive agreement. This is an excellent way to improve all responding when you are just learning.
The method of agreement is not working. What’s wrong?
Most of the time when agreement is not working it is because the relationship is damaged and the spouse has no desire to connect no matter what you do. This is why it is imperative to do the self work first. If you have done the self work and agreement is still not working for you, then switch to the boundaries method. Your having become more valuable to your spouse will make the boundaries work.
Like anything else, if your skills are not working, it is not time to give up or get reactive–rather it is time to get help.
Lack of progress simply means that you either are doing the wrong steps, are doing them in the wrong order, or are doing them at the wrong pace. Learn which it is and fix it and things will get better.
One more thing to realize is…
You have more than two options
You are not stuck with a choice of whether to put up with blame or end your marriage. You have another option. You can stop any damaging behavior your spouse is doing by using secure, no-conflict, non-reactive skills.
You don’t have to spend another year in an unfulfilling marriage. I have a coaching package specially designed to help you end your spouse’s blame and become close again. It is called Restore a Loving Relationship with a Difficult Spouse. Sign up today to start building a relationship free of emotional abuse, where love can flourish.
Improving your marriage is not a waiting game or a patience test. It is being the one who is willing to get the ball rolling on a closer, more fulfilling relationship with your husband or wife.
