How To Stop The Blame Game Cycle In A Relationship

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My friend who is a relationship therapist said that the blame game is one of the biggest problems long-term relationships face, and one of the top reasons couples break up. I totally see how that can happen. Between surviving escrow on our recent place, my partner’s long bout of unemployment last year (which can be very hard on one’s psyche), and a six-month stretch of health issues I was having, my partner and I have seen how life can test your emotional strength and patience, and test how you respond in a relationship under tough conditions. We were taking a walk last night and I laughed to my partner, “Damn. These young couples who’ve only been together two or three years don’t know what they’re in for.”

Everyone’s on their best behavior in the beginning of a relationship. The excitement of a new thing—and all that sex you’re having—makes it so you don’t bring any of your stuff to the table. No matter how stressful of a day you have, you happily bound into the restaurant to meet your new boo of three months for cocktails, and say you had a great day. But I’ve got news for any newbie couples out there: that doesn’t and can’t last forever. Eventually, you start living your lives side by side—you don’t just put your responsibilities aside to have all fun, all the time together.

When you start living together, and especially if you own your home, it can feel like you run a business together. New, less attractive sides come out of each of you and you can start to get into a bad cycle of blaming each other for…everything. A plumbing issue. A double date gone wrong. The cycle can get bad, and you wind up in what my therapist friend calls the blame game. Here is how to stop it.

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Remember you love this person

It seems so simple, but many people don’t take the time to do it. Next time you want to go off on your partner for…being a little grumpy during your double date or…failing to clean a room he said he’d clean…stop, look at him, really take him in, and remember that you love this person. Now, you can still say what you need to say, but you’ll probably say it with a better tone if you first pause to remember the love that’s there.

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And that he loves you

Also remember that he loves you, and that one little thing—one evening when he’s a bit checked out, a bit moody, or a bit distant—doesn’t mean he no longer loves you. When you react to him being emotionally checked out for just one evening, that creates this pressure in which he feels he must be on and perfect all of the time. And nobody responds well to that pressure.

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His life is busy, too

Try to remember that your partner’s life is just as busy as yours is. Try to remember when he makes a mistake like, forgetting something at the store, that, from his perspective, he took the time to make that store run that you asked him to make, after sitting in traffic for hours and after a frustrating meeting at work. And all you’re focusing on is the one thing he forgot—not all it took out of him to make that store run. Try to focus on what your partner did right, and try to remember how busy he is and what it really means when he does things for you and the home.

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His life is stressful, too

It’s important that this relationship—this home you share with your partner—is an escape from stress. Not just one more stressful place. Everybody else, from bosses to family to clients, expect you and your partner to be perfect and give you no slack. Home should be the one place you should both feel it’s safe to mess up a little bit, and not get chewed out by your partner. You know what kind of stress you experience all day, right before you walk in the door of your home. Know that your partner probably goes through similar things.

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Never assume his intentions

Nobody likes it when somebody tells him what he was thinking or why he did something. So, if your partner, for example, doesn’t put away the laundry, don’t tell him, “You did that to bother me because I remind you so often to do it, that you’re starting to resent me.”

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Don’t react when he blames you

This one is tough, but so many times in life you’ll find that fixing your relationship just means being the bigger person for a moment. Find the strength to not react when your partner blames you. Know that he’s just reacting out of his own pain and stress. Try to be the one that puts an end to the cycle by just taking a deep breathe and stepping away when he blames you for something.

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Ask how you could be more helpful

Shouldn’t that be what a couple always does for each other? Approach this relationship with the mindset “It makes me happy to do things that make my partner’s life easier” rather than, “I am going to keep score of who did what for the house, or for the other, the most.” Think of ways to help him, rather than focus on ways he hasn’t helped you. Your mindset should rub off on him.

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Listen

Couples fall into a pattern of thinking they know what the other will say, or assuming there isn’t possibly a good excuse their partner could provide for what just happened. It’s amazing, though, how often we find we aren’t as mad if we just hear our partner out. Sometimes, there is no good “excuse” for their behavior, however, when you hear what they’ve been through that day, you sympathize, and your anger subsides.

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Recognize how little actually matters

Any time you want to blame your partner for some mistake, ask yourself what’s more important: fixing that thing, or having a good relationship. If you find that he forgot to hit the pre-rinse on the dishwasher, is it more important to say something about that right now, or to just…get along for the night?

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Remember your younger selves

It can help to think back to how you two were when you first met. Would you have ever said something about your partner putting the house keys in the wrong spot? Would you have immediately jumped to anger if he wasn’t totally peppy and charming on a double date? Probably not. You gave him the benefit of the doubt more, as he did to you. Try to recapture some of that hopefulness and forgiveness you exhibited when you first started dating.

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Recognize when you feel triggered

You know the feeling of being triggered. You know when you’re speaking out of a thoughtful, patient, understanding place and when you’re speaking out of anger. Or blinding emotions. Learn to recognize when you feel triggered and don’t respond at that time. It can be tough but show some restraint and even say, “I am not going to respond right now because I may say something I don’t mean.”

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And when he feels triggered

This is another one of those times when you have to be the bigger person, hoping that sometimes he’ll do the same for you. Recognize when he only said something hurtful because he was feeling triggered. If he is in that emotional state, do not continue the conversation. Don’t say, “You’re just triggered right now,” because nobody responds well to that. But just calmly step away.

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Focus on resolutions; not causes

If you find yourself in one of those matches when you’re just sending accusations back and forth over whose fault something is, stop, step back, and ask yourself: what do we want to happen? Stop focusing on whose fault the problem is and instead ask: so how do we resolve this? It doesn’t really matter who forgot to do what for the house. It matters you find a new system so that it doesn’t happen again.

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Accelerate this in your mind

So are you going to like…break up over this? Over things like laundry done wrong, exactly who is or isn’t invested enough in the other’s friends, as proven by one small dinner party? Are you going to lose this relationship, all so you can try to be right about these fights? Is that what you want because that is what you will get if you continue the blame game cycle.

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Take a little time apart

Not a break, because those never work. But if you find yourselves nitpicking a lot, maybe it’s a good time to go on a girls’ weekend with some friends or just have a you-day. Sometimes, you just need to miss the good stuff you have together to realize how stupid the bad stuff is.