We live in a society in which persons tend to dichotomize responsibility, resulting in blaming, scapegoating, and finding fault. When and if persons are at fault, there needs to be a process in place to make changes, resurrect one’s place in society, do repair work, and find a way to prevent further harm from happening in the future.
Figuring out whose fault it is often results in a person feeling guilty or bad. The value of having a sense of shame or guilt about what a person has done is that the person has the opportunity for corrective action. But blaming or shaming a person without opportunity for corrective action doesn’t help people know what to do that can prevent, fix, or change things in the future. In my experience helping people with anger problems, there is a false sense of having fixed a problem by figuring out who is at fault. Figuring out whose fault it is (“not me”) creates a sense of separateness, polarity, relationship rupture, and inattentiveness to what needs to happen next. Shame can create further problems when people actively avoid being blamed or don’t have clear direction for what to do next.
A less dichotomous (and dialectical) approach involves one in which people are impacted by each other; people all have roles in how conflicts happen in relationships. While it is possible that one person did something hurtful to cause a problem in a relationship, it does not necessarily negate roles in identifying how people influence each other, what can be done to fix or solve it, or what could be done to ameliorate the situation.
The next time you figure out that it wasn’t “your fault” consider the following:
What was your role in the series of events that led the other person to behave they way they did?
How is the other person impacted by your behavior?
What impact do you intend or want to have on the other person?
What is at stake in terms of your self respect, your ability to keep the relationship, and your ability to be effective in addressing the problem?
Even if you did not cause the issue, relationship rupture, or problem; what can you do to fix or change it?
Are you doing anything to make the situation worse (or making the other person feel worse about the situation than they already do)?
What solutions or proposals do you bring to the table to work on preventing the problem from happening in the future?
What impact does blaming or shaming another person have on your short and long term relationship with them?
What difficulty emotions are you being asked to tolerate or bear given the complexity of the situation? Is an unwillingness to tolerate discomfort making the situation worse?
What specific nonjudgmental feedback can you take give the person “at fault”? (In other words, how can you be part of the solution?)
If it was “your fault”, and you are not sure that shaming and blaming yourself does any good, consider the following suggestions for repair work:
Start with a succinct, matter-of-fact nonjudgmental description of what happened that includes a very brief summary and an acknowledgement of the situation. Use the following prompts to fill in the details of your own situation:
The consequences for my actions are (or may have been)…
My intention was…
My intention was not…
When I behave this way people sometimes react by…or think that…
I regret that…
I am sad that…
I would like for…
In order to prevent this from occurring again, I am going to commit to the following…
In order to make up for what I did, I will…
What I appreciate about you is…
What I value about this relationship is…
I hope that in the future…
Even if you are overwhelmed by overwhelming problems such as homelessness, drug use, or abortion rights, remember that people have more influence and power when they work hard to maintain relationships, help people in society do better, or provide solutions. Pointing fingers is never helpful unless you are prepared to give clear and specific feedback and are willing to be proactive in working towards solutions.