Are You ‘The Best’ At The Blame Game

By Ilex Bien-Aime

What is the most popular game of all time? Some will guess Truth or Dare, Monopoly, or maybe even the Drinking Game – but they would be wrong. The world’s most popular game was never taught but it seems to be a skill with which every human was born. The name of the game is simply called the “blame game.” We usually grow to hate this game and yet most of us continue to play it.

Human beings are experts at this game because we have had so much practice. Remember fighting with one of your siblings as a kid? They would do something that we didn’t like, so we would retaliate and when the punishment seemed to be on it’s way, we would say something like, “they started it”, or “he hit me first.” In our immature state, we tried to find a way to blame other people for our problems. Unfortunately, many of us do not leave this state of being.

Money and water may be scarce resources but there is no shortage of blame. We like to blame people for everything but we don’t like to look at our wrongs. I knew a girl who couldn’t understand why people didn’t like her. If you asked her, she would tell you everything that was wrong with other people but you would never hear her say what she did to contribute to this. This girl was a liar and a gossip – people hated her because she was a trouble maker. She refused to take responsibility for what she was doing wrong. Instead of looking within, it was always everyone else.

I see the blame game just about every day of my life. It’s hard for people to fully take responsibility for their own actions. Blaming others, in a way, makes us feel better about ourselves. Sometimes we refuse to see ourselves with the same lenses that other people  do. When people try to point out something that we have done to them, many of us try to find a way to put some of the blame back on that person. It’s almost as if we all become mini lawyers because we will try to justify our way out of everything.

Have you ever had a conversation with your married friends? God knows that we are expert blame artists! I talk to my best friend about his wife all of the time and he sure knows how to blame her for things but when I play devils advocate with him, he can justify himself with the best of them. I won’t just throw my boy under the bus, I may be king of the blame game. In my head, if I feel like you have done me wrong, I feel justified for behaving a certain way. If my wife tells me that I did something wrong or comes at me in a less than loving way, I have been known to dish out what I felt I was receiving.

The blame game truly has no place in a marriage. What I am currently learning is that the people who usually play the blame game, have too much pride. Honestly I like to see myself as humble, but marriage has shown me that I lack true humility. Sometimes you have to sit back and shut up when your spouse is telling you something. You can continue to go back and forth with each other but trust me, you won’t get far. You may even be justified in how you are feeling but even then, you aren’t justified in the blame game. It is said that if someone smacks you in the face that you are to turn the other cheek but what most of us don’t understand is that this is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength! The blame game won’t get us very far and justification is only for self edification. In the end we will be held responsible for what we do and have done – there will be no points added for the blame game!