Blame (An Important Lesson, Pt 3)

For several lessons we’ve been looking at this scale (hence, the title of this lesson is Pt 3):

Inferior Minded (-10) —— Humble (0) —— Superior Minded (+10)

There is a very important factor that I’ve held off from sharing until now: One of the biggest ways to know what side someone is on follows who receives the blame.  When someone is on the Inferior Minded side (aka moi (yes, that’s a Miss Piggy reference)), the first person they’ll want to blame is themselves (i.e. a passive person (aka not very Miss Piggy like)) whereas someone on the Superior Minded side is going to blame the other person or some other culprit like something from their childhood (i.e. a more aggressive or passive aggressive person (aka being more Miss Piggy like)). 

What does blaming yourself look like? My wife and I have been trying to help our older daughter stop sucking her thumb in her sleep for over four years.  We tried the nasty tasting nail polish, socks over her hands, and elbow braces that locked her arms into what looked like penguin wings with hands; those have been the most helpful (and funny).  We even brought her several times to an orthodontist who tries to scare kids into not sucking their thumb by showing them what will be installed in their mouth if they don’t stop.  Three times we thought we had the issue stopped (the fear of having a metal piece inserted into our daughter’s mouth by the orthodontist was a big help), but like many addicts, a month after good behavior, it came back, and she ended up sucking her thumb in her sleep.  When I heard the familiar noise, I went to her room to put on the elbow braces.  This naturally woke her up, and she quickly promised not to do it again if I gave her another chance.  Of course, a few minutes into dreamland, she was sucking again, so I returned and put her elbow braces on.  The next night before bed I told her she had to wear her elbow braces for a week because I caught her sucking her thumb.  With complete confidence in what she was saying, my daughter replied: “No I didn’t.”  I repeated myself, and again she very assuredly replied, “No I didn’t.”  What? Was my daughter manipulating me or did she forget? I don’t know.  The question I had at the time, however, was very different: “Didn’t she suck her thumb? Did I get it wrong?” Of course, there was no chance I was wrong, but that’s the Inferior Minded way: “I must have done something wrong.”  Inferior Minded people always want to blame themselves.  Superior Minded people, on the other hand, are more “You must have done something wrong,” (i.e. passive aggressive).  Guess what I’ll be facing a lot of as the only man in a house of four females.  I better keep practicing the tools I regularly teach: requests and two option questions.   

What does blaming the other person look like? This one is fun (in the most sarcastic way possible).  But before I mention this story, I want to remind you that two lessons ago I shared how I baked my laptop (like a genius).  I mention this because I don’t want this story to be misinterpreted as me throwing my wife under the bus.  It’s just a true moment that makes for a helpful teaching story.  Ultimately, I want to show how we all make mistakes and that it’s learning from them that shows our true character.  I should also point out that my wife’s overly nurturing and caring for others side is a major reason she lands around the +5 on this scale.  The following story just reaffirms this number using a different angle.

The one evening I was in my basement office working when I heard my wife scream and not in the “We just won the lottery!” kind of way.  Because she’s a very expressive person, this is not an unusual occurrence… her screaming a second time, however, was.  I politely asked forgiveness from my client and ran upstairs where I saw a jumbo Freezie box on the stove with a foot flame shooting off the top spewing black, billowing smoke.  This was not what I expected to see (obviously).  Fortunately, two weeks before this my wife bought a fire blanket (I highly recommend fire blankets) and her first response was to grab it.  While she did that, I grabbed oven mitts to move the burning box off the stove to the floor to prevent the cupboards above from catching on fire.  I wanted to run the whole thing outside, but my wife was focused on getting the flame out with the blanket.  I let her have the lead, but after she was done, I ran the smoldering box outside because it was still smoking pretty badly and the snow would prevent the charred box from doing any harm.  If you’ve ever burnt cardboard in a bonfire, you’ll know how much it smokes.  Fortunately, when I went back to my client, they agreed to reschedule, which allowed me to help deal with the aftermath and the fire alarm going off (a very distracting noise if I had tried to carry on the session).  We opened windows, turned on fans, and spread bowls of baking soda and white vinegar around to absorb the smell.  The smoke had been so bad, it ultimately took five days to remove all the smell.  It’s crazy how close we were to having our recently renovated house with addition catch fire and need a whole new renovation. 

To help clean up, I grabbed the vacuum to suck up the box ashes on the ground, but then I noticed I had dribbled a little Freezy juice from the kitchen out to the front door.  There were only a few drops, but I still needed to get a cloth to wipe them up.  While I did that, my wife was cleaning something else, but seeing me get a cloth, she snapped, “That’s why I didn’t want to run the box outside…” (because to my wife a little Freezy juice was worse than smoke) and then she threw in a classic wife line: “I might as well do this myself because you’re not cleaning right.”  A smarter husband would’ve used this as an excuse to bail on the cleaning, but not me.  I mumbled something dumb I can’t remember and kept working.  She then added that the fire was my fault.  What? I had been in the basement working for twenty-five minutes before this happened.  How did I cause it? Did I put the box on the stove? Nope.  Did I accidentally turn on the stove? Nope.  But when you’re dealing with someone in the Superior Minded category, they will find a way to blame you.  Of course, in this moment, my wife was very shaken and upset, so she wasn’t at her best, and since she’s a +5 and not a +10, she later took more responsibility for the fire.  Her initial reaction with me, however, was to give me the blame – that’s fun.

So what was my crime? Between clients I tried to fix the fridge light that had been out for a week.  Why did I choose those two minutes to address it? I’m a guy, and for some reason in that specific moment I was fed up with the fridge being dark.  You’ll notice I didn’t say I was smart – I was being a guy.  When I pulled off the light cover, I accidentally knocked a small glass bowl on the floor that naturally broke.  Fortunately, the lid on it kept it from shattering and any broken glass remained very contained.  The problem, however, was I didn’t have time to clean it up, which meant I had to ask my wife to do it.  We all have triggers, and my wife’s big trigger is being given an extra job, which meant this situation made her “less than happy”.  To make it worse (at least for her), earlier in the day I had asked about getting some work sheets out for the kids.  I would’ve done it myself, but she organizes things in a way that makes no sense to me and I can’t find anything.  Between those two things, somehow the box from the pantry ended up on the stove (she had to move things to get to the papers).  Thus, even though I was not directly involved in the fire being started, in my wife’s angry brain, I was the source.   

Side Note: I wasn’t Mr. Perfect in this situation either.  For instance, right after taking the smoking box outside, I went in the back room to open windows where I saw my three young girls crying.  Did I give them a hug or reassuring words? That would make sense… but no.  I went with saying in a scolding voice, “Stop crying and do something!” So not the gentlest response.  To their credit, my seven-year-old started comforting the two-year-old while my five-year-old followed me looking for a way to help in the cleanup.  While my wife and I were focused on the main floor, she ended up going upstairs and discovered it was full of smoke (it’s as if smoke rises – who’d have guessed?)  Her warning gave me a chance to open upstairs windows as soon as we could, which helped prevent the smoke smell from settling into our bedsheets and clothes.  It turns out, sometimes being a bit of a jerk works out.

So, if blaming ourselves and blaming the other person is bad, what does healthy blame look like? Whatever side you start with, the ideal is to consider how both sides of the problem are to blame.  For instance, my wife may have started by blaming me for the fire, but when I asked her about it a few days later, she accepted more responsibility for it.  She originally wanted to blame me (especially since that’s her normal route), but she was able to have a healthier mentality later.  I wish I could say this was always the case, but… this is pretty common for a lot of husbands.  The one exception is when a guy marries a passive woman who blames herself even with her husband, but that’s pretty rare.  What does this woman look like? She’ll apologize when things like this happen.  This is the kind of woman who takes the hit, and typically ends up with a guy who blames her.  This was my first girlfriend.  We never fought because she just bottled it up inside and ended up having panic attacks that we never realized were panic attacks because those weren’t a thing when we were dating in the early 2000s.  And yes, that means I was the one blaming her, and yes, that’s a major reason she ended up with panic attacks.  She was overly reliant on me to run the relationship and I took her for granted.  My wife was a very different woman, and has helped me better see what normal relationships look like.  It’s helpful to feel normal because when you can say, “Okay, this is normal” at least you don’t feel alone or crazy.

Tip: So why is the stereotype the woman looks down on the man? Even the friendliest woman can be passive aggressive at home with their husband (or parents) for several reasons.  First, the woman will likely have higher standards for things and her husband’s more relaxed stance can cause her to look down on him.  Second, when you’re burnt out trying to make everyone happy, there’s a good chance you won’t have anything left for the person you live with and expect to help relieve some of your stress.

In the fire situation, I’m normally a blame myself person, but this situation was an exception – I wasn’t even there.  What I could accept was that I chose to marry a woman with ADD who gets hyper focused on tasks that can distract her from things she should be doing.  For instance, to clean up my broken dish, after picking up the main broken dish, my wife started vacuuming the spot (makes sense) but then she vacuumed the rest of the main floor somehow leaving a box on the stove.  We still don’t know how the element was turned on, but there shouldn’t have been anything on it to begin with.  When something bad happens, it’s good to make a new rule to prevent it from happening again, which is part of the learning process.  After this situation, we both agreed to try to keep the stove locked in order to prevent it from accidentally being turned on.    

No matter where you land on the scale, it’s up to us to work at being more in the healthy center.

Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)