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New Vuk Niki) __c O mM mM U NLT Y __ | The blame tango: In marriage there are no angels or devils Do you like to dance? Today we're going to explore how \it takes two to tango\ in a mamage. \Chns\ and his wife went to a cocktail party. It turned out that the attire for the evening was more formal than they had realized. They were the only ones who were underdressed, and they felt awk- ward and embarrassed about it all evening But notice how they be tempted to say, \Poor Chns wife' That ol\ Chris sure is mean!\ It's tempt- ing to side with the perceived \good guy\ against the perceived \bad guy,\ but it's not that simple. Who really is the bad guy in these scenarios? In reality, there are no angels or devils in mamage - just two people stuck in a blame/self-blame tango. They can't help it - they're doing the only dance they know. What makes the blame both thought about 1 Chris wite lamented to hoervelt. CH only 1 had thought ahead | ceuld hive «called in advance and avoided this emhar Meanwhile. Chr was thinking to hiumnsclt. \look at the mess she made She «an be soe careless at times ~ The interesting thing ahout this scenario (s that not a word was sfx» ken. but a pattem of tassthent | FR. DNVID CODE tango tricky to spot is that there is no overt con- thict. so both parties see no _ problem They assume. \\We never fight. and theretore everything is fine - Here are some «has acternstas of the blames decisive. - domineering. authontative, cntical and wormtul oft the other The selt-blamer is typically an undertunctioner, and is indecisive. adaptive rcciprocity - was rein | torced __ For - every \ \blamer\© (Chs) in a mamage. there's a \selt-blamer\ (like his wife). In reality, there were probably several things that either spouse could have done to avord their fashion faux pas. In the ideal marmmage. two mature people would objectively evaluate their role in the mis- take, and gladly take responsibility for the part they played. However, the more immature we are. the more intensely we engage in blame - either of ourselves. or of our spouses Understanding our tendency to blame others, or ourselves, is crucial because both spouses may be wasting potential in their marmage Let me say something out- rageous Many of the physical or emo- uonal problems we have in our mamages didn't just happen to us. We created them. If we reduce the reciprocal dance of \the blamer and the self-blamer.\ we can reduce the negative symptoms in our mamage. This blaming dance is difficult to spot in our own mamages. tecause must at the time it's slow and subtle Have you heard of the ancient Chinese torture of \death by thousand cuts\ The blame tango is very subtle. because there are In- tle jabs and cmtuoisms we make at our spouses throughout the day. They happen in passing,. and our spouses may not respond, so we don't even think about what we're doing. In fact. we are subtly training our spouse to find, in his or her- self, the shortcomings we perceive. This fault-finding in our spouse is a slow, insidious self-fulfilling prophecy. creat- ing our own worst nightmare. Bowen Family Systems Theory is a behavioral science that includes a princi- ple that \it takes two to tango.\ In other words. for every blamer there's a self- blamer. The key question is, why? Why would some spouses torture their beloveds by blaming them for everything? Why would the other spouses torture them- selves by blaming themselves for every- thing? The answer is: This blame tango is one of the four ways we handle the anxi- ety that builds up in our marriages. We may look at Chris and his wife and tto a fault) and merea~ ingly helpless. Taken to the extreme. - underfunctioners may become incompetent at work, experience chronic faugue or stop performing rou- tune tasks at home. They are perceived as \needing to be rescued,\ although that's the worst thing you can do for them. If the over- functioner/underfunctioner pattern persists, the underfunctioner may go on to develop stress-related ilinesses, addic- uons or mental problems. The most common solution is for the super-spouse to stop overfunctioning in the relatronship. and to stop rescuing the other. Usually, the underfunctioning spouse will only \get a life\ when he or she is forced to. This over/underfunctioning tango can also appear in the parent-child relation- ship \Alec\ had a master's degree in biology. but couldn't hold a job. He lived with his widower father and seldom socialized. He never dated, even into his 40s, and spent most of his ume alone with his pets Alec's father died suddenly. ttarmg him a place to live. but no income. Alec got a job working for the tederal government seven years ago. Since then he has been promoted twice. and has become a stable member of the workforce for one simple reason. He had to. His relatives were fed up with hus pleas for money, his landlord reached the end of his patience, and Alec had to change from helpless to self-sufficient. So, he did. Alec's case is an extreme example of a road you and I don't want to go down in our marriage or in our families. Of the four ways to handle anxiety in a relationship, over/underfunctioning is a costly method for absorbing the inevitable anxiety that builds up in a family. We'd be much better off using the marital conflict we discussed in my last column. It feels unpleasant to argue. but it's much better to engage our true feelmgs out in the open than to engage in this covert blame/self-blame tango that ends up leaving one spouse with physical or mental symptoms. Previously, I wrote about the first of four ways we unintentionally deal with Continued on page B15
