Sometimes someone really is to blame.

A parent may have failed you. A partner may have betrayed you. Someone may have behaved selfishly, irresponsibly, even cruelly, and left you dealing with consequences you didn’t choose.

Recognizing that isn’t unhealthy. It’s recognizing what happened.

But there’s a point at which who caused the problem and who is now responsible for dealing with it become two different questions.

That’s where blame can become complicated.

Because blame doesn’t only identify responsibility. Sometimes it maintains a relationship with the person we’re blaming.

Blame Can Become a Bond

Consider:

My mother screwed me up.

That may contain a great deal of truth.

But if everything that happens now is understood through what your mother did then, she remains remarkably active in your life.

A relationship goes badly: Look what she taught me about relationships.

You don’t trust someone: That’s because of her.

You struggle with something: If I’d had a different mother, I wouldn’t have this problem.

Even success can keep the relationship going: Look what I accomplished despite her.

Your mother doesn’t even have to be in the room.

She’s got a remarkably good seat.

The relationship continues through opposition.

Something similar can happen after the end of a romantic relationship. A former partner may be physically gone while remaining psychologically very much present.

Look what they did to me.

Look what I have to deal with because they left.

I wouldn’t be in this position if they hadn’t…

The relationship has ended, but the argument hasn’t.

Blame can become one of the ways we stay connected to someone we’re trying to separate from.

Being Wronged Doesn’t Make the Consequences Disappear

One reason blame is difficult to relinquish is that it may be completely justified.

Someone did something.

And now you’re stuck with something you didn’t ask for.

There’s an understandable protest in that:

Why should I have to fix something I didn’t break?

Unfortunately, because it’s in your life.

That’s unfair.

It may remain unfair.

But fairness and responsibility aren’t always distributed together.

Someone else can be responsible for creating a problem while you become responsible for deciding what to do about its consequences.

That doesn’t transfer the blame to you.

It transfers the agency to you.

Sometimes We’re Still Waiting for Restitution

Blame can also contain an unspoken request.

Understand what you did.

Admit it.

Apologize.

Make this right.

Give me back what I lost.

Sometimes the other person owes you some or all of those things.

The problem comes when your ability to move forward begins depending on receiving them.

Because now the person who hurt you still has a job in your recovery.

And they may be spectacularly unqualified for it.

They may never understand what they did. They may understand and never admit it. They may apologize badly. They may insist they were right.

Or they may simply move on while you’re still waiting for them to settle the account.

At some point, the question becomes whether you want your life to remain dependent on their participation.

Responsibility Isn’t the Same as Fault

This distinction matters.

Taking responsibility for your life does not mean deciding everything that happened to you was somehow your fault.

It doesn’t mean minimizing abuse, betrayal, neglect, dishonesty or harm.

And it doesn’t require discovering your “part” in something for which you had no meaningful responsibility.

Sometimes what happened to you really was someone else’s doing.

But what happened to you and what you do next are different kinds of responsibility.

The first may belong entirely to someone else.

The second increasingly belongs to you.

That’s not punishment.

It’s actually the way out.

Owning Your Part Can Also Set You Free

Relationships are often more complicated.

When a marriage or partnership ends, for example, one person may have behaved terribly while the other also contributed to a dynamic that wasn’t working.

Looking at your part doesn’t make the other person’s behavior acceptable.

It means you’re interested in learning something that might be useful in the next relationship.

Blame tends to keep our attention on the other person:

Why did they do that?

How could they?

What’s wrong with them?

Ownership asks different questions:

What happened to me here?

What did I tolerate?

What did I contribute?

What did I miss?

What would I do differently now?

Those questions return you to yourself.

And unlike changing another person, that’s something you can actually work with.

You Don’t Have to Forgive Anyone

Forgiveness is often presented as the final destination: eventually, if you’ve healed properly, you forgive the person who hurt you.

I’m not sure that’s always necessary.

Sometimes the demand to forgive becomes another relationship with the offender. First you’re occupied with blaming them; now you’re occupied with achieving the correct state of forgiveness toward them.

They still get an awful lot of airtime.

Maybe the more important shift is simpler.

You stop requiring something from them.

You don’t have to decide that what they did was okay. You don’t have to feel warmly toward them. You don’t have to grant absolution.

You can simply stop making your future contingent on them.

The Question After Blame

Blame answers an important question:

Who was responsible for what happened?

Sometimes we need that answer.

But eventually another question becomes more useful:

Given that it happened, what am I going to do now?

That’s where ownership begins.

Not:

It was my fault.

Not:

It didn’t matter.

Not even:

I forgive you.

Just:

This is mine now. What am I going to do with it?

The person who hurt you may always be responsible for what they did.

They don’t also have to remain responsible for what happens to you next.