Blaming Others Obstacle

Blaming is an obstacle to successful anger management progress. If you want to control your anger, blaming is one of your enemies and you will need to stop blaming at all costs. If you continue to blame others for your anger, it will get in the way of your progress and your success in controlling your anger.

It’s Not My fault

Essentially, you blame someone else for your actions. The basic statement here is, “yes, i did it, but it was your fault.” Many people with anger problems practice a great deal of blaming.

• “You made me mad.”
• “Sure I got upset, but that’s because you pushed my buttons.”
• “I only get mad because my wife is so critical.”
• If that guy hadn’t done that first I wouldn’t have had to do what I did.”
• “Of course I yelled at him. I had to. What else could I do?”
• I had no choice but to hit him after what he said!”
• “It’s her fault. She made me do that because she got me angry.”
• “It’s my girlfriend. She drives me crazy and makes me do all kinds of stupid stuff.”
• “If that guy wasn’t such an idiot then I wouldn’t have blown up like I did.”
• “If my kids would only listen then I wouldn’t be so mad.”
• “My girlfriend made me punch a hole in the wall.”

Someone who thinks like this has a lot of blaming going on. It’s always someone else’s fault–that is why they are angry.

Blaming Interferes With Anger Management

Blaming will ruin any chance you have of being successful in your anger management. It’s your enemy because you will always have an excuse as to why you did what you did. You will always be able to find someone else t blame to explain why you acted the way you did. Blaming keeps you from owning your anger, and so it will ruin any chance you have of being successful in anger management.

These statements may be partially true. I won’t deny it. Maybe your wife is critical. Maybe your kids are pushing your buttons. Maybe your boss is a jerk. I won’t argue with you about that.

Successful Anger Management Includes Work

But you have to do the work if you are going to get better. You don’t get better by waiting for them to improve.

The worst example of blaming that I have seen was a man who brutally beat up his wife to the point where she had to be hospitalized. Then he told me that it was her fault, because she “should have known that I had an anger problem and kept her mouth shut.” He blamed her for his actions. And because he was stuck in this trap, it was very difficult for him to make progress until he let go of his blaming.