So you’re in this relationship and every time something goes wrong, whether or not you had anything to do with it, you end up saying Sorry! and taking the blame.
Maybe it’s your boss. Maybe it’s your colleague. Or your roommate. Or a parent. Or your spouse…
This can happen naturally between people, even if they’re emotionally healthy because sometimes, we’re all blind to our own mistakes. But if it is an ongoing pattern, you might be dealing with a narcissist. And narcissists tend to become abusers over time.
One of the most common conversations I have with people in abusive situations (both in leadership and in marriages) revolves around questions such as:
How much should I shelter them from their own consequences? Should I say sorry even when things clearly aren’t my fault? How often should I keep covering for them so nobody finds out what they’re really like? Should I keep adjusting my own behavior to not trigger the abuse, instead of holding them accountable for their own choices and actions?
Stop Taking Their Responsibility
It can be terrifying to stop taking responsibility for another person’s actions.
Often, it feels easier to shoulder the other person’s consequences than to confront the behavior pattern and risk the blow-up that may follow. It can be terrifying to insist on accountability when someone is hurting you and choose to only accept responsibility for your own choices, rather than taking on the weight of theirs. Abusive personalities will project blame for their actions to everyone around them, in full expectation of others picking up the load.
We are trained, perhaps even brainwashed, by the abusive person to accept that their perception of reality is always right. To believe that confronting them equals being controlling. To feel that pointing out areas that need change or growth must naturally be disrespect or paranoia. We don’t like conflict, we don’t enjoy being blamed for motives we don’t have — so we cower, and retreat behind a smiling mask, say sorry, and stay silent…
This happens in corporate offices when that one girl keeps stealing credit for everyone’s ideas but nobody wants to be the one to “out” her, so she keeps on doing it to every new employee.
It happens when sexual abuse victims are too scared to speak out, too ashamed to admit what happened, and so the charming and trusted predator stays free to continue abusing with impunity.
It happens in families when there’s that one relative who makes everyone walk on eggshells at every family get together, because nobody wants to brave the firestorm that would come from an intervention.
It happens when wives keep secrets about their husband’s pornography addictions, while the entire family suffers from his secondary addictive cycles and the atmosphere of deceit and disengagement that ultimately results.
(Submitted by Betty Dean. Written by Sarah McDugal. Used by permission from www.LifeandHealth.org. Courtesy of LifeSpring – Resources for Hope and Healing Stuart, VA)
