Blame Confronted

My husband had agreed that I could tell him the truth by showing him how he was untruthful in blaming others for things they didn’t actually do, as I wrote about in my previous blog post. The next day I was on the look out for a very clear example to show him so that he could see it. His way of blaming was wound into almost all his communications, and it was so habitual that he didn’t recognize it as an unloving behavior—a dishonest untruthful behavior.

In the afternoon we were finishing loading up junk from our barn into our utility trailer to take to the dump. Phillip was helping Tim put the back end on the trailer. He and Tim were each installing the two wing nuts that hold the back on when the one Phillip was working with tumbled through his fingers and landed on the floor of the trailer in the corner surrounded with old carpet, garbage bags and drywall chunks. Phillip uttered an oops while trying to reach down into the trailer to get it back out. He could see it, but his arm was just not long enough to reach it.

It appeared to Tim as though Philip was digging in the junk. “What are you doing?” he accused, revealing irritation caused by his assumption that whatever Phillip was doing was bad.

Phillip began to explain, “I dropped the wing nut, it’s right there but I……”

Tim harshly interrupted, “What did you do that for?!!” He came around to Phillip’s side of the trailer. With escalated irritation, “Well I can’t get it out with you in the way!!” He shooed Phillip away with irritated hand motions while expressing a sharp breath of disgust. His long arm easily reached the nut and he roughly twisted it on the bolt making a show of his offense of having to do what he thought Phillip should have been doing. Phillip went off to the garage to collect the tarp and straps.

I had already begun to confront Tim when he treated the kids this way, but this time I used the interchange to show him specifically how he was untruthful in blaming others for things they didn’t do. “You just spoke to Phillip as though he meant to throw the nut in the trailer. You spoke to him as though he intended his actions maliciously, intentionally trying to cause you problems. This is what I was talking about last night. You blamed him for being malicious and intentional when he was not. There was nothing to blame anyone for. Dropping the wing nut was a simple accident.”

Tim didn’t argue with me, but he didn’t respond either. He walked away to the barn.

The next night, we got together with Jim and Marilyn Howshall and another two couples. Throughout the evening, Tim made a point of weaving into his conversation comments that I had been nagging him. He acted as though he was joking so that his public blaming stabs at me would seem socially acceptable, but he was not joking.

I asked myself, examining my conscience, “Was I nagging him?” No, I was not, my conscience was clear. He was blaming me for something I was not doing. I soon looked up the word “nag” in the dictionary so that I could know what it actually means to nag. It said; to scold, so I looked up scold—to chide (rebuke in anger) with rudeness and boisterous clamor. I realized not only was I NOT nagging, but HE was nagging us when he blamed us in his habitually angry way. People in their flesh regularly project their own behaviors onto others.

From that time on I continued to point out to Tim his blaming ways in truth. Although I was glad for his original agreement to my truth-telling, I realized I didn’t need his permission to obey the leading of the Lord as I cooperated with Him in the ministry of reconciliation—2 Cor. 5:18-20. I realized Tim needed to stop shifting blame and assuming that others were malicious, intentional or stupid. It was key to his freedom from anger. The Lord was showing me the way to lead him toward freedom from his flesh (his self-centered ways of thinking and behaving).

I was moving from only knowing what NOT to do, to knowing what I needed to do instead out of love, for Tim’s sake. Each time I confronted him with the truth about his behavior, I knew I was continuing to walk away from my own fleshly ways of fear of confrontation and trying to fix his anger by taking on blame for things I didn’t do. (see Not My Fault)

Beginning around that time, Tim ramped up his resistance to hearing the truth coming from me. His angry outbursts and blaming became more intense…..

P.S. My husband Tim gives me full permission and his blessing to share these stories about our past. He is no longer an angry blaming man. We hope these stories will help others to see controlling and being controlled behaviors in their lives, and come to repentance and reconciliation with the Lord and with the people in their lives.