Two things typically indicate that someone is not accepting responsibility in conflict: blame and pride. In addition to intensifying emotions, blame places all the responsibility on the other person. The blamer assumes the victim role. After all, if the conflict is the other person’s doing, the blamer has little power to influence the outcome.
Blamers often feel that if they criticize an opponent enough, the other person will change his behavior. This rarely works. Instead, blame empowers the opposition. The blame equation is conflict = (all) you. The responsibility equation is conflict = (partly) you + (partly) me. And blame exaggerates its claims. Because blame often traffics in absolutes—the accusations “You never do . . .”/“You always say . . .”—it allows no middle ground.
Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. Yet, there is often a seed of truth in an accusation that the other person can accept. “Mostly I don’t think I do what you say, but I guess sometimes I do, and I will try to be better about that.” Such acceptance of responsibility can open a dialogue instead of a fight. The parent says to the out of control teen: “I think we are getting nowhere in this discussion, and you are right, it’s partly my fault. What I would like to do is start this conversation over a different way. Could you please help me understand what I am missing in what is going on, and how you feel? That is where I would like to begin.”
In conflict, it is usually better to end than to begin the argument with blame. Begin with blame, and accusation encourages defensiveness that antagonizes the discussion. Postpone blame until the end, when the disagreement has been sorted out, and blame becomes the mutually agreed upon allocation of responsibility.
When both parent and child assume the mantle of the “injured party,” preferring to feel wronged than to admit complicity, blame creates standoffs. This is where pride enters the fray. Both parent and child remain committed to being “right,” stubbornly telling themselves, “I won’t back down, give in or be beaten.”
Such proud, willful parents and children can’t bear to lose an argument or to simply let an argument go. Parents who insist they are right can be relentless in an argument. “Don’t you know,” asks the exasperated child, “that not everyone believes like you?” “Of course I do,” snaps the parent. “But I also know they should!”
There is no arguing with pride. People who listen with their minds made up do not really listen at all. The only way out of an argument with such a person is to decide to let the difference between you stand. When winning becomes more important to one party than understanding, then conflict ceases to generate useful information. Pride refuses to relent on principle. Pride is often more of a roadblock for fathers because men tend to view disagreement as a performance issue.
Conflict is a competition, and they feel they must win because their self-esteem is at stake. In contrast, women are often more prone to treat conflict as a communication issue, a chance to create understanding, because for them the welfare of the relationship is at stake. In counseling, I have frequently seen conflict between a father and a son in his late teens founder when each “man” refuses to back down.
The dad won’t help financially with college unless the son achieves higher grades in high school, while the son refuses to perform up to his father’s terms and declares that after graduation he will make it on his own. Unbending pride keeps each man stuck in the stand he has stubbornly taken. In such standoff situations, I typically ask them both: “If things continue this way, with no resolution to your disputes, what will happen to your relationship?” The answer usually is, “It will get worse.” Then I tell them, “You each have to create an incentive for change.
When you are stuck in opposition like this, what do you miss doing together?” In response, both agree that one important thing they miss is going to sports events together and sharing that enjoyment. When they are this mad at each other, they have to give that up. “That seems sad,” I say. “It might be worthwhile to soften your stands over school with each other just enough to allow some of the good time together you miss.” And that incentive enables them each to put some pride aside and work with the other to get what both value. Not only does it take cooperation to prolong conflict, but also to create it.