Q & A Episode 75

The first one reads, "I need to learn more skills.

I live with three very reactive people, and everyone has been home since the first shelter in place.

My husband comes from a long line of blamers, and as he gets older, the blaming seems to have increased.

He came home last night and asked why it smelled like bleach out front, meaning outside.

I said, 'I don't know.' He said he was checking because he thought maybe our kids did something like pour bleach out front.

This instantly pissed me off because he often blames our kids.

If something is broken, he asks if they broke it.

Our kids are 17 and 12.

So I sarcastically answered, 'Yeah, our kids went into the laundry room, took out the bleach, and poured it outside.' I went on to tell him our daughter came out of her room only once all day long, and our son never once went outside.

He tried to stop me from talking at this point because I was angry.

So I stepped outside to smell for myself.

A neighbor was probably doing their laundry, as the bleach smell also has a fruity scent like laundry detergent.

This happens often enough that my daughter has a nickname for my reactive self."

Hmm.

Yeah.

Well, and the thing that I think I'll most focus on here, because obviously we don't really know this listener beyond what we just read, and we certainly don't know their husband, but this is for you, listener, so I don't want to discount or minimize how challenging it is to be in a relationship with somebody who, like they need to, is, is a blamer, right? Um, that could be pretty tough when it feels like they're always looking for a bad guy.

They're always looking for somebody to point at and say, "It's your fault." That is really unpleasant.

But we're here to maybe work on your reactivity in situations like this, and that stood out to me.

I noticed in the situation described here of how there was kind of this prompting event, right, which is the husband saying, "Why does it smell like bleach?" And then in that moment, the listener interpreted that as he's blaming the kids.

Now, yes, it does say, like, he was checking because thought maybe our kids did something, but I wasn't a fly on the wall for this, so I don't know if it was like, "Well, the kids probably did it," if that's how he said it, or if he was like, "I don't know, did the, did the kids go outside or pour something outside today?" Like, I don't know how it was said or tone or body language or anything.

But this listener had a thought that then led to the feeling of anger, right? And I talk about this with clients a lot, which is that we all, each and every single one of us, we have filters, um, ways that we interpret things, and if we are not aware of how we filter information, we're gonna get it wrong with what we think somebody is saying.

So maybe the husband in this case was actually truly pissed off and blaming the kids, but maybe he was just naturally curious and wondering and trying to gather information, and the listener was the one who was like, "Ugh, he's blaming the kids again," and getting upset.

So all of our filters need work sometimes, and I think you're recognizing here, listener, that maybe you're, you're saying that for yourself, that your interpretations of things could use some tweaking or some adjusting.

So something you can work on and try out, uh, you know, Kate and I have the shorthand version for check the facts, which is ask yourself, like, "What do I actually know?" Here's another way that you can tweak that, which is to maybe ask yourself if you notice that you have a tendency to jump to conclusions about things or to get really confident that you know what another person is thinking or trying to say, which I think in cognitive behavior therapy they call it mind reading.

Um, so like in this case, you're thinking, "Ugh, I know he's blaming the kids for this." Well, maybe, maybe not.