The Blame Game...

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It's his fault. It's her fault. It's his family's fault. It's her family's fault.

Blame, blame, blame.

When it comes to being a single parent, a lot of women struggle with anger issues due to the pain of their break ups with their child(rens) father.

It takes a while to move past the tug of war of who's at fault. Maybe he was irresponsible and it's true that maybe she was overbearing and insensitive. There's always plenty of blame to go around.

So what is one to do when trying to move past the issues that arise when the relationship between parents goes sour?

• Don't play the blame game. Not only is it immature to spend all of your energy collecting evidence with which to declare the other parent guilty, it's also irresponsible. I spent a couple of years feeling as if the father of my children was to blame for the way things were. I felt I had good reason. But it is a complete waste of time to find fault rather than solutions for current circumstances. Playing the blame game can and will derail you from advancing in your life.


• Admit it. You're wrong. While working overtime to prove the case of wrongdoing for the other parent, you're overlooking your own faults and shortcomings. For me, I had to acknowledge the fact that it was my choice to enter into a physical relationship with a man that the Holy Spirit warned me clearly ahead of time to avoid. While I could point out this fault and that flaw, the truth was that it was my fault for having ignored the warning signs and plowing through them anyway. When you admit your own wrong in the situation, you then have an opportunity to correct the only person you can control, and that's YOU.


• Say you're sorry. Before you get angry, I'm not talking about apologizing to the other parent. If your circumstance warrants it, that may be necessary to do. But I'm speaking of repenting and asking the Lord for forgiveness for the things you did wrong in the situation. Maybe you were spiteful and used the children as weapons against the father. Maybe you were negligent as a father and abandoned your responsibilities, leaving it all for the mother of your children to bear. Whatever the fault, even if it was simply a harsh word, ask God to forgive you. Humble yourself before God. His Grace is available and once you set aside your pride and seek Him, He is then able to step into your situation and provide you a way out and through it.

Blame is a sign of immaturity. Small children do it all the time. Once something breaks in a room, they immediately point at the other sibling and exclaim, "IT WASN'T ME! HE DID IT!"

But those who are mature realize that even if they didn't break it, they were there when it happened and contributed to the mess.

 Blame takes the focus off of progress and puts everyone in the blame game on hold.

I don't know about you, but I don't have time to live on pause! It's time to move forward and live an abundant life. Moms and dads owe it to their sons and daughters to stop blaming one another and take responsibility for their own actions. Once this happens, then the ability to make changes and progress in life returns.

Have you ever had to deal with a relationship in which blame was a problem?