Divorce Balance

Negotiation > Recovery > Enhancement

Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Blaming Benefits

Divorce recovery advice says “don’t play the blame game.”

Why on earth not—?

Without actually advocating blame, let’s at least ask why one might wish to “blame” another person for their situation in the first place.

In other words, what’s in it for them?

Ten years ago, my office was on the east side of Ann Arbor in a building that housed a variety of professions. The building had three floors, but only stairways to connect them. My office was on the first floor, near the one ADA-compliant entrance from our parking lot.

That’s the door Nick Conger used every time I saw him for the four years he was a tenant. He sold life insurance from a suite on the third floor. I got to know him like you know the people in the other spaces where you work. Then, as now, I kept my door to the hallway open as much as practical when I was there, and he’d stick his head in from time to time.

To this day, I have no idea how Nick got to the third floor. I never asked.

Nick was a paraplegic, and relied totally on a wheelchair to get around.

One afternoon at my desk, I happened to notice Nick pass my door. A minute or two later, another man, the one who ran a mail-order business out of the office next to mine, casually inserted himself into my space.

“Nick, he’s in that wheelchair, you know,” said the man to me. Then he paused, as if this called for some sort of acknowledgment.

“I do know that.”

“Do you know why?” he pressed.

“I do not.”

His voice then lowered to a stage whisper. He leaned a bit forward and his eyes seemed to squint, as if he were trying to underscore what he was about to say with telepathy.

“Foolin’ around,” he finally said. “Doin’ somethin’ he knew was wrong. Stupid. That’s wha’cha get.

"Went out askin’ for it all by himself. Paid the piper.”

Somewhere between the words “foolin’ around” and “stupid,” Nick reappeared, now pausing in the common corridor.

My ad hoc visitor and self-appointed arbiter of cosmic consequence impositions didn’t notice Nick until he’d finished transmitting the word “piper” to my ears. When he did catch sight of his commentary subject, he seemed to vanish in a wisp. Back to his distant world of fulfillment via anonymous couriers. In his view, I’m guessing, accountability must be a one-way street.

Nick came in, past the exiting analyst. He approached my desk.

“I was out with some buddies on vacation, rock-climbing,” he began, answering the unasked question. “There are rules about rigging and checking and having someone with you. But I didn’t care about rules and I was impulsive.

“That man’s right: I’m a hundred percent to blame for what happened to me. But another thing I know is that even if I was completely blameless, I’d still have to be a hundred percent to blame.”

“Go on—” I affirmed.

“It’s the only way he can make himself feel safe,” Nick explained. “If I’m to blame, and I was asking for it and so forth, then no harm comes at random. There’s a reason. And our friend down the hall here, he just says to himself, ‘I’m not like Nick, so that will never happen to me.’

“His story makes him feel safe and in control.” One of the benefits of blame.

“If someone can’t be found to blame,” Nick proffered, “why, then: This could happen to anyone, any time, for any reason.” He tapped the armrests of his wheelchair for emphasis as he spoke.

“Then there’s nothing anyone can do to prevent random calamity. You could be sitting in a chair like mine.

“Or it could happen to the man you do mail-order business with.”

Like I said, I never found out how Nick got from my floor to his every time he came to work. But I do know for certain that he did.

Sometimes that has to be enough.

—posted by Dell Deaton @11:55 PM EST 7/13/2005 [676]

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