[StillIntending]

Is it ok if I talk about platonic relationships here? I wasn't sure where to put this.
I am extremely good at excusing behavior. From anyone. I feel like 90-95% of the time I spend talking to people about other people, I'm trying to diffuse the other person's negativity towards the person we're talking about by saying that we need to understand from their point of view. I pretty much will always have an excuse for someone. Even if it's just "yeah, what they did was wrong, but we know that's their one biggest personality flaw and it's just the thing that's hardest for them to work on."
The flip side to this by the way is that I am also extremely good at blaming myself for everything. In that situation I made up above, I might have gone on to say "so we need to remember better that this person has a problem here, so that we can accommodate them better. It's not fair to them for us to blame them when we know that this is the thing they struggle with." I will literally always find a way to take the blame from anyone else, and put it on myself. I feel more guilt than I feel any other emotion. Actually, I'm not sure there has ever been a moment in time wherein I am not experiencing guilt.
How does this relate to a specific relationship? My best friend happens to be extremely good, by his own admission, of excusing himself from blame, and convincing others of his innocence too. He and I together make quite a pair then with me always excusing him and taking the blame myself, and him instinctually letting me do that. Now, importantly, he doesn't do it maliciously. It's a defense mechanism. When he excuses himself from blame, it's to protect himself. He doesn't try to make me take the blame for it. He doesn't want me to feel the blame. He wants the blame to not exist.
Ha. There I go again. I don't know whether I'm overly excusing this or not. But anyway. I do take the blame, always. I feel all of it. Everything all the time, is always my fault, in any situation. This isn't helped by his behavior.
Sooo... It's always taught that we should "imagine people complexly," as John Green says, and "try walking a mile in their shoes," as the old adage goes. I've tried my best to do that. But it seems I've actually done it TOO MUCH? Do I need to start letting other people take blame? Hell, is it actually a BAD thing that I am almost never upset with someone else? I guess I must be taking the blame and the irritation I would be feeling at them, into myself, where I can blame myself and feel intense amounts of guilt over it.

Possible trigger:

When I say intense amounts, I mean like "humanity would be better off if I were dead" amounts of guilt here.

I'm so confused.

[unaluna]

Yeah this was my thing too. It went back to having to accept my parents weirdnesses "or else". You cant choose your relatives but you can choose your friends.

[healingme4me]

That last sentence is a prime example of the downside of not holding others accountable for their own actions and behaviours.
It's a rescue tendency. Of course we are human and imperfect and each person has a way of behaving in their own individual way, at the same time we, as humans are accountable for our own actions.

Are you excusing behavior at the expense of your own limitations? At the expense of your own piece of mind? Are you losing other friends over it?

Maybe there isn't blame, per se, but there is choice and free will.

[StillIntending]

Originally Posted by healingme4me

That last sentence is a prime example of the downside of not holding others accountable for their own actions and behaviours.
It's a rescue tendency. Of course we are human and imperfect and each person has a way of behaving in their own individual way, at the same time we, as humans are accountable for our own actions.

Are you excusing behavior at the expense of your own limitations? At the expense of your own piece of mind? Are you losing other friends over it?

Maybe there isn't blame, per se, but there is choice and free will.

The thing about the blame that I take on is that it would be impossible for me to ever not experience blame when I hold myself to the standards that I do. I will blame myself for ridiculous things that no one could have seen coming, and I will tell myself that I was an idiot for not having thought of it. I haven't lost friends over it. I don't have many, and the ones I do have are extremely close to me. But I have most definitely sacrificed peace of mind, and I have most definitely ignored normal human limitations when blaming myself for things that no human could have caught.

[healingme4me]

What brought you to hold yourself to such high standards?

[StillIntending]

Originally Posted by healingme4me

What brought you to hold yourself to such high standards?

That is. That is a long story with many answers. Let me try to do this concisely.

1.) Pride is a thing. I have a lot of pride. I do hate myself for it, but nevertheless it remains. My pride tells me that I ought to be a cut above others and should be able to meet standards that others couldn't.
2.) If I didn't take the blame myself I'd have to give at least some of it to other people, and I have pretty much trained myself never to give blame to any other person.
3.) My parents have very high expectations of me, which I feel that I really ought to be able to attain, but, it's very hard to, and sometimes I don't make it. And I hate myself intensely whenever I fail.
4.) Fear of failure. And a fear of taking risks. I know everyone fears failure. This is more than the norm, I feel. It's all encompassing. It keeps me from feeling good about myself. I literally always am feeling fear. And I'm afraid that if I don't meet my impossibly high standards, I will fail.

[Perna]

We can only be responsible for our own behavior because that's the only one we control. If others behave badly, they behave badly! We don't have to condemn them for it or get them to see it or anything; all of that is their problem. But we cannot take the "blame" for it either, that's not possible. There are no "excuses" for behavior. It just is. Behavior is always a choice of the person behaving in that way. You might want to start saying to yourself, "I choose to excuse my friend's behavior." At least then you will get it sorted right; you won't be judging him, it won't be bad behavior, just behavior that you do not agree with or like. It's okay not to like someone else's behavior! Judging someone else's behavior though is not our job, we have our own behavior we have to work with. Start putting "I choose" in front of what you are doing and it can help your thinking about things.

I choose to excuse my friends behavior.
I feel hurt by my friend's behavior (start sentences with "I" and then add a verb and you can't go wrong -- not the same as "my friend hurt me", that's making it your friend's "fault" you are feeling hurt when how we feel is all inside us, not other people out there).
I think my friend's behavior is not behavior I would like to emulate.
I choose to take a break from my friend's behavior for awhile (and then tell them you'll be back in touch when you are feeling better).

[unaluna]

I dont see it as high standards - i see it as low standards. Anybody can do whatever they want and get away with it, with us. When we were kids, we HAD to put up with this behavior from our parents. They expected perfection from me, but not from themselves.

I was so afraid of breaking away from this pattern, i let good opportunities slip thru my fingers. Good relationships where people saw the good in me, but i couldnt see the good in them, because - im not really sure why! I was so used to overlooking bad behavior. This is my biggest regret in life.

[StillIntending]

I guess my standards for others are very low. My standards for me are very high. Perna, maybe that is something I should do more of. Thank you everyone. Maybe this is something I need to slowly recover from. Maybe I could have a better life if I do.

[Bill3]

I wonder what happened in childhood when you 1) fell short of a parental goal or expectation; or 2) blamed someone else (rightly or wrongly) when an unfortunate event or unsatisfactory result occurred; or 3) made a mistake that came to your parents' attention.

[unaluna]

Stillintending, i am sorry, i probably sounded harsh. Like, do as i say, not as i did. Not hery helpful. I know the exact two moments when i was sixteen when i made the wrong decision - even as i was doing it, i knew i was making a mistake. I had youtube in my head, i can still see myself! Its very difficult and scary to claim THIS IS THE RIGHT THING FOR ME, but thats your job right now, to figure it out and go for it. Use your high standards FOR yourself, not against yourself.

[StillIntending]

Originally Posted by hankster

Stillintending, i am sorry, i probably sounded harsh. Like, do as i say, not as i did. Not hery helpful. I know the exact two moments when i was sixteen when i made the wrong decision - even as i was doing it, i knew i was making a mistake. I had youtube in my head, i can still see myself! Its very difficult and scary to claim THIS IS THE RIGHT THING FOR ME, but thats your job right now, to figure it out and go for it. Use your high standards FOR yourself, not against yourself.

No, you were fine. I gather from what you said that you've fallen into the same trap I have in the past, and you didn't want anyone else to have to experience what you did because of it. I respect that. Thank you, in fact, for caring enough to talk about it.