Somehow, the comment thread below my post on Facebook and boundaries got turned into a discussion of the degree to which each of us is responsible for helping those around us resist temptation. I’ve dealt with this issue before, particularly here and here.
In the thread below the Facebook post, Sam and I debate the degree to which the actions of other folks can be considered to be mitigating factors in considering our own responsibility (or guilt) for the choices we make. Examples included someone deliberately trying to encourage me, a recovering alcoholic, to resume drinking — or a woman trying to seduce a man she knows to be married or otherwise unavailable. That discussion can continue.
But the thread made me think about percentages. We often talk about basic math when it comes to relationships. We talk about “each doing our part” or how making something work requires that we “split things 50/50″. And many folks speak of longing to find their better half. But as the great relationship gurus tell us, our understanding of numbers, fractions, and relationships is poor. When it comes to making a relationship work, John Bradshaw points out famously, it’s not about addition — it’s about multiplication. In other words, two “half people”, each feeling incomplete because of childhood wounds, will invariably come together and make things worse. It’s not “one half plus one half makes one”, it’s “one half times one half makes one quarter.” When we haven’t done our work to develop self-awareness, autonomy, and the ability to differentiate, then the relationships we end up having will be chaotic, turbulent, and often soul-scarring. If we want a sense of unity and wholeness, we need to fix ourselves first. 1 x1 = 1. Multiplication, not addition. It’s a cute way of understanding a basic but important concept.
I think the same thing is true with percentages. Here’s something three divorces and four marriages have taught me: if I am doing 50% and expecting my spouse to do 50%, then the marriage will (one way or another) founder. It’s not 50/50, it’s 100/100. I need to be 100% responsible for my behavior. My wife cannot, cannot, cannot “drive me to drink”; I cannot “make her depressed” without her active consent. I am completely responsible for myself, and she for herself, and we need to do everything we can to make the relationship work. I say to people “We split everything 100/100″, because though that may not make sense in terms of arithmetic, it captures a basic truth about what it takes to make a relationship not only survive but be vitalized, dynamic, and ever-changing.
To get back to the example from the original thread: I am 100% responsible for my sobriety. If I choose to drink as a result of a fight with my wife, that’s on me. If I choose to drink because someone is nagging me to have a beer, that’s on me. At the same time, if my wife is cruel and vindictive in a fight, she is 100% responsible for her choice of words. She can’t “make me” drink; I can’t “make her” say mean things she doesn’t really believe. If either of us behaves badly in an argument, we each understand that healing and moving forward requires that each of us take full responsibility for our own behavior and our own words. The vital and living organism that is a marriage is created by and sustained by two equally responsible individuals who are equally responsible for its success or failure.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that all unhealthy behaviors are equivalent. If I cheat on my wife, for example, I am 100% responsible for having made the decision to do so. If my wife loses her cool when she finds out and throws a vase against the wall, shattering it in her anger, she’s 100% responsible for having done so. Obviously, the cheating is fundamentally worse because it involves a more explicit violation of the marriage vows; breaking a vase and sleeping with someone else are not entirely equivalent. But no matter what someone does to us or says to us, we don’t — as adults — get to say “but he made me do it.” My infidelity, were it to happen (which it hasn’t, no fear) would be 100% my fault, even if my wife hadn’t slept with me in six months. And her breaking the vase, were it to happen (which it hasn’t), would still be wrong and 100% her fault, even if she did so immediately after discovering me in flagrante with her sister.
We all affect those around us. We all stir up emotions and desires and fears in the folks to whom we are closely connected.. Sometimes, it seems as if we are toy animals on a baby’s mobile; touch one of us, and all the others jiggle and sway in reaction. If a loved one dies, I’m going to feel a great deal of pain. I have little control over that. But feelings and actions are too very different things — feelings are predicates to actions, but we have a cerebral cortex (most of us) which, if we choose to use it, acts as a gateway between the impulse and the deed. We can pretend that part of the brain isn’t there, we can imagine we are “weak”, but in the end, what we choose to do in relationships with friends and family and lovers is our responsibility.
If someone made a choice to walk up to me at a party, hand me a beer, and say “Hugo, I heard you’re an alcoholic, but I’d love to see you have one beer”, it’s possible I might be tempted. And from the 100/100 standpoint, the wretch who would do such a thing is entirely responsible for his decision to try to cajole me into relapsing. He bears the psychic and spiritual responsibility (and perhaps the karma) for his effort. But if I drink, I’m 100% responsible for that choice. The same is true if a woman throws herself into my arms, begging me to cheat on my wife with her. She’s 100% responsible for her own disregard for my vows, my values, and my family. But if I have sex with her, the fact that she did everything in her power to seduce me doesn’t mitigate my responsibility in the slightest.
I was once in a multi-car accident on the Harbor Freeway here in Los Angeles. It was a chain-reaction accident. I rear-ended someone, and was rear-ended in return. Everyone involved exchanged insurance info; the Highway Patrol wrote up a report. Months later, I got a report from State Farm (my insurance company at the time), telling me that I was 15% responsible for the accident. How they arrived at this percentage I can’t imagine, but I’m told by my friends who do accident investigations and understand actuarial sorts of things that it’s quite common to divvy up blame in this way. I suppose, from a purely financial standpoint, it makes sense — having everyone be 100% responsible would violate certain mathematical rules in the same way that a coach does when he demands “110%” from his players.
The trouble is, I think a lot of folks take the same view of relationships that State Farm did of my multi-car accident. Perhaps it’s our litigious society, but even when we’re willing to assume a small percent of responsibility for something, we try our damndest to slough off the rest of the blame on to someone else. Many would like to look at a divorce in the same way that an insurance company looks at a crash, and apportion guilt accordingly. “I may be 40% responsible because I’m a workaholic, but my wife is 60% responsible because she gained weight and got addicted to painkillers!” That’s not how it works. The way things work to divide up claims about a smash on the freeway is not how they work in the far more complex and rich world of interpersonal relationships.
As my readers know, few things trouble me like the “myth of male weakness”: the notion that men are, because of their sexual drive, somehow more vulnerable to temptation than women. Based on a poor understanding of the relationship between biological stimuli and actual behavior, the myth is used to shift responsibility for bad male behavior from men to women. It holds women accountable for male infidelity, male violence, and so forth. It rarely even divides things up “50/50″, instead placing the lion’s share of the blame for whatever goes wrong on a woman who “ought to have known better.” Men need to hear a message that while they are not expected to be perfect supermen, they have the same ability to distinguish between an impulse and an action as women do. And that while we are not responsible for the impulses others may generate in our consciousness, we are entirely responsible for the action we choose to take as a consequence.
hugo,
thank you so much for this post! i am astonished at how few people understand the concept of, much less practice, personal responsibility.
Hugo, definitely with you on the personal responsibility issue. What I think is an issue, both in regards to your State Farm case and most divorces (and what I’m dealing with right now studying theories of causation in Torts) is that we’re discussing the outcome, rather than the behavior of each individual. One may be 100% responsible for their behavior but that behavior only had so much impact on the outcome (the negligence and ultimately the damages in a tort case). An insurer assesses a percentage of fault in an accident, under circumstances in which 100% can be and must be assessed, based on what the facts show the relative negligence of all parties involved (in other words, it’s zero-sum, the total negligence must be 100%). Same with a divorce or other personal difficulty, we might say that there can only be 100% of responsibility for the whole event. Of course, each person is 100% responsible for their own behavior, and for whether or not they are seeing to it that they are fulfilled in their relationships. So either we say 100% only so far as personal behavior, or 50% each, and never more nor less, of responsibility for the outcome and events in any voluntary relationship.
Another issue, maybe more applicable, is that both types of cases have multiple potential explanations and sets of circumstances that are often mutually contradictory, often equally supported by the evidence, and almost always completely unknowable to an outside observer after the fact. We won’t tell someone going through a divorce that they are “100% responsible”, or “50% responsible” or any % responsible for the outcome because we can’t know what happened, and all we would hear from either side is one or another version of the truth.
I agree with what you say above and the words are important. I would add that we all carry baggage from our pasts. For you some of your issues relate to alcohol and infidelity issues – which may relate in part to issues from your childhood. Becoming and being self-aware of the depths of our own baggage is important in helping us not repeat patterns of hurting ourselves and others.
Being aware of the baggage those close to us face is helpful of course. Being aware also of how we can hurt others not knowing of their baggage can help as well. Learning more – of racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and many other things – can help us Not hurt others as easily.
A simple example of this I think of is a former acquaintance of mine – who could easily “pass” as White, while being Black. He found it telling when the Racist jokes stopped when an “obviously Black” person entered the room when he previously had been the only non-White person present.
Thanks!
Those are important concepts – especially the bit about “1X1 = 1″. The idea of looking for your other half or needing someone to complete you has always bothered the crap out of me. I’m a whole person. I don’t need someone else to make me whole. But two whole people can make an awesome partnership.
So a female anorectic is 100% responsible for not eating?
Anorexia is a disease, ballgame. Different kettle of fish. If she refuses treatment, she is responsible for having done so. But “not eating” is a symptom of the disease.
Well now! There was a study that came out (admittedly, I didn’t read the article) that suggested that infidelity by men has a genetic component.
Either way, I guess we’re a ways today from “the Devil made me do it” in finding excuses.
Tom, if you didn’t read the article, then how can you possibly know what the study said or whether it had any validity? “I read this headline somewheres or other” is babble.
Ok mythago. Not that I don’t have enough to read, but a quick glance at a few details: twins study, 1600 participants, found 40% of a history of infidelity attributable to genetic factors.
Point I was trying to make, if we’re talking about responsibility for one’s behavior, proportional or otherwise, is that we can come up with any number of underlying, circumstantial, or intermediary causes that have an influence (disease, genes, social environment, bounded rationality, the missus’ Ben & Jerry’s, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseum infinitum). Once the gate is opened between 0% and 100% of responsibility, we have to consider those factors. Since infidelity was mentioned in the original post, I figured that the study was on point.
Two things
1) Tom’s first statement “infidelity by men has a genetic component” and his later explanation about a twin study show why you should be more precise to begin with. “Infidelity by men has a genetic component” suggests you’re part of the group arguing that men are hunters and women are gatherers and men are genetically predisposed to not be able to do monogamy. Whereas “twin study” suggests that, like cancer or heart disease or whatever, some MEN are more likely to cheat than other MEN because of, in part, a genetic component. Very different contentions (whether true or false).
2) I think the biggest facet of the 100% responsibility argument Hugo makes is that no one else is/can be responsible for how you act and react to your specific situation. Yes, you may have a disease, and you may have it worse than other people. But no one else can change that, and how you deal with it is 100% your responsibility. Is life easier for some people than for others? Yes. I count myself incredibly lucky not to have had to face childhood abuse or a serious disease (yet). But even if it’s not necessarily 100% your FAULT, it’s still 100% your responsibility (as an adult) to determine how you deal with it. Your partner cannot make you better. Your partner can make it harder for you to do what you need to do, but you also have to take responsibility for choosing to be with that person. “If only he/she wouldn’t…” is just messed up thinking. And I think that’s what Hugo is getting at.
I guess I took away the idea that there is the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. The spirit of a partnership is both people participating 100% to create a positive, healthy relationship and to accomplish all of the relationship work (emotional upkeep, physical upkeep, environmental upkeep). If one or both partners is focused on doing their half of everything, the outcome is a lessening of the relationship. 50% by either or both sides is not enough.
I can get focused on the fact that I (to my perception) do more of the environmental and physical upkeep in my relationship with my husband and young son. If I say nothing about the imbalance of doing all the maintenance for joint use areas and health care for my son, I get resentful. If I talk about it, my spouse feels that I am implying he isn’t doing “his share”. I don’t think we have gotten to that lovely mindset of each of us doing 100%. For now, I think the best way for me to not get resentful is to share with my husband what I have done for us, and leave it up to him to decide if he is doing “his share”. Over time I hope to shift the conversation to “our share”. I’d really like for us to get past conversations about “getting credit” for what we each have done, but when we don’t talk about what we do, our work for the common good of the relationship becomes invisible, and we both begin to feel like we are being taken advantage of.
Whereas “twin study†suggests that, like cancer or heart disease or whatever, some MEN are more likely to cheat than other MEN because of, in part, a genetic component.
And that the same might or might not be true of women (if you do “genetic component” studies for a certain trait on men but not women, then, even should the study be well designed and accurate in its conclusions, you definitely can’t draw conclusions on the genetic components of men’s behavior relative to women’s).
If you don’t have time to read it, then why are you citing it? “Here’s my evidence, which I don’t know if it’s true or bull pucky, but I’m a busy man” is nonsense. Nobody’s asking you to re-calculate the regression analysis on the study, but c’mon, basing your point on something you sort of heard somewhere is beneath you.
Particularly as the “1600 twins” study you seem to be referring to was done on female twins, not male twins, and admits that while there may be a correlation, the researchers admit that genetic factor is unclear and needs further research.
I get that you were bringing this up as tangential to a different point, but this is how bad information gets spread around.
Alcoholism is not a disease?
Alcoholism is a disease. The alcoholic is responsible for seeking treatment. The alcoholic also has a choice as to whether or not they work a program of recovery. But once they start drinking, they lose choice — which is why they need to exercise control not to drink in the first place; paradoxically, this often happens by admitting their own powerlessness. Through giving up control, we get responsible. That’s basic 12-step.
When an alcoholic does his or her “inventory”, they take responsibility for their actions. Any AA sponsor in the world will laugh at a sponsee who tries to suggest that they were somehow “justified” in their using.
Emily,
Sorry, but I’m afraid that I do not see the logical connection as to how one assertion would follow the other. The study also dealt with genetic factors that are associated with infidelity in women as well (and identified specific genes at that).
Lynn,
As I said Lynn, the study covered women as well, and identified completely separate genetic factors in that case. I’m assuming that the last sentence there means that “you can’t assert a genetic component for men’s behavior but not the same for women” and the study did not (I raised men’s behavior specifically in response to the example Hugo offered in his post above). I don’t have the study in front of me, so I don’t know the specific correlations for each sex, but obviously sex-lined genetic differences do exist (e.g.: hemophilia in males).
Mythago,
Ok, sorry. I was a bit sloppy and we wound up talking past each other. You’re right, the twins study was on females and infidelity. The male study which came out within the last 2 months was more preliminary than a twins study and was focused on a gene originally identified in (don’t read any further Hugo!) voles that was linked to infidelity, and the incidence of relationship problems among men carrying the same gene. A correlation was found, however, so my original point was correct (sloppy googling led me to the wrong study). A twins study would be a follow-on step I assume, which has already been done for women (must be that neglect of women in medical research that we always hear about). Either way, sorry for the error.
BTW, I just started on scientific evidence and expert testimony (e.g.: Daubert standard, Frye test) in Torts, so I ought to take the lesson of being a bit more careful.
Meant to put a link to the study. Here.
Er, make that the article.
Argh. Hemophilia is not a ‘sex-linked genetic difference’.
Mythago, it is a genetic disease, that manifests overwhelmingly in males. In what way is it not a sex-linked genetic difference?