No one sets out wanting their marriage to end. But for whatever reasons, marriages do fail. It’s common to want to find blame when something bad happens in our lives…and if we’re being really honest with ourselves, we must accept that some of that blame belongs in our own laps.

Stop the Blame Game and Look for Where Healing Is Needed

Both parties must address within themselves what made the marriage fail. Ideally, each will take responsibility for their own parts in the destruction or failure of the marriage, and what that looks like may be a little different for everyone. It’s important to your healing and to all your future relationships that you identify weaknesses, places in your personality where trauma or mental illness had a negative influence on the partnership, and mistakes you made in the marriage that need to not be repeated.

All of this requires attention, personal reflection, and healing. So you don’t mess up again or hurt anyone with your own issues or behavior. This is personal work, and it’s impeded by the immaturity of playing “The Blame Game.” In fact, some people continue blaming others for so long, refusing to admit their own wrongdoings, until it turns to bitterness and affects all their subsequent relationships.

Note: If you just went “Aha!” and mentally pointed a finger at your ex, you may have some work to do.

Even if the marriage failed because of 99.9% wrongdoing on THEIR part–you still played a role. This isn’t to imply blame. It’s to understand what you did in the two-part equation of the relationship. So you can fix it or heal it or learn how to improve it.

What Are Common Problems in Marriage?

Writer Carrie Ashfield in her article How to Survive the Tsunami of Post-Divorce Guilt shares her story of divorce, the immediate relief of it, and then the crippling guilt that can follow.

 “How much better and how fast you recover is a direct function of the decisions you make to preserve your emotional welfare in the days and months that follow,” said Ashfield. She goes on to discuss her reason for her post-marital guilt: the divorce was her decision. “Guilt is the feeling that you, as a person, are wrong or bad because of something you did. My decision to divorce was right for me. The fact that it hurt so many people translated to a conscious or unconscious belief that I was at fault for wounding them.”

Whomever made the decision and initiated that first cog in the machine of divorce to begin turning–there were reasons for it. 

What are common problems in marriage that often lead to divorce? 

• Domestic violence, mental or psychological abuse, controlling or toxic behavior

• Lack of intimacy

• Irreconcilable differences (Just being “too different” to fit well together in a partnership, though the main reason for the problems is hard to pinpoint.)

• Psychological stress or constant conflict

• Cheating/adultery

• Substance abuse/addiction

• Anxiety or other mental health complications

• Poor or toxic or lack of communication

• Lack of commitment/giving up/apathy

Related Reading –  Repairing Your Self-Esteem After Divorce

Marital Fault — Legality

Who is at “legal” fault for the dissolving of the marriage will be used in court to garner each party the appropriate legal settlements that may be involved. Legal fault may be something only partially important to your healing or completely negligible, depending on who is to blame and for what. Legal fault tactics are more about using what legal tools lawyers can to settle a legal dispute.

What Are the Legal Faults Considered in Divorce?

• Some states offer a no-fault marriage. You may legally dissolve the marriage for any reason or no reason at all. Or you may decline to say your reasons.

• Adultery

• Abandonment

• Prison confinement 

• Lack of sexual intimacy

• Abuse or emotional pain caused by the other spouse

Note that all of these are examples of marital faults that are considered by the courts. These are argued, legally, by the divorce lawyers who want to get you the best divorce deal you can get, and take a portion of those in fees. But likely, marital faults aren’t what’s plaguing you and keeping you up at night, even if you were guilty of them.

What keeps you up at night are the thoughts of–I was a bad husband, or a bad wife. Those are the thoughts that can make it fearful to move forward with new relationships. You remember the toxic communication, the arguing or cruelty, and your own behaviors that feel shameful and regretful. And you are right–to move forward, to move on, you do need to address your faults in the destruction or failure of your marriage and work to be and do better for yourself, and for your next partner. But you cannot go back and change those things you did. So beating yourself up doesn’t help. 

Healing that stuff is what will make you a better person and a better partner.

Finding Fault Within Yourself

After the end of my marriage I once shared with a friend that I had been physically, emotionally, financially, and sexually abused in my marriage. My friend stunned me when they responded that I couldn’t fully blame my ex partner and that I had partial fault. And that it takes two people to create a toxic situation.

I recoiled at this–how could I be blamed for his horrific abuse? 

I learned when I went down that emotional road that there had been signs early on that I had ignored. There had been toxic behaviors on my part. There had been emotional damage in me prior to the marriage that had allowed me to fall into the toxic relationship in the first place.

Related reading: Overcoming Painful Memories

And those were things I had to heal on my own. Plus, I had to learn how not to be a victim moving forward. It took years of journaling, therapy, and intense internal work for me to heal.

Note: What do we do here at Alimonialife? 

We are a team of regular people who write about our experiences with divorce so that others–like you–can feel less alone in your journey. Visit our blog and join our community at Alimonialife.

Moving Forward with Confidence

Once you’ve identified mistakes you made or brokenness that you brought to the marriage, you can heal those things within yourself or at the very least, commit to not repeating the same mistakes. 

So, if you are awake at night, tossing and turning with the realization “I was the problem in my marriage” just remember that it is past tense. You don’t have to be a “problem” in your future relationships. You don’t have to navigate future relationships as a broken part of a whole. You can heal, but it just takes a bit of gentle honesty with yourself to address where you could be better, do better, and love better.

Christina M. Ward