Should Wives Be Blamed For What Husbands Do and Feel? Beauty and the Beast

In counseling, I hear wives say, “I want to be able to talk to my husband and not make him angry or irritable.” Another version:  “I have to be really careful when I talk to him or he gets mad and won’t talk.  What am I supposed to do to keep him from walking away?”

Many women feel they are responsible for what their man feels, says and does.  The husband blames her as well.

There it is; the theme from Beauty and the Beast.

Only the Beauty can calm, tame and control the Beast. HE sure can’t calm himself. If the Beast shows untamed and bad behavior, it is blamed on the Beauty: she didn’t do her job. “It’s her fault I got so mad.  She made me so upset, what was I to do? I can’t talk to her.  She always brings up the past, won’t shut up and then wants me to just listen to her complaining.  She should know how that makes me feel and that saying those things would make me blow up!” An d so it goes with the Blame Game.

But that “it’s-the-woman’s-fault” belief is pure rubbish, a killer myth in our culture that destroys relationships. Women should not be blamed for what men do and feel. Men are responsible for themselves and their own behaviors.

A myth is a belief system that guides people’s behavior.  Those who use the myth believe it to be true. For example, a historical myth was that the earth is flat. Although not true, this belief was held to be true by many people, so much so, few would sail very far from the coast because they believed if you went too far you fall off the flat earth.

Looking at stories that are often repeated and loved by a culture can show us some of that culture’s myths.  “The Beauty and the Beast,” is one of America’s most beloved fairy tales and it embodies this goofy idea that a woman is supposed to regulate a man’s (the Beast) moods and behaviors.

This story, told in a variety of formats including opera, picture story books, and animated cartoons, teaches that only the beauty, Belle, is able, with her tears, to transform the beast (representing ugly male characteristics) into a handsome prince, signifying those positive characteristics men are capable of displaying.  However, the Beast can’t do this on his own without Belle doing her “magic.”

We see the same theme in the story of King Kong in which huge, frightening and grotesque male energy in the form of a large ape can only be calmed by King Kong’s female of choice, Ann Darrow. The Ape can’t do it himself.

Cultures which insist that women cover their entire body so that men’s sexual impulses do not get out of hand suggest the same theme or myth: women are responsible for men when they are angry, sexually aroused and out of control, doing ugly things. The men can’t control themselves and thus are not responsible for their behavior.  Blame the women or wives. Blame the Beauty.

In fact, at one time in our culture, women who were raped were blamed for their victimization because they did not manage themselves “properly” in the presence of the man or rapist. She wore skimpy clothing, or conducted herself supposedly in a seductive fashion and thus was to blame for her rape. She undressed in front of a window and so is to blame for what the bad man did to her.

The myth that a woman (or any person, for that matter) is responsible for the emotional or physical treatment a man gives another person is false. Using this kind of false thinking makes a partnership marriage almost impossible.  Instead, a couple can only play the Blame Game with each other and that, over time, is not much fun.

However, it seems to be a well entrenched, widely held belief that one person has the ability to make another person have certain feelings. If those feelings lead to bad behavior, then the woman is also responsible for what the man has done, for example, hit the woman.

“I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I’d like to figure out how to not make him so angry. Or, “What can I do to make my wife happy?” These are common statements that imply one person’s feelings are another person’s responsibility.

I asked the wife of one couple who apparently believed this myth had she ever noticed that if the phone were to ring during one of her fights with her husband, in which she was blamed for making him angry, that when he picked up the phone he suddenly answered with a calm voice, no anger or irritation at all? Did she make him do that, be nice all of a sudden to a stranger?

Probably not.  Women are to blame for the bad things that happen, not the good things.

Of course my client said, “Yes. That happens all the time. People at work are always calling and he’s real nice to then.  After he hangs up, he goes back to being mad and blaming me for the fight.” I asked her in those instances what made her husband, who had been “made angry” by her, suddenly have the ability to regulate his emotion when the phone rang? She had no answer for that.

The truth about human emotion: each of us is responsible for what we feel and do. Feelings are based upon perceptions and perceptions are based upon our thoughts and we are able and responsible to manage our feelings by managing perceptions and thoughts. In turn, we are able to manage our behaviors.

Both the Beauty and the Beast can learn to manage their thoughts, feelings and actions, believe it or not!

The “Devil made me do it,” doesn’t cut it.  Oh, and by the way: women are not the Devil!

If women are so powerful over the acts and feelings of men, why did the right of women to vote not become federal law until 1920, less than 100 years ago? Why do women not have equal pay for equal work in the market place? Why do women get beat up more by men than men by women?

If women are so much more powerful over men, and men are not to blame for their own behavior, it makes men look pretty weak and dependent on females for their stability,

Want to discuss how to manage these two forms of relationship energies in your life, give me a call, Paul W. Anderson, PhD, (913-991-2302).

We each, male and female, are capable of being a Beauty or a Beast. Women can be “beastly” and men can be “beauties.”  It’s our choice what we show and do because Beauty and the Beast attitudes and behaviors reside in each of us.