Fault vs Responsibility

Browsing social media this morning, in my feed, in my memories, I saw a post I shared worthy of paraphrase. I definitely agreed with the message.

The message was a debate between fault and responsibility. The person was having a conversation with a friend between fault and responsibility. 

This person was talking with someone about how something was somebody's fault. His response was it doesn't matter if it was somebody's fault if something is broken if it is your responsibility to fix it.

For example, it is not somebody's fault if their father was an abusive alcoholic, but for damn sure it is somebody's responsibility to figure out how they are going to deal with those traumas and to make a life out of it. It's not your fault if your partner cheated and ruined your marriage, but it is for damn sure your responsibility to figure out how to take that pain and how to overcome that and build a happy life for yourself.

Fault and responsibility do not go together. It sucks, but they don't. When something is somebody's fault, we want them to suffer. We want them punished. We want them to pay. We want it to be their responsibility to fix it, but that's not how it works, especially when it comes to your heart. Your heart, your life, your happiness, is your responsibility and yours alone.

As long as we are pointing the finger and stuck in whose fault something is, we're jammed and trapped into victim mode. When you're in victim mode you're stuck in suffering. The road to power is in taking responsibility.

Your heart, your life, your happiness, is your responsibility and your responsibility alone.

Wow! That spoke to me this morning seeing that video clip again. I thought about my relationships and the hurt, grief, shame, and responsibility that I've carried. In my life, with therapy, I moved past the trauma of an abusive step-father and forgave my mother for not getting away from him sooner and love her for the sacrifices and love that she gave to me, in my twenties. I came to accept her for who she was and to value her.

As a mother I set out to not repeat any of her mistakes. I think we all do that as parents. And, most of them I did not. I made my own. I did marry an alcoholic, albeit in recovery when I married him, who relapsed and destroyed our family. I did rail at the loss of the life that I dreamed of and briefly had. I was swallowed in grief for many years post divorce which my youngest two experienced as bitterness. And I did compromise my morals as I was going through that grief, which I tried to shield them from but could not fully. 

So while my children were not physically abused or neglected, they do carry the scars from being witness to their parents painful divorce. And, my years of grief and compromise is the root of why they have estranged, along with my choice to be fair as a parent and give to them equally as I did their older brother. Although my daughters were raised in an affluent area and were supported in their pursuits, they carry the scars of parental divorce and both of the flaws of both of their parents and a sense of entitlement that their older brother does not have. I raised all three of them but the younger two are very different generation being ten years younger.

The angry, incoherent phone call that I received in the middle of my work day from my middle child on her birthday last month was traumatizing to receive. I didn't recognize her voice. She was ranting. I had sent her a gift basket to acknowledge her milestone birthday.. 25. The last time I had spoken with her was at her future father-in-law's funeral, where she made a scene which I did not reply to.

When she finally paused berating for me sending her a gift, I said to her that I sent the gift and the greeting to mark the milestone and that I wish her a nice life. There was silence. And then she made a hum-pf sound and paused again before she hung up. 

If she ever reads this, I want her to know that I heard every single painful word and that I will make no contact again. This post is a reminder to not do that when I miss her. There will be a legacy box when I eventually pass, and the books I have written. This is not from lack of caring what happens to her. My heart will always want the best for her.

My daughter is bipolar and has been hospitalized for psychotic episodes multiple times. She inherited being bipolar from her father, something I did not know about him until years into our marriage as he became unglued and relapsed into addiction. It was probably why relapse was inevitable for him with at least a half dozen relapses post divorce. Her mental health issues did not appear until her late teens and she did not have a correct diagnosis until she was in college, at first being diagnosed with depression.

She is resilient although angry and bitter. She is spiteful as much as caring. She is a talented working artist that through pure grit with dealing with mental illness graduated with a 4.0 from college and has a good paying job in her field in a city half way across the country from me.

I love her even though it is difficult to do that sometimes. And I miss the close relationship that we once had. But I am also grateful for the estrangement right now and that I don't have traumatizing stress in my daily life. I don't know if there will ever be a middle ground and the birthday greeting was not to illicit anything to break estrangement. I had expected no response but wanted to convey my love for her and the joy that I had in her birth and to mark the milestone.

Fault versus responsibility... So, it's my fault I sent a birthday greeting, a gift basket and balloons as an acknowledgement of my love and the moments of joy I had raising her. I was traumatized by the phone call, her fault. After I was shook up for a bit, I let it go and went back to my life, my responsibility. I hadn't thought of it again until this morning when I saw that memory. 

From further down the path in life, the parent in me knows there are things she needs to learn. There's no way of knowing if she will. She's on her own path and she is her own responsibility. My wish for her is that she does not carry lifelong anger like her father and that she does not carry bitterness like I did in those early years post divorce.