Don’t Play the Blame Game
Focus on the Family Strengthening Marriage Podcast
Focus on the Family
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When you're upset, one of the worst things you can do is fixate too much on blaming your spouse. Dr. Greg Smalley shares a story about a time he snapped at Erin, and how he learned from it. Plus, Jim Daly joins Dr. Bob Paul and Tara Lalonde on why it's important to not give your spouse too much power over how you feel.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. |
| 0:24.1 | Visit truthrising.com today. |
| 0:26.9 | That's truthrising.com. |
| 0:30.9 | All right, so our producer comes from the South, and he wanted me to ask if you've ever wished that your spouse would just straighten up. |
| 0:42.9 | I am not a Southerner, and I did not know what that means. |
| 0:45.6 | And he translated it for me and said, get their act together. |
| 0:49.2 | Ah, I understand that one. |
| 0:51.6 | We'll do a tip of the hat to the Southerners and then just think it through. Have you |
| 0:55.6 | ever thought, I wish they would do it the right way? Maturity, though, is choosing to love your |
| 1:01.1 | spouse, even if they do things differently and you want to blame them for something that happened. |
| 1:06.1 | Let's not play the blame game. I'm John Fuller in the studio with Greg and Aaron Smalley, who lead our |
| 1:12.0 | marriage department. And Greg, it's pretty common. Do you have any friends who have played |
| 1:17.2 | the blame game with you and they've blamed their spouse for, I don't know, the insurance |
| 1:22.3 | going up or the basement flooding or whatever? Well, since I am my closest neighbor, you know what? |
| 1:29.7 | I was thinking about just ways that I've probably blamed Aaron and have felt bad about it. |
| 1:37.4 | I was thinking kind of categorically, two things stand out. |
| 1:42.1 | When I'm tired, when I'm worn out out when something's been going on at the office |
| 1:46.6 | it's easy for me to then snap at her I remember one time it's so sad it was on her birthday so I came home |
| 1:54.4 | and made this huge birthday dinner for her for the family worked really hard on it and then Aaron Aaron, you know, then I said, hey, you know, |
| 2:04.3 | what do you want to do next? And she said, well, I'd love to go on a walk. And so kind of the family |
| 2:08.9 | got up from the table. As I go to start cleaning up, they all head out. And I snapped at my poor |
| 2:16.4 | birthday bride saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, saying whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa I did all the cleaning |
... |
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