The #1 Cause of Relationship Issues

My marriage of 24 years ended in divorce. I had put a ton of effort into my marriage. I did the best I knew how. I tried and tried to be the best husband and father I could be. I tried to fulfill all of my responsibilities, offer help, fulfill my commitments, rely on God and Jesus Christ, practice repentance, try to be forgiving, do service, and more. However, for a reason that escaped me for all those years, my marriage wasn’t improving. Instead, it was a huge struggle. I didn’t have a good connection, and I found myself afraid to open up. My fear of rejection and failure (that I carried from childhood) was so intense that I couldn’t get myself to stop isolating myself and to stop avoiding certain conversations. This escalated and worsened to the point of divorce. I wish that someone could have shared with me years ago what I am sharing with you now. Rather than putting my effort into obsessing over expectations, I would have addressed the core issue and with some more work, likely been able to show up in my marriage ready for connection.

In my journey, I came across some really good resources for improving and deepening relationships. They provided insights into patterns, described how healthy relationships are, and were very enlightening in gaining awareness about myself, my partner, and others in my life. In my search to deepen my understanding, I noticed a recurring pattern underlying many of the resources, but oddly it was not given the focus I needed at the time.

One resource I found was the book “Hold Me Tight” by Sue Johnson. It is the basis for Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) which includes something referred to as “attachment theory.” What she describes resonated so much for me, which is an extremely common pattern in a relationship where one partner is avoidant and isolating, and the other is anxious and a pursuer. The pursuer in the marriage would notice issues in the relationship, bring them up, and try to resolve each one by discussing them with their partner. The avoidant partner would interpret it as a criticism or even as an attack and then isolate. The pursuing partner would feel abandoned, disregarded, and neglected after seeing their partner as not caring and as not putting effort into the marriage. It can be incredibly helpful to recognize this dynamic happening. It can help us understand the effects of our actions on the other person. The epiphany that eventually came to me is that both partners are exhibiting the same underlying issue.

The core underlying issue is self-blinding judgment (aka holding onto judgmental thoughts)

What is self-blinding judgment? Consider the teaching in the Bible when Jesus explained that we cannot remove the mote in our neighbor’s eye if we have a beam in our own eye. This is in the same section where he is discussing the importance of not judging. We go into self-blinding judgment when we are hurt or scared…anytime that we are having painful emotions and rather than process through them, we blame and judge. Allowing ourselves to be blinded in this way leads to disregarding, targeting, and even objectifying others. Too often we take this to the point of criticizing them to break them down, trying to change them, intentionally hurting them, and/or doing other destructive behaviors. It’s a natural defense mechanism, that if left unchecked can cause all kinds of problems. When we have a self-blinding judgment about someone it is as if we have a 2×4 board right in our face. It’s as if the board has something written on it about the other person in big black letters such as “they are lazy,” “they are overly sensitive,” “they are mean,” “they don’t care,” or any other judgmental label. With that board in our face we are unable to truly see the other person at all. We don’t see their feelings or their desires, and we don’t really see them as a human with the kinds of difficult experiences and struggles that we all have. In this state, we also have a very difficult time seeing their wonderful attributes. Our feelings of love for them are harder to access. We often even see them as being against us – that we are in some sort of competition or strategic game where we think we need to “play our cards right” to get what we want.

Have you ever noticed that people are often nicer to those who they don’t spend much time with? Why would that be? We normally love our close family much more, but for some reason, it is hard to like them sometimes. Why? Because we have self-blinding judgment. By being around them more, there are more opportunities for them to do things that frustrate us or disappoint us – things that lead us to judge them blindly. The solution isn’t to put more effort into treating them kindly…it is to eliminate our self-blinding judgment. Then, we will naturally and automatically treat them with great kindness.

Just as we can have self-blinding judgments about other people, a possibly even bigger issue is when we are judgmental towards ourselves. So many of us have belittled ourselves, bullied ourselves, and beat ourselves up with hurtful and limiting thoughts. We repeat to ourselves over and over the words that someone else said to us. They might have only said it once and yet we replay it in our minds over and over. They could have even said it years or decades ago and yet we continue to torment ourselves with it without really stepping back and questioning if it is even true.

One of the closest things to being in self-blinding judgment is having expectations. That is because expectations are judgments waiting to happen. They are like ticking time bombs. As soon as our expectations are not met, we land in self-blinding judgment. Expectations are always tied to desires. Desires themselves are absolutely wonderful and getting in touch with our desires and expressing them (without judgments or expectations) creates many opportunities for joy. We can hold onto our desires (and even increase them) while reducing or eliminating our expectations. Doing so prevents all kinds of self-blinding judgment, and empowers us to express our desires in a way that others are far more likely to fulfill them.

When we have such painful blinding judgments of ourselves and others, just going through the day can be difficult. So many of us turn to coping mechanisms to escape the associated feelings. These coping mechanisms range from emotional eating to binge-watching shows to much more damaging escapes such as addictions to pornography, drugs, alcohol, meaningless sex, or worse. I believe we are in a society where this epidemic of self-blinding judgment is far worse and more widespread than COVID-19 has ever been.

To be clear, not all judgment is bad or damaging. Some judgment is built on truth and light and is an accurate description of what is happening. These judgments help us to make wise decisions and honor our own boundaries. The same tool (that I mention below) that can help us overcome blinding judgment can help us see when the judgment is in fact true.

Consider the idea that “hurt people hurt people.” Anyone who is causing harm is in some sort of suffering (whether they are aware of it or not).  When we look past the label, we can see the suffering that they are in. 

Self-blinding judgment is the hidden key behind various teachings about relationships.

John Gottman is known for his teachings about relationships. One of his teachings is that we should adjust our behavior by “Softening the Startup.”  This means to begin difficult conversations with kindness. If we are successful at doing so, it can really help our relationship.  The struggle is to have the maturity and capacity to do so in day-to-day life.  What I’ve found is that for me it is very difficult to do so when I am carrying blinding judgment.  I’ve found the opposite to also be true: when I am not carrying blinding judgment, it is relatively easy to approach the other person in a soft way.  In fact, I will do so without any effort at all. 

Why is that? When we have self-blinding judgment it is nearly impossible to hide it. The other person can almost always sense it, whether consciously or not. We can try to hide it but it can come across in so many ways that it would take enormous effort, awareness, and self-control to fully hide it. Consider that it can come across in our choice of words, our tone, our facial expressions, discomfort in our body language, our lack of motivation, our glances, our hesitancy, our reactions, and even our silence. Consider the magnitude of effort required to try to hide it. I believe our efforts are far better placed in letting go of these judgments. Later in this article, I’ll share what I’ve found to help very effectively do so. Of course, there is the option of not hiding it, which has the benefit of being honest, but with the cost of doing potentially very serious damage which could be avoided by simply doing some self-work.

Another resource I found is Gary Chapman’s “5 Love Languages”.  What I found is that I struggled to find the success I hoped for with his teachings.  I later realized that I was carrying self-blinding judgment.  I believe that that is the biggest demotivator of expressing genuine love to a partner.  Far more important than which love language someone is speaking, is whether or not the love is coming from a genuine place rather than them pushing themselves to do it out of willpower.  After addressing self-blinding judgments, it is usually easy to genuinely express love.

Another resource is Brené Brown’s teachings about wholehearted living and being vulnerable. I found that by letting go of self-blinding judgments and expectations, we can live in a wholehearted way and open up to people while actually feeling safe!

So how can we know if we have blinding judgment toward someone?

A very simple test that I found to pretty accurately know if I’m in self-blinding judgment is this: Ask myself what the other person is both feeling and desiring. If I can easily answer that with answers that have depth rather than being superficial or shallow, then I am very unlikely in self-blinding judgment. What’s interesting is that my answer doesn’t need to be accurate. Even a well-thought-out guess is fine. This test works because a blinding beam keeps us from humanizing another person, and we can only get a sense of their feelings and desires when we see them as human.

So, how do we eliminate these self-blinding judgments?

The absolute best tool that I have found to eliminate self-blinding judgment is called “Inquiry,” taught by Byron Katie. The crucial part is as simple as 5 questions (where the 5th question is what she calls “turnarounds”). The questions require real effort to answer, but can usually be completed in 20 minutes to an hour for each judgment. They open our minds wider and show us perspectives that can often be mind-blowing. They help us remove our blinding beams and see the person with new eyes. These questions are a practical way to arrive at “radical acceptance”. In my years of self-improvement and life coaching, no other tool has been as simple, effective, and broadly applicable in addressing this core issue.

You can learn to do Inquiry from my Auto Coach (FREE), online live workshops, video courses (especially "Healing & Deepening Relationships"), and individual life coaching.

I see suffering everywhere I go. So many people feel anxious, unhappy, rejected, feel alone (even when surrounded by people), and want to find peace, fulfillment, joy, and real deep connection but don’t know how to get there. I have gone through a massive transformation through the grace of God where He led me to this and other crucial tools. I now experience peace of mind at a level that I couldn’t have imagined before. I find true fulfillment in my life every day. I am practically free from every fear (as far as I can tell). I have deeply connected with people without fear of rejection. I am able to show up as a parent in a way that is helping my kids to flourish and grow, and it is a great joy for me to watch them do so. I want this for every person on the planet. The first step is to overcome self-blinding judgment. I would love to help you do so. You can get started at ericpabstlifecoach.com.