It was not my fault…. Or so they would have you think. I’m talking about people who have a real problem accepting any responsibility for their own role in their own personal situations or actions.

How many times have you been in a situation where you knew you were absolutely right? And despite having strong evidence to support his position, the emotional culprit refused to accept any responsibility for his role?

I feel like it comes from childhood and these people have been conditioned ever since to believe that this behavior is acceptable. They think it’s acceptable because it’s partly all they know and it also has to do with the fact that they’re in a comfort zone and no one has stepped up to challenge them out of it.

By challenging them out of it, I mean just that. These people need someone who will challenge them to get out of their comfort zone and explore the true reality of responsible adult behavior.

This sounds easy enough, but of course the number one hurdle you’ll run into with emotional culprits is denial. When a person has some kind of emotional problem, it always comes from an association of pain or trauma. Emotion is your escape. It’s how they deal with it. For many, it is all they know. And these people think their behavior is normal.

A child picks up a parent’s behavior. It’s called modeling. They see mom and dad do it…so it must be acceptable and right for them to do it too.

An emotional culprit is always going to find a reason to blame the next guy and find a reason or reasons if he needs to justify himself.

But perhaps the saddest part of the emotional behavior of blaming is that some know deep down that they are dead wrong. And yet, they remain an emotional culprit anyway.

It is as if they weigh the two behaviors in their mind and choose the less painful one and stick with it. Which in this case is actually the most painful thing for them in the long run.

An emotional culprit will find themselves with a life full of continuous disappointments and frustrations. They will have a limited number of friends with one exception.

People who engage in this type of dysfunctional behavior always tend to seek out and befriend others who are like them to act as their support mechanism or facilitators.

This, of course, is the worst that could happen, as the emotional culprit has no one in their life to challenge them to stop the behavior and grow as a person.

I like this for a person who keeps walking sideways across the street going from one side to the other instead of walking forward and progressing on their journey.

For the emotional culprit, they don’t want to move on. They fear the unknown and feel more comfortable with people and surroundings they already know.

The question is how do emotional culprits get ahead in life and become great success makers? Unfortunately, the answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it? they do not prefer to remain in their comfort zone and in the world they created, even if it is not a world that includes rational behavior.

The next time you encounter an emotional culprit, ask them to allow you the benefit of asking them two simple questions…

What role do you have in the problem?

Can you define the responsibility you personally have?

Emotional culprits will always quickly try to do one of two things. They will dismiss your questions as stupid questions because they know deep down that answering them truthfully would mean admitting responsibility. Or they will actually try to wear you down with long explanations and logic that will only make sense to them.

Remember, the emotional culprit does not want to freely admit that they are wrong or that they are at fault or responsible for anything. Even if they know deep down that they do. They associate a lot of pain and fear with doing it. However, there is one thing you can try.

Most of the time, emotional culprits have their guard up. Their protective shields are always in place and trying to get past and drop those shields even a little bit can only be accomplished one way. You have to turn the emotional culprit on its head and present your position in such a way that it allows them to escape. You have to make them feel that it’s okay. They need to know that their pride will be intact afterward and that you won’t laugh at them or say anything that causes them emotional pain or discomfort.

Emotional culprits don’t want anyone to make them feel like they’re not that smart. They see any blame or attempt to blame or take responsibility on their shoulders when you call them fools.

So always remember to watch how you present yourself and what you say to someone you suspect is an emotional culprit. With a little practice, you may even be able to help some people by challenging them out of this dead-end behavior.