It was the evening of Denise’s 40th birthday, and she was furious. “How could he?” she thought, deeply upset that her husband, Tom, hadn’t given her a birthday card “from” their 8-month-old daughter. After all, she explained to Tom the next day, “You always sent me a card from the dog, so how could you not have known I was expecting one from the baby?” Denise’s distress, as funny as it is, is not unusual. We tend to give ourselves much more leeway than we give our mates. To Denise, it wasn’t enough that Tom was probably overwhelmed by the responsibilities that come with being a new father. It didn’t occur to her that she hadn’t fixed Tom’s favorite turkey dinner lately. What new mother has time?

Her reasons are reasons, while Tom’s reasons as mere excuses. In our romantic heart of hearts, we want to be loved unconditionally. We figure that if our mate really understood us, he’d forgive our puny imperfections and focus only on our many fabulous qualities. Yet we often have a hard time giving that same unconditional affection to those we’re married to. What’s going on here? Psychologists call it self-serving bias. When our mate does something we don’t like, we attribute his behavior to flaws in character rather than trying to understand the factors that created a particular situation. We know our own good motives, buthis are less believable. In other words, it’s obvious why I messed up, but when you do it, you’re a thoughtless louse, and you don’t love me like you used to.

To avoid falling into the self-serving trap, remove the blame—assume goodwill as your first response. Take the example of Lacey and her husband, Madison. He’s been coming home late from work a lot recently, overflowing with regret and explanations of how he got bogged down at the office. Lacey wonders if he values his job more than he cares about her and the kids. She would do better to look at it differently: Madison is caught between the demands of a stressful job, which he’s doing in order to support his family, and his desire to spend more time with them. If she’d stop blaming him, she might begin to understand his point of view. And then, perhaps, they could brainstorm ways to improve the situation.

It can help to remember the times you’ve been late yourself while your mate stands (patiently or not) at the front door. The phone rang at the last minute, your makeup needed freshening, you had to gather all the paraphernalia for your kid, and you had to look up the directions for where you were going. Clearly, it’s not your fault. But meanwhile, he’s berating you for being late again. How fair does that feel? Some couple’s arguments go on year after year. Jonathan sits in the driver’s seat “like a dummy,” according to his wife LeeAnn, who directs him wherever they go. She has a choice: She could continue to get annoyed with him or she might realize he has a miserable sense of direction.

Blame is pointless and leads to hurt feelings, yet it took me years to learn this simple truth. My husband never surprises me by planning an impromptu outing. I used to think he didn’t care about pleasing me, until I knew him well enough to notice that he never plans anything in advance. When I ask for what I want, I usually get it quickly, but if I waited for him to plan our social life, we’d have none. Blaming him would be as useful as hitting my head against a wall and would feel about as unpleasant to both of us. Say your partner has done something utterly infuriating—forgotten to give you a phone message, spent money on himself that you’d agreed would be saved, or even something major. Instead of getting angry, try to get into his frame of mind. You’d be surprised how loving you may end up feeling, once you “get it.” He may be so grateful for your efforts that he’ll think twice before repeating his error. And maybe anger won’t be your first response the next time things don’t go your way.

One woman used to hate it when her husband repeated every question she asked him before he’d answer it. When she wants to discuss something important, she might begin by saying, ‘I’m really bugged,” and he’ll say, ‘You’re really bugged?’ She finally figured out that he must have developed this habit when he used to stutter, to give himself more time to prepare his own words. She has to keep reminding herself that he’s not doing this because he doesn’t believe what she said or because it wasn’t clear. “It’s just a habit, and he does try to work on it,” she admits. Even if you can only stop playing the blame game with supreme effort, you’ll soon find yourselves feeling more warmly towards your partner. Let’s say your husband gets home very late one night and forgets to take out the trash. When the trash truck wakes you both in the morning, and he says, “I forgot to take out the barrels,” what goes through your mind? The wise response is not to assume selfish sloth on his part, but to accept that your husband, often preoccupied, simply forgot.

Our ways of thinking about why those we love behave in certain ways are often just plain wrong. When Sally asks Lew to pick up some coffee when he’s out choosing a DVD for them, and he brings back “the wrong kind,” Sally is tempted to say, “How could you not know that I never buy the ground kind? You never pay attention to anything I say or do. You’re just plain selfish.” Whereas Lew spent a long time in front of the coffee shelves, and finally opted to buy the most expensive can, hoping to please Sally. He honestly didn’t know that the difference between whole bean and ground was important to his wife. By assuming goodwill, you can cut out 95% of your relationship conflicts.

When you know in your gut that those who love you are acting with good intentions, misunderstandings diminish dramatically. All it takes is caring about what your partner feels, genuinely wanting to understand their frustration. Remember, the person who has pledged eternal love to you can have a bad day and make mistakes. Just like you.

About the Author: Susan K. Perry, PhD, is a Los Angeles based social psychologist, the author of Loving in Flow: How the Happiest Couples Get and Stay That Way, and the Love Advice columnist for Netscape.com. Visit her Web site at www.BunnyApe.com.