“My husband blames me for everything,” you may feel. Or perhaps your wife is blaming you. Maybe it’s both of you.
Either way, it’s difficult hearing you are responsible for bad things that feel outside of your control. Here’s how and why that happens, and what you can do about it.
My Husband or Wife Blames Me for Everything, But Why?
Every time we blame our partner for something that has gone wrong in our life, we hold them responsible for our discomfort. We are placing them in what I like to call a “cause and effect” system. You get hurt: they caused it. You blame them: that is the effect.
The reason I know this system so well is because I grew up in it. In my house when I was young, if something happened, you looked for who was to blame, and then you let them have it. It seemed to work, or not in my family, but it did not work when I partnered with my mate.
He did not grow up the same and was not used to being held accountable when I became unhappy. He always looked like a deer in the headlights, wondering why I was having a meltdown aimed at him.
How Understanding Reduces Blame in Your Relationship
Over time I realized that I needed to understand what I was doing and how my behavior wasn’t helping our relationship. We went to couple’s counseling (before I was a counselor). He learned some things about speaking his feelings and I learned that I had to control myself.
These are very hard lessons to learn, but they are the best ones for those of us caught in a “cause and effect” system. When we learn how to understand what happens to us and we realize that we can calm ourselves or ask our mate for some understanding and some healing we free ourselves from being a victim of everything that occurs.
It really is freeing. And yet we will always remember how we were originally wired. I still have an urge—a small one—to lash out when I feel hurt and I think he did something to me. But I don’t ever take it out on him anymore. I try and figure out what I need and then take care of myself or ask for what will help me feel better.
Self-Soothing and Understanding Help You Eliminate Blame and Fight Less
So, if you’re worried you’ll still feel like, “my husband blames me for everything,” then show him this, and help him internalize these lessons. And see that it can happen on both sides. Here’s an example of something that happened to me, that helped me avoid blaming my partner or picking a fight.
Like last night in bed. My husband is a bigger body, and he moves around with big moves. At least three times during the night he was restless and woke me up from my sleep. My first impulse is to yell at him. But I don’t, even though I want to. My next idea is to calm myself so I can go back to sleep and then I said to myself, “Relax. You can relax.”
That was self-soothing, and that’s a skill that all of us need to learn. When we know how to self-soothe, then we know that we will be okay. And when we know we will be okay, then we don’t have to take someone’s head off. That works well in any relationship.
My Husband Blames Me for Everything: How Can I Fix That Today?
Read a Book About Relationships
Learn how to firmly, but gently establish your boundaries and irritate each other less, by reading Linda’s book, Safe. Happy. Loved. Simple Skills for Your Relationship. It may help you feel closer and happier, helping you best share the experiences you can. It may also help you let your partner down gently, when you can’t share their enthusiasm. Give it a read.
Get Couples Counseling
Come in for couples counseling. Couples counseling can help you and your loved one get the most out of your relationship. It'll equip you with coping strategies and tools for communication that can help you argue less and love more.
My husband and I have been married for 7 months he is always tires to find a way to make me look bad or I’m the one whos at fault and find the small things to argue about I never been married to someone who has had it feels like it never ends on bad or good days what do i do stay or leave