She Always Points the Finger at Him

Papabear,

I'm in a relationship, it's pretty normal with a few bumps here and there, but there's one thing I can't stand that my mate does. He constantly blames me for what is going on. Something broke? I'm the one to blame.

Today her Amazon tablet broke. First thing she does is turn to me and says, "is there something you want to tell me?" I look at her confused af until she tells me it's broke. The thing is I don't touch it ever, unless she falls asleep with it on I turn it off to save batteries. It was working perfectly this morning, and she doesn't even connect it to the power surge and outage this afternoon.

No it's me, I'm the one that always gets the blame! It's getting old but I love her. What am I to do?

Kreed

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Dear Kreed,

Obviously, there is more going on here than just what is in your letter.

Something is bothering your mate, and you will only get to the bottom of it if you have a sit-down discussion. She might not even realize what she is doing. So, the first thing to say is, "Do you realize that every time something goes wrong your first reaction is to blame me for it?" Next is to acknowledge that you are not perfect and you might have done some things wrong, but not everything. One possibility with her is that when she was younger her parents always blamed her for things going wrong, so now she has inherited that habit and is passing it on to you (lucky you).

Telling her what she is doing could wake her up to the fact. Best case scenario is she says something like, "Oh, wow, I didn't realize I was doing that to you. I'm sorry! I will try not to do that."

Next time it happens and every time after that, stop her in her tracks, as in: "Okay, stop right there for a second. First, tell me what is wrong and then let's figure out how to fix the problem rather than pointing fingers at each other." If you did do something wrong, apologize and try to fix it, but if you didn't, don't accept blame for it. You are a team and you should be solving problems together. She needs to acknowledge that she is not perfect either, and if she screws up then let her know you are there to support her and help her with any problem and without judging her.

Communication, as they say, is key. Don't let resentment build and don't just respond with anger. This bad habit of hers might be just that: habit. And habits can be broken.

Good luck!
Papabear