About dh always blaming others?

[Zaratall]

Dh seems to be always making mistakes.

Everything from losing his keys, losing his wallet, leaving the lights on in the car, driving off in the dark without putting the lights on, losing money, knocking drinks over, perhaps more seriously he completely wasted someone's time because he didn't listen to some information given or to me when I told him.

This is fine, we all make mistakes, what I can't stand anymore is that he won't take responsibility for his mistakes and prefers to blame his family.

For example, this weekend he gave our toddler jam on toast on the sofa. The toddler rubbed the jam into the sofa, so dh, instead of just cleaning it off got huffy with our older child for apparently having taken the throw off the sofa (even though this wasn't the case), and even if it was it was clear that the throw was off before he gave the toddler the jam.

He left the car headlights on and the battery went flat (a neighbour had text). So dh got huffy again with older child saying they'd put the interior light on. When dh realised it was the headlights and that he was the last to use the car, he blamed me for apparently making him go out to get chips (again I hadn't and the chips were his idea).

When he lost some money he blamed me for moving it.

When he knocks drinks over he blames me for putting them there.

When he fucked up over an appointment recently he had no one to blame because I tried to warn him. So he sulked and tried to make out he had some kind of illness and needs to see a doctor. Instead of just admitting he didn't listen to the information given or double check.

This is only scratching the surface of his blaming ways, it's been going on for years and I can't take much more.

When I try to speak to him about it he'll try to find some logic to his blaming. He even blamed his boss at work saying his boss blames him a lot so it's learnt behaviour.

Surely this is not normal? Don't most people just hold their hands up and try to rectify mistakes?

I found it hard to look at my own faults and blame others. I had this fear of getting into trouble that I carried around with me. I had counselling and CBT and this did me the world of good. I found it's ok to make mistakes and I didn't need to be perfect. It was fine to be scatty old me.

LadyMumble what fantastic self awareness! Not many people manage to 1) identify areas of themselves to 'improve' and 2) actually manage to worth through that.

The words 'wearing' been used by me and quite a few other posters. Someone else said 'corrosive' . That slow drip drip drip chip chip chip can be devastating to a relationship.

LadyMumble
I also found, in the past, that my locus of control was more external than internal and I have worked on it. In my case it didn't make me a blamer but more of a "poor me look at how unfair things for me" type of person. Not an attractive trait either.

My DH does this a bit. The other day we were on our way to the cinema and when we got to the tube station I said "do you have your glasses?"

He had a most unattractive whinge about how it was my fault for not reminding him to take them The fact that I had remembered my own glasses made it my fault for not also remembering to remind him to bring his.

The thing is I had rescued the situation by asking the question at all, when we were in the tube station and he could run back the 5 mins to the house (annoying but not as annoying as realising once we got all the way there). If I'd asked him just as we left the house it would have been "Oh no, I had forgotten them, good point Quim!" but making the fatal mistake of asking 5 minutes too late and it flips from being a helpful-wife comment to being a negligent-wife oversight.

I know I enable this behaviour by taking charge too often and letting him just bob along, but I don't know what the solution is: as a scatterbrain myself I think it's nice in a marriage to be able to say "have you got your x/y/z" and make a team effort to make sure everyone has everything they need, but when it flips on a hair trigger from "let's make a joint effort to make sure everything gets remembered" to "I henceforth abdicate all personal responsibility" it's difficult to be supportive at all without becoming a whipping boy.

I'm pleased this thread came along because on that occasion in the tube station, after a bit of light-hearted chivvying (I accept how maddening it is to have to return home once you're en route, it's an all-time pet peeve of mine and I grumble like mad if I ever have to do it) I felt he tipped from venting into actual blaming, and gave him the Basilisk Stare and said "THIS IS NOT. MY. FAULT." I was feeling a bit bad about snapping at him like that but it sounds like it's very important to establish firm boundaries.

There's such a fine line between doing a nice helpful thing, like taking his lunch out of the fridge and leaving it on the side for him to make sure he remembers it, and it being my fault if he forgets it. I don't want to have to police myself over small thoughtful acts lest they become expected and bite me in the arse

That is very true Quim Mine always writes lists before he goes away and actually consults them. So I don't say a word to help him ! Though he can be a blamer I always pull him up on it though. He does apologise.

It is so draining living with someone like this.

Me: (in kitchen about to make a drink) "Oh drat, we've run out of coffee"
DH: "Well it's not my fault"
Me: "I know, I wasn't saying it was"
DH: "So, it's your fault then"
Me: "It isn't anybody's fault, we've just run out, that's all"
DH: "Well I went shopping earlier, I would have got some if you'd told me"
Me: "I didn't realise, otherwise I would have done"
DH: "I asked you what we needed, and you didn't tell me to buy any, so it isn't my fault that we've run out"
... ad infinitum...

Painfully recogniseable. DP used to ask 'have we got nappies? Have we got suncream? Have we got juice?' endlessly when DS was small. Eventually I answered every time with 'I don't know, did you pack them?' and he stopped, mostly.

It's crap when you shy away from doing something thoughtful or helpful because you suspect that it will become the default and in future you'll be blamed for not doing it.

The most recent (and aggravating) one. I had asked DMIL if she would like to go to an event at some well-known gardens open to the public and we'd arranged a day and worked out the route to take - A1 then A14 then turn off and Hey Presto we're there. Decide not to go cross-country because it is a pain. The weather forecast on the day was horrid so we rearranged it for the next Sunday and DH said he'd like to come along as well. Fine.
On the day, he offered to drivein DMIL's car (which doesn't have satnav). Again, fine. He doesn't want to go via the A roads and says he knows a way cross country. Since he's driving I say fair enough, we'll go the way you want to go. I'm in the back seat and navigating but since he 'knows the way' I haven't been following our progress.
He starts to ask which road we need to take through town X and I say "I don't know, which road are we on?" He says "Well you tell me, you're the one with the map". As I am in the back, and it is a brilliant sunny day I need my sunglasses on, but reading glasses for the map, so I can't look out of the window, read the road sign we are rapidly approaching and then switch glasses and find out where we are on the map so I can tell him which way to turn.
We get horribly lost and he is furious because apparently this was the way I told him to come, and it's all my fault. I say I wanted to go on the A roads, and he insists that no, I didn't, I told him to go cross-country. Cue a row, which spoils the day and upsets DMIL.
Yesterday we had an argument about something else, and he brings it up - apparently I still haven't apologised for the horrible way I spoke to him, when he had gone to all the trouble of taking us both for a lovely day out and I ruined it by being so unreasonable.

Thanks, I still have the initial thought of blame but usually manage to see through it now.

Quim I love the idea of your Basilisk Stare!

This is my DF to a tee. He would rather get into all kinds of mental contortions, or failing that a howling rage, then admit he is ever wrong about anything. He will sometimes apologise but it is always done in "I've pushed this person too far and I need to win them back over even though deep down I still believe I'm in the right" kind of way.

He is mid-60s now and has been like this all his life so far and I'm sure will be like this for the rest of life. He lives alone, has had three failed marriages, none of his kids particularly like him and his only emotional close relationship is with his elderly mother as she is the only one who will put up with him for any length of time.

Sorry to paint a gloomy picture, OP, but my experiences with this kind of character don't lead me to be optimistic abut your DP's ability to change.

On the few occasions my dad still does this, we continue to spin his yarn.

If it was my fault he dropped a bowl for standing somewhere, I will point out I didn't just innocently stand there, I was thinking evil thoughts and deliberately wore a bright yellow dress to make sure he would look in my direction therefore tripping and dropping the bowl.

Both me and DP do this, mostly when we're tired/ hangry or similar. We call each other out on it though and it's rarely for minor stuff so it doesn't rear its ugly head too often.

To be fair, I'd be doing this constantly considering I'm covered in cuts and bruises.

My late gran was the worst for it- she claimed we got our young puppy so that the dog can trip her and my gran will fall, break a leg and she'll get a blood clot and that will kill her.

Cheshire at your gran, that's superb blame-apportioning! Reminds me of that fantastic thread in Classics, the "find a way to tell me I am being unreasonable" thread.

I must confess I am sometimes inclined towards inappropriate blame if injured or scared. I remember when I first moved in with DH and was battling with his horror-show of a totally iced-over freezer, getting crosser and crosser as my hands turned purple and everything refused to cooperate, and then I went to stand up without having closed the fridge door and donked my head on the underside of it. I slammed it shut and roared a volley of technicolour abuse at him about his fucking-fucking-cunting-fucking fridge whacking me on the head, while he just stood there like this

My STBXH used to do this.

Nothing was ever his fault-and if it was proven that it was, he would never apologise for casting the blame elsewhere. (Usually ds1 or me). In fact, he would usually excuse himself again somehow.

Eventually it got to the point where I was questioning myself-maybe I had moved his keys? Maybe I had put the drink in a silly place? etc. At one point I was quite worried about my sanity, tbh.

Just one of the (many) reasons he's a STBXH.

I slammed it shut and roared a volley of technicolour abuse at him about his fucking-fucking-cunting-fucking fridge whacking me on the head, while he just stood there like this confused

I agree. I did knock you on the head Quim.

My gran deserves her own thread to be honest, but I'll have to see if I can find the one in Classics. I need something to cheer me up today.

A coffee table.

That's the silly place to put coffee.

I don't just let him blame the dc, but even when I call him out he scrabbles around for more excuses and it turns into something bigger than it needed to be. I find it pathetic to be honest. Even if he does sorry sorry it's a childish, sulky, arms crossed "well sorryyyy, but".

He is very resistant to reality and I suspect when you try to tackle this he will refuse to accept that he is having a bad effect on anyone.

If he refuses to change (very likely) you are going to have to consider ways of keeping the children safe from the toll this will take on the children. It will be considerable.

Right now they are being set up to be the cat that gets kicked every time he interacts with them. It's like a bully sucker-punching a victim in the school playground.