How to deal with blamers

[cheersfrasier]

DH has a horrible habit of needing to find someone to blame for every bad thing that happens. It has become a lot worse as he's got older and he has had less patience with delays, mishaps and other people.

I have actually seen him take events that have happened and I have watched his mind searching for someone to blame and actually retrospectively shifting responsibility to them. I find it highly disturbing. Obviously, I am a common blame target because I spend most of my time with him and we naturally do a lot together. I never stand for it, of course, and it causes huge arguments between us.

Blaming is completely not part of my culture as a human being. I believe that people make mistakes, there are accidents and coincidences, some people are naive and don't pay attention, and some things are just bad timing.

The latest in a line of incidents is that DH was supposed to meet a client yesterday at 3pm. He hadn't told me this, and was instead wondering around the house at 2.50pm looking for keys and various paraphernalia. As he was wondering round I asked him if I needed to book a baby-sitter for tomorrow (today) and if so, how long for etc. He seemed a bit frustrated I was asking him and kept saying "whatever you think, whatever you think," shutting me down.

I bid him goodbye, he left and the next thing I hear is that DH was late and the client had left by the time DH got there, thus losing DH the business. I then get a torrent of texts, basically blaming me for delaying him going out of the door! Connecting my asking a question about the babysitter to him losing this business!

I said I had no idea he was meeting a client, and if I had known, I would never delay him. But aside from that, it was absolutely not my fault that he missed out on this business.

He said "I know you didn't have a bad intention, but what you did led to us ultimately losing money for our family."

I find it completely preposterous that this should be labelled as my fault. Obviously, I am NBU?

It also frightens me that in the future he could potentially reserve the right to accuse me of anything and make connections out of thin air: "You're neglecting our children because you are one minute late to the school gate."

He makes me feel like I have to keep some kind of paper trail of our relationship every second, in order to prove my innocence.

Obviously this does not happen frequently enough for me to LTB. And he does not have other traits or red flags in his behaviour.

How do I address this? How do I explain the unfairness of it all to him? What do I say?

May I lighten the tone with a funny story... DH is currently sitting next to me denying everything .

I was about six week pregnant when I went swimming before work. I was paddling away when there was an announcement over the tannoy, asking me to come to the reception for a phone call.

So I stood there in a towel, freezing in the draft from the constantly opening and closing doors, to wait for the receptionist to end another phone call and hand the phone over to me (my mobile was in the car).

It was my husband (to be) on the phone, telling me "you've got my keys and I can't get out of the house". Cue me getting changes as quickly as I could, rummaging through my bag, running out to my car, driving home. No keys found.

At home, all bags were turned inside out, my husband still insisting that I had his keys.

The keys were eventually found in a Maltesers multipack in the cupboard. DH had had the keys in his hands when coming in from work the day before and had headed straight for the Maltesers...

DH is currently pointing out that he apologised profusely.

Apparently, he was working late the night before and headed straight for the sweets when he came in.

So whose fault is that ?

It's your fault dodi, but only if you were the one who bought the Maltesers in the first place.

Well, I did buy the Maltesers actually!

How do I address this? How do I explain the unfairness of it all to him? What do I say?

How about 'Oh do fuck off and take responsibility for your own fuckups dear. If you had left in good time you wouldn't have even been here for me to ask you a question, and my degree in mindreading hasn't yet been awarded yet'.

The one thing that bothers me is that my 11 year old son is turning out the same way. My 9 year old isn't. How do I nip it in the bud? I pull him up on it every time but it doesn't seem to be sinking in

dodi If you had behaved normally by eating the Maltesers as soon as you bought them and disposing of all wrapper evidence, this wouldn't have happened.

It was your fault.

I get this with students all the time. We discuss it at the next sit down session and reflect the ACTUAL events that led up to the issue and what they did that in effect made it happen...Basically we make them say what they did and discuss cause and effect and the impact on their own lives. They will even blame someone else if you were stood next to them when they did the thing that they are blaming someone else for.

My husband has this very unpleasant tendency. In the long run it hasn't worked out well for him, as I refuse to take the blame for things nothing to do with me, and I no longer help him out say with putting paperwork away, knowing where his keys are or any personal stuff because I know full well if I get involved, he'll blame me when late/lost it. Now I just let him get on with it, if he's late, he's late, if he loses stuff, I move out of the way til he finds it. I always challenge blaming because it's so ridiculous and unpleasant. Most of the time he's not like this, he lapses into it when stressed or under pressure.

My DP does this too. I can hear the gears shifting in his brain as he tries to place me in the firing line.

He's also very good at blaming himself, loudly. Ie dropping something in the kitchen and shouting FFS STEVE YOURE A FFING IDIOT.

Five seconds later he's all smiles.

My EX is like that. He got sacked, wasn't his fault. Also didn't tell me until he'd got another job as that's how much of it not being his fault it was . The world owed him a living, he'd never apologise for anything and always had someone (me) or something (the world) to blame. He stood on my foot once in his work shoes, I was barefoot. Apparently my foot shouldn't have been there...

I left him while years ago, sometimes I get a tingle in my ear now and think, 'there he goes, blaming me for something else' .