Blaming me for sunburn

[Daydreamer81]

Last year, my boyfriend and I, both 30, went on our first holiday abroad together. We spent a week in Spain, and on the last day, I suggested we spend some time at the beach since I love relaxing in the sun with a book. We had done a lot of tourist activities during the week, so he agreed it would be a nice ending to our trip. We're both fair-skinned, and he’s ginger, so we had been applying sunscreen throughout the week with no issues.

On the beach, I made sure to reapply my sunscreen every few hours, and my boyfriend saw me doing it. He went for a swim, but didn’t reapply. The next day, he was very sunburned and even went to the doctor, who diagnosed him with second-degree sunburn.

Here's where the problem comes in: he blames me for his sunburn. He says I should have reminded him to reapply the sunscreen, arguing that since it was his first beach holiday, he didn’t know that sunscreen washes off after swimming and needs to be reapplied more frequently. I assumed that, as a 30-year-old man with fair skin, he’d already know this. After all, he saw me reapplying, but didn’t take the initiative to do it himself.

Now I’m wondering: Am I at fault here? Am I to blame? I suggested the beach day and knew the importance of reapplying sunscreen. I’m only thinking about it again because we’ve had a few arguments recently, and he tends to avoid taking responsibility, always shifting the blame onto me. Looking back, I’m starting to wonder if this was a red flag I should have noticed earlier.

He’s a grown adult not a child who needs mothering.

If he needs you to remind him of such a basic life skill, it’s a wonder he manages to wipe his own arse without clear instructions.

Hes being an absolute twat

Wow. Of course he should have taken responsibility for his own sun protection. I'd expect a 10-year-old to be able to manage this TBH.

Last year?

No you are not responsible for him and his actions. I would be carefully considering this relationship as a whole now.

Do you really want to be with such a man child and or someone who is all too quick to always blame you for his poor decision making. Don’t become another version of his mother.

Usually a red flag on a beach means "no swimming" but this one meant you should have dumped this dweeb.

Hope this gives you closure after 6 months.

Oh course it's not your responsibility. Does he need you to remind him to eat, sleep breathe. He's a 30 year old man!!

This sort of behaviour (blaming you) is extremely unattractive.

Does he often mistake you for his mummy?

Is he normally like this ? Blaming you for what is his responsibility?

Im concerned that you need to ask

He’s a grown up .
he should be responsible for himself.
Id have thought as a fair man he would have considered a UV top.
and sunscreen.
has he lived under a rock in a dark cloudy country for the past 30 years?

Dump this child. Do you live with him? I’m guessing further red flags have raised their head since and you’re thinking back to this incident wondering if you should have gotten out then.

Wow.

This behaviour / attitude is deal breaking for me.

Even his mum, should she have been there, should not need to remind him. He is THIRTY years old.

He’s a 30 year old ginger man. Surely he’s been to a beach before. Even in the UK he should know he needs to apply sun cream regularly. That said, if I’d noticed him getting a bit rosy I’d have commented, ‘You’re getting a bit red there, Jimbob. You might want a bit more sun cream’. But it is absolutely not your job to tell a grown ass man to put on sunscreen.

Absolutely it's not your responsibility but if it were my partner I'd probably have offered/suggested he put more on because I love him and wouldn't want him to get burnt. It does sound rather like you were waiting for it to happen. Ridiculous of him to claim he didn't know though, my partner would just likely forget.

Of course it's not your fault. He's a grown man and responsible for his own skin.

Him being ginger for 30 years, he know how his skin burns.

As a ginger, I for years burned my skin through lack of sunscreen. I now get factor 100 for my face and neck and its 50 for everywhere else. I will burn on a warm day in March as much as I will on a hot day in August.

It clearly states on the bottles if it is water resistant or not. He knows his skin, he just feels an idiot for getting that burned and he is trying to blame you.

What’s brought this up on a grey February morning?

I always remind my husband to cream up when I’m doing it, but I wouldn’t take the blame if he got burned.

Lack of accountability is a concern. Blaming you for his stupidity is also a concern. Maybe explain to him in clear words that he is responsible not you. If he tries to blame you again than let this one go.

Foolish man. He should know by now what his limits are for sun exposure. He can't rely on other people because his tolerance is likely to be much lower.

If he's like me then just reapplying sunscreen won't cut it. I need to cover up and be out of the sun after a certain point. It's my responsibility just as it'll be my skin that develops a melanoma.

If this was a year ago and he's STILL harping on about it, I'd think that was more of a problem than the sunburn itself. Does he always have a problem with taking responsibility for his failures or does he try to blame you/other people for everything that goes wrong in his life?

You might want to think about that.

What an absolute baby. Maybe he should only go on holiday with his mummy in future.

I’d have to ask him why I was supposed to know better than him about his skin.

I’d be testing this out by demonstrating my lack of responsibility for his behaviour. I’d stop reminding him, and when challenged be really vague AND NOT AT ALL DEFENSIVE in response.

Why did you let me burn?! Why didn’t you remind me to use sunscreen?!
Oh, didn’t you know?
Don’t you know about sunscreen Don’t you know about sun burn?
Didn't you read the packet?
etc.

I repeatedly told DH he shouldn’t be in the pool at noon, he needed to come into the shade, he was burning, but couldn’t feel it because of the cool water. Repeatedly. He assured me repeatedly that he was fine.
He wasn’t.

Its easy enough to look on internet etx to understand how the sun abroad would be different.
Did you apply the suntan lotion?
Did he want to go in after a bit but you wanted to stay at the beach.

Probably the bottles dont help as they can imply water resistance. But often do say to reapply.
Dp burns anyway its to do with lying on his back and it rubbing off and also sweatibg off....

We wear uv tops now as you cant tan 'ginger skin type' its all just burns and lines.

Both sides of the family have had skin cancer in the last year and one only went abroad a few times (i think there is likely ab explosion kn cases in my generation. ).

Obviously it's entirely his fault and him blaming you is completely ridiculous.

Unrelatedly though, isn't it usual to remind anyone in the group you're in to put sunscreen on?

Only gingers who never leave the house don't know the ways of the sunscreen. And even if he has been a bedroom dweller for the first 30 years of his life until you dragged him to the beach, then it's STILL not your fault that he got sunburned. If he didn't know how sunscreen worked, it was his responsibility to find out, by asking questions, not yours to check he was doing it right.

It is fine and healthy to presume an adult partner knows how to adult and if they need help or information they will take accountability, and seek it.

It's even more unreasonable that he's maintaining his position since last year, and unless you want to be mummying this silly little sausage forever then I'd dump him.

Am I at fault here? Am I to blame?

Well, it's arguably your choice to be in a relationship with a man child rather than with a sentient human being.

Your options now are to accept this burden of responsibility for anything he doesn't know or doesn't remember or .. find yourself an equal partner, someone who can accept responsibility for their own life. Someone who is comfortable adulting.

Not like this one.

We women are so training to be nice and helpful. I'd encourage you to not accept the helper role