Blaming me for his own errors

[11JB68]

Realizing I don't even know how to start this without a long back story 🤣
Updh has many somatic complaints, one is sore feet. He needs to soak them in cold water each night. Of course my job to fetch.
When it warms up he needs ice for it, there is a large cup filled with water in the freezer. At some point he requests it and I fetch it and pass it to him. If it's not fully frozen when he goes to put it in the ice plops out and splashes water. You'd think after this happened a couple times he'd learn. Maybe he does it on purpose? Tonight it happened and he 1) looked at me and spoke accusingly as if I had done it (actually HE splashed HIS foot water on ME) 2) Said 'well are you going to clean this up?'
So my fault and my responsibility.
I MCd this, which I think helps him to see how unreasonable he's being. In the past is get upset and/or defensive and things would just escalate.
His reaction to this stuff strikes me as so odd... Like the time I went to pay for gas, he started pumping, messed it up then accused me (very angry) of telling the clerk to turn off the pump!

[JustKeepTrying]

That sounds so frustrating.

I remember a winter the snow was deep and drifting.  He had brought home a rental car from a week away.  He could never keep track of his keys - I provided bowls and key racks and even little fobs with GPS tracking - never kept track of them.  This time, he lost the rental keys.  We spent two days searching the snow for the keys.  Even brought in a metal detector.  All the time it was my fault.  Somehow I had lost his keys and because I was so disorganized and didn't help him bring in the suitcase - (I had but never mind) - I made him lose the keys.   I had even called to see the cost to replace them - $35 but no, he wouldn't pay.

They were in his briefcase - he claimed he looked and finally I made him look again and wow, there they were.

It was one of our worst fights in the freezing cold with snow falling on my hands and knees looking for his keys.  So weird.

I admire your MC ability.

[SparkStillLit]

Things were ALWAYS my fault, even if I was nowhere nearby or had nothing to do with it. The story would be whirled around so it was my fault. Batsh*t indeed.

[square]

Everything is my fault. It's amazing how powerful I am.

[SeaBreeze]

It's my fault if uNPDh spills his drink. It's my fault he chose not to take a certification class to boost his career. And so many things major and minor in between. Powerful witchery is afoot indeed! 

[Lauren17]

Everything is my fault. It's amazing how powerful I am.

This statement really struck me. One of my biggest personal discoveries is that I internalized this message. It started with my FOO and continued in my marriage. I'm only just now starting to believe that I'm just a person, not a super-power.
Maybe we should list out all the things we're at fault for.  Maybe we can see some patterns.

[BeautifulCrazy]

In my experience with my PDxh, the blame shifting was part of a much larger pattern where he just couldn't be responsible for anything that was not perfect.
Me, the kids, his mother, a coworker, an object, a circumstance....
He was not the one who made a mistake, he was not to blame, he was not responsible....   

[SparkStillLit]

*snort* I too am an all powerful malevolent being to whom a person can attribute all the things that ever went amiss.
Nothing that went well, though.
Me and my fluffly black broom cat with an overbite. We got it going ON.

[sevenyears]

*snort* I too am an all powerful malevolent being to whom a person can attribute all the things that ever went amiss.
Nothing that went well, though.
Me and my fluffly black broom cat with an overbite. We got it going ON.

Can I join the powerful malevolent club?  I had never realized just how powerful I am - everything is my fault too!

[SonofThunder]

11JB68,

I want to suggest, if you have not done already, that you read the book 'Stop Caretaking the Borderline and Narcissist'.  You wrote "of course my job to fetch" and then "..and I fetch it and pass it to him", followed by "..so my fault and my responsibility".   If this foot soaking is a nightly routine, then he knows fully all that he needs in advance and can have everything near his own reach, including a pre-frozen cup of water in a small cooler within reach and a towel to clean up any spills he makes.  Also I recommend the book 'Boundaries' by Cloud and Townsend.   

SoT

[Fae Greenwood]

UNPDh and I were just ending a very good period in our marriage when we took a trip without the kids. I picked up a cold on the plane and he had a business appointment (he combines work and personal travel and I don't mind that), so before he took off with my only transportation for the day, he went to get me cold medicine and then couldn't find the condo unit we were in on his return. He called my phone but that was early days for affordable cell phones and it was off and in the other room. After trying 3 other rooms, he finally returned to the condo office for help. All this time, I was still asleep. He threw the door open and confronted me, starting to accuse me of changing units. I laughed at that and he backed down. He did, however, wish that I would overdose on the meds he left me. I immediately, as I'd been practicing, told him I heard what he said and that it was mean and threatening (I was across a continent from family and friends) and he needed to apologize. I got the shrug. He left for the day. I brought it up the next day and got "well he was mad." I brought it up on our return and got completely gaslit. Oh, and a week later i brought it up again after we got our Christmas tree which arranged to be delivered and set up as I'd done the previous 2 years, in part to avoid his annual raging just to get a tree in the stand. He denied having said it and then told me between my unfair accusation and having someone else bring the tree home, I was "demasculinizing" him.

[Fae Greenwood]

And another incident a few years earlier was interesting. He'd been frustrated that his supervisor, who lived in an very nice house with an actual pool complex on a hill, could have such a nice house compared to ours and he was likely not making that much more than my uNPDh. The guy's wife didn't work and their kids were all in private schools. He told me it was because of my profligate spending on things like kids' clothes and lunches. He brought it up several times over the next several months until one day he comes home in a good mood and announces that his supervisor had, in fact, married a woman who'd inherited a few million dollars in her early 20's. That was how supervisor bought such a great house. UNPDh realized he was doing okay and I was happy as that particular monkey was now off my back. 10 minutes later he comes back and he's dark and he asks how much money I am going to inherit. I inform him that he knows my family and has for years, that neither of us will inherit much if anything at all, and that we are like the majority of people in that respect, and that our home is safe and comfortable and our kids are healthy and have opportunities and we are doing great. He responded "You don't understand! Why did HE get to marry an heiress and I didn't?" And then I got the silent treatment for a week because I wasn't an heiress.

Oh, and the supervisor was fired a year later for taking customer kickbacks in exchange for favorable pricing, uNPDh got his job, and we still don't have enough wealth to have a house on a hill with a pool complex which continues to irk uNPDh (grandiosity and deserves special treatment part of narcissism).

[11JB68]

Fae that thing where he accused you of changing condos sounds a lot like some things my Updh has done. Gives me the creeps. Also the comment that something I'm doing is emasculating to him...ugh.
So sorry though that yours goes so much further with the verbal and emotional abuse

[Lauren17]

Also the comment that something I'm doing is emasculating to him...ugh.

The last time I heard a snide, "Well Thank You! for emasculating me!!" I just calmly looked at him and said.  "Hunh.  I don't see how I did that.  Strange!"

[blunk]

Mine would always claim that me making more money was emasculating. I actually asked him once...so what should I do, quit my job? Obviously, I was not going to do that, but he also had no answer.

I paid for him to go back to school on 4 different occasions (while he was out of work), tutored him when he was having trouble in math (until he started yelling 20 minutes into the first session), paid for him to start a business franchise (because he couldn't qualify for the loan), offered to help him build a resume, etc. So it was only emasculating when someone else knew or said something.

He always worked menial jobs, and somehow it was my fault. It was apparently also emasculating if I handed the server the (joint) debit/credit card when we were out to eat, because the man is supposed to pay...UGH

[square]

Some of these guys' dicks aren't firmly attached.

[11JB68]

Bunk... Yes! I make more money. I have to take cash out of my account, give to Updh do he can pay for dinner out!