When you’re in a relationship where you are made to believe everything that goes wrong is because of you, you start to believe that if you could just be better, do better, or say things differently, everything would be fine. You carry the weight of every argument, every bad mood, every problem that comes up. If something goes wrong, you immediately ask yourself what you did to cause it.
This feeling doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from being in a relationship with someone who consistently points the finger at you:
When they’re upset, it’s because of something you did.
When things don’t go their way, it’s because you didn’t do enough.
When they’re unhappy, it’s your job to fix it.
Over time, you absorb this message so deeply that you stop questioning whether it’s even true.
The reality is that in any relationship, both people contribute to problems. Both people have bad days. Both people make mistakes. Both people are responsible for their own emotions and reactions.
But when one person refuses to take any responsibility and puts everything on the other person, that’s not a balanced relationship. That’s a relationship where one person has decided they’re never wrong and the other person has accepted that they’re always wrong.
What makes this so damaging is that it keeps you focused on yourself in the worst possible way. Instead of growing and improving because you want to, you’re constantly trying to fix yourself because you believe you’re broken. You’re not looking at what you actually need or want. You’re looking at what they say is wrong with you and trying to change it so they’ll finally be satisfied.
But satisfaction never comes because the problem was never really about you. The problem is that the other person needs someone to blame. They need someone to carry the responsibility for their unhappiness, their anger, and their disappointments. As long as you’re willing to carry those things, they’ll keep handing them to you.
You are not responsible for another person’s emotions.
You are not responsible for making someone else happy.
You are not responsible for managing someone else’s reactions to life.
You’re responsible for your own behavior, your own choices, and your own growth. That’s it.
If everything feels like your fault, if you’re constantly apologizing, constantly trying to do better, constantly feeling like you’re failing, it’s time to ask yourself whether you’re really at fault or whether you’ve been convinced you’re at fault.
There’s a massive difference between taking responsibility for actual harmful behavior and accepting blame for everything that goes wrong in someone else’s life.
You deserve to be in a relationship where both people take responsibility for their part. Where both people can be wrong sometimes. Where you’re not carrying the weight of everything alone.
