I always end up apologising to my partner

[Guest_31826751]

Hi, 

I have been with my partner for a few years now and we have acknowledged we didn’t have a healthy relationship for a lot of it and are trying to work to be better. I have begun to realise that I apologise and take the fault for most things, even when he plays a direct role in something going wrong. I am terrified to bring it up with him because I feel as though he won’t validate my feelings, he will take it as an attack. I don’t trust that I can say how his behaviour affects me without him getting defensive or finding a way to turn it around on me. I am genuinely worried that he doesn’t see himself ever at fault or that he has any poor behaviours.

[white knight]

Hi, welcome

People being unapproachable is quite common. Some people also "turn things around" to result in them taking the heat off them. Extreme cases like this (of which he may not fall under) is gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a name originated by the movie "gaslight" about a partner putting blame onto his partner to such an extent that his intention was to get his spouse committed to an asylum. Watered down versions of that technique is common now and the reason is simple- the perpetrator finds it an effective method to - dominate, take the heat off them, make their spouse feel guilt therefore raising their status and so on. They also dont have to face their own faults nor address them therefore their willingness to learn and mentally growth is diminished.

As for your personality, you have more open empathy and care. You are tormented if there is a strain on the relationship so you apologise. Thats a wonderful part of you, no doubt, but it enables him to raise that status as "always being correct".  You could change your methods eg  instead of saying sorry say "well that didnt work out well" or  focus on the real issue. eg say he fixed the water hose then asked you to turn it on when he got to the car. Then when you turn it on it breaks away from the tap. He approaches and says "what did you do"?

Instead of saying the hose broke away, sorry" you say "what you told me to do". If he says "but it broke off", you reply "because you didnt fix it fully". These are fact based replies that places the emphasis on him. If you can slip in a nice comment like "you did try to fix it though just these things arent easy to make reliable". That helps.

In similar situations if he rebuts your account then you both might need counselling and make sure you get a few good examples before you attend. 

Blaming another person for something they didnt do is akin to shifting blame to - anywhere but them. Spouses are sometimes the fall guy on every occasion and thats not what you are a spouse for. It isnt your role to be the trampoline of his life to soften the blow of what goes wrong. Yes, you apologise too often by the sounds of it... or- he doesnt apologise enough.

I hope that helps.

TonyWK

[therising]

A very warm welcome to you 🙂

As you open your mind to ways forward, give yourself the credit you deserve to begin with. An open mind is not always an easy thing to achieve and manage.

Over the last handful of years, I've managed to find a couple of things that have helped enormously when it comes to feeling confidence. I can relate to Tony's 'Just the facts' approach as being one way. I find that if I 100% focus on just the facts, I can't feel anything other than my commitment to the facts. In other words, focusing only on the facts helps create a sense of detachment from other emotions.

The other thing that's come to work for me involves trusting my feelings. So, from one extreme to the other, from complete emotional detachment to feeling intensely. While I used to be led to feel ashamed of being sensitive, nowadays it's more so about 'Okay, what can I sense (that's going on here)?'. In other words I've ramped up my sensitivity in constructive ways. If I can feel or sense someone shifting blame, I trust that's exactly what's going on. If I can feel or sense someone degrading me, chances are that's exactly what they're doing. If I can feel or sense someone inspiring me, it's typically because they are. If I can sense inspiration but the type that comes with an agenda, something will feel off. With the broken hose scenario, if someone was to say to me 'You broke the hose', I'd feel the complete deflection of responsibility as enraging. Then, once I'd detached from the initial brief feeling of rage, I'd state the facts: 'I feel your lack of responsibility as enraging'. If they were to say 'I'm not being irresponsible', my confident response to that would be 'I trust what I feel'😁.

You are a deeply feeling person and that is your super power or at least one of your super powers 😊. It's a bit of a round about way of developing it but a beginners guide to developing intuition can help instill faith and trust when it comes to how we're feeling situations and people. When self doubt gradually diminishes, confidence comes to take its place.