When Your Partner Uses Accountability Against You
You Take Accountability. They Take The Opportunity To Make Everything Your Fault.
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Looking back on a recent interaction with your partner, you can see that you didn't show up as your best self. You lashed out or you shut down or you used rhetorical strategies to distract from the emotional stakes of the situation or you threw everything and the kitchen sink into the conflict. You know you don't get a passing grade on this one.
So you hold yourself accountable and acknowledge your role. You let your partner know that you are aware you could and should have done better.
And instead of receiving your ownership and engaging in a repair process with you, they double down.
"Yes, now that you mention it, everything is your fault. Let me elaborate exactly why."
"You're not taking nearly enough accountability. You're responsible for more than you're acknowledging."
"Thank you for admitting that you're the problem here. I know I'm not."
It feels like taking accountability just gives your partner a permission slip to blame you for literally everything.
Plus, your accountability does not even for a second encourage them to take accountability of their own. Instead, they end up justified in pointing the finger at you. You've offered yourself up as a convenient scapegoat.
When I write about the importance of accountability, the number one question I get pertains to this conundrum: "Why should I keep taking accountability when my partner uses it against me?"
So, let's talk about it. We'll discuss:
- why even take accountability to begin with (because your reason matters),
- how to think about the relationship between your accountability and theirs,
- why the way you're doing accountability may be part of the problem,
- the boundaries you may need if your partner hyper focuses on your role and rarely explores their own,
- and a concrete example with dialogue (which I know you always love to see).
This one is fire, y'all, so I can't wait to get into it.