What % of the responsibility do you have for the failed relationship

[Mr. Magnet]

In a families in transition seminar I had to attend as mandated by family court, one of the speakers made a good point:

there is no such thing as 100% responsibility for the break up; nor is there such thing as 50/50.

so, how would you apportion the fault?

[MapleBob]

I've always been fond of the saying "you're 100% responsible for your 50% of the relationship". I think I certainly was, and that both of my uBPD exes made at least as many fatal mistakes as I did. Well, they maybe made one more mistake than I did: they left. I didn't.

[once removed]

i love questions like this. because i agree with both the speakers point and maplebobs saying.

i guess id parse the language a little bit. responsibility is a bit different than blame. the person that does the breaking up is 100% responsible for the breakup. who is to blame for it is a different issue. my mother has said to me as well that relationships arent "50/50". there are innumerable aspects to relationships that gauge the contributions of both parties. i am quite certain that every one of them is not ever going to be 50/50. i think 50/50 is a good overall number to shoot for, balance is good, and i think that ideally, both partners consciously and consistently shoot for it regardless of whether its "100%" achievable

blame is simply not possible or fair for me to distribute between myself and my ex. at this point it all appears overall about 50/50.

[thisworld]

Very roughly, just to indicate who is more/less responsible:

I'm 100% responsible for my independent values that led me to break-up (I'll not live with someone who brings all his exes so much into our relationship. There is nothing he can do about it - other than not doing it but that would negate the initial statement. He is who he is. This is about me, I'm happy with my choice.)

We are both responsible for communication problems; it would differ for every incident I suppose. I believe both 100% and 0% are possible as well - sometimes my only fault would be existing there or existing somewhere else. I think he was 100% responsible when he attributed wrong meaning to my facial expressions that weren't even about him - and this despite me knowing that he had a problem with this so I tried to keep my expressions as positive, calm, neutral as possible.

He is 100% responsible for his addiction and its consequences in our relationship.

[MapleBob]

I think thisworld brings up a good point, which is that primary relationships have many different realms of responsibility, and that we sort of ad hoc our partnerships on ever-shifting ground. Makes it really hard to assign responsibility for specific breaches of our mostly-unspecified personal contracts. Like, "well, I did the XYZ *most* of the time, doesn't *most* of the time deserve more credit than *some* of the time?" It's a very nitpicky process.

[thisworld]

Just out of curiosity. Did your partners have a stated and coherent notion of responsibility? My ex had a profound sense of guilt and shame that manifested as rage and related reactions. He also reforms some of his actions temporarily (WaveRider pointed out that this may be more related with the need for approval than responsibility, explaining the difference.) But responsibility was not a concept that was openly in our relationship. I couldn't talk to my ex about this, and he blamed me for most things (I think to avoid responsibility, guilt, feelings of unworthiness). For whatever reason, he wasn't strong enough at the time to face this concept. I don't know what went inside him so I cannot say "Oh, he had no sense of responsibility" or anything, and I wouldn't want to. But we kind of didn't operate on that level as a couple. How did your exes react to the idea of responsibility - with its natural or generally accepted consequences? I don't think the notion applies in my relationship in practice.   

[once removed]

not sure if its exactly the same thing as youre describing:

the earlier you go in my relationship, the more responsibility (blame, really) she was willing to take on. virtually all of it at first. she was diagnosed bipolar so she described the rages as manic episodes, told me to do whatever i had to do, ignore her, etc. by the end of the relationship she actually described our problems as 100% me. not even 99-1, couldnt even entertain the idea. toward the beginning and middle rages would often be followed by a childlike voice declaring shed "been a bad girl" and feelings of shame. she didnt at all like to revisit anything, just get back on my good side. as i write this, it occurs to me perhaps i was the opposite of her; the earlier you go, the less responsibility i was willing to take, the later on you get, i was taking too much.

also, double standards were a hallmark of my relationship on both sides.

[GreenEyedMonster]

Not much.

The worst thing I did in the relationship was to let him shut down an important conversation about the vacation he was taking with other women.  He later said that I should have invited myself along with his friends.  But the point is, I knew about it, it bothered me deeply, and because I thought it would bother him, I didn't say anything about it until I lost my temper.  So a communication failure on my part.  Bringing it up still may have led to a breakup, but the way I brought it up took the relationship to a point of no return and did him terrible narcissistic injury.

He is responsible for his lack of reciprocity, sense of entitlement, disinterest in my life, vengefulness, jealousy of me and my accomplishments, inappropriately expressed opinions, lack of desire to accommodate my needs, and general lack of awareness of my thoughts and feelings as a separate human being.

[Rmbrworst]

20%. I'm responsible for not setting boundaries and for trying to cater to his every need.

Hes 80% responsible for lying to me, cheating on me, taking from me, using me, verbally abusing me, gas lighting me, and worst of all, discarding me without a word.

I'll take responsibility for my part.  Not sure if he will and quite frankly, I no longer care, however I do wish him the best and I hope he gets help so that he can be the amazing person who hides behind all that cruelty.

@thisworld

My exBPD would go into a rage when he felt guilt as well.  Instead of taking responsibility for his guilt, he would push it onto me.  Example, I caught him cheating on me with his ex, and he raged at me saying it was "My fault for forcing (him) back into the relationship!"

Lol.  Okay buddy

[Herodias]

I used to blame myself and that is why I stayed so long! I should have been a bit easier on him about things he did that weren't as bad as the big ones. That's it... .really. I should have walked away and stayed away the first time I knew he was seeing me while he had a gf. No, I walked away and did the whole, if they come back it's meant to be thing! Ha-that's what the  current gf is doing too! He saw her a couple years ago and after they were written up at work, he ghosted her. I know this because of an e-mail she sent him. That's what I did wrong... .took him back and had not been a stronger person for myself instead of being strong for him  all of those years.  I did set boundaries... .he did not abide by them. I left twice before and always took him back. He never stuck with what he agreed on. I don't think there was anything else I could have done, because this was not a normal relationship. He wanted us to have a hobby. he din't like anything I did and I didn't like anything he did. That was a problem. Now he can't afford any of the hobbies... .so, it does't matter.

[Tobiasfunke]

99.9 my fault. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, bailed but stayed with her. Should of let her leave. Should not have followed her. But I'm helplessly loyal and codependent and the rest so here I am broken and stuck. Crappy town. Kids half the time . And without the girl I gave up a ton of great opportunities for. Sweet. But I do logically understand that I'm better off without her in my life. Or as little as possible. It is what it is. You really don't realize how messed up it was until you read the other post on here and say to yourself "yup that was me too". What was I thinking. Now let's all move on enjoy the time we have left.

[Michelle27]

I carry a heavy amount of responsibility.  I trusted to a fault, even when his stories made absolutely no sense.  I KNEW he was cheating on me during most of the relationship, but chose to turn a blind eye and not deal with it.  I didn't set boundaries of any kind and allowed the situation to escalate to the point in which I carried around clothing in my car for years for the dozens of times I had to flee my home due to his raging.  I allowed manipulation, abuse of myself and my daughter from my first marriage and even tried to help him deal with his son's sexual abuse and subsequent early stages of sexually abusing my younger daughter.  I let gaslighting go on, especially with regards to my oldest daughter, and at times asked her to "stay out of his way" when he was in a mood, which I am absolutely ashamed of.

Even worse, when things were getting really bad in our marriage, after he had sabotaged 3 different attempts of mine to get marriage counseling (he admits this) and made a fool out of us both at a couple's communication weekend course, I sat him down and told him I was contemplating ending the marriage and gave him a list of the needs of mine he hadn't met in years.  Basically told him that if he didn't make an honest effort in the marriage, I was done.  He cried, admitted his part and made promises to change things and of course, nothing changed.  My biggest regret is that I then went out and sought an affair in order to get my emotional needs met rather than just ending things.  Finally, a year and a few months after that, I got the balls to end it.

I blame myself for what I put my kids through not understanding the depth of the mental illness I was dealing with, even though I stumbled onto the existence of BPD years ago and I knew it fit.  For a few years, I simply blamed him rather than look in my back yard.  For the past year and a half, I've been working on me, and realize now how much blame I carry.  By the same token, I know that I never could have fixed our relationship on my own, but I absolutely could have stopped making things worse.

[Wantingtochange]

I'm only one month out but I'm choosing to focus on myself and asking myself some very hard questions...

Why did I get involved with someone like this to begin with?

Why did I allow her to cheat, leave, and come back so many times?

Why do I know its best that I keep walking away but yet this consumes me and the thought of her still tugs at me?

Why does any communication from her cause me such emotional distress?

Why was I ok being in a abusive relationship and not wanting it to end?

Why do I feel like this is my soul mate, no one else will ever get me like she does, and I'll never find love like hers?

Why did I allow myself to be in a caretaker role though it broke me as a person?

Why if given the chance would an offer to reconcile make me pause and think about it rather then doing what I know is right and continuing to walk away.

For me, these are extremely hard questions that will require great introspect to find the answers. I truly never want to be abused again.

[Infern0]

I would assign myself maybe 25% responsibility

there were certain things i could have done better, i was not the best version of myself, i had become somewhat lazy, i was seeking happiness from another etc, these are all negative things I did

That being said the nature of the disorder renders it moot in my opinion, devaluation isn't preventable for any length of time, it happens.

It's hard to blame my ex completely, I think most of what she did to ruin things was compulsive and beyond her control.

In the end, she lacked the ability for honest, open communication and that was what made a healthy relationship impossible, I don't say she refused, i say she lacked the ability to. I have proven that it is possible to "game" these BPD's to a degree but i found no joy in manipulating her into getting my desires met, and i had no desire to continue it, i wanted something real, or not at all.

It is what it is.

[steelwork]

I have to give myself the lion's share of blame. I'll take 75% at least. The way I handled certain things was, I now see, massively triggering for him. I think he's not anywhere near as dysfunctional on a day to day or even year to year basis as a lot of the other SO's I'm reading about here--though I believe a lot of his success at keeping it together is because he has a lot of discipline. He is very good at suppressing his feelings and zoning out. Until he isn't. Then... .BLAMMO.

What I mean is, I brought out the worst in him. I destabilized him. I didn't realize it at the time, and the relationship would have kept going if I'd acted differently. He really wanted to shack up, for instance. I couldn't commit. I think he was just so lonely living by himself. Not surprising that he got his new girl living with him almost immediately.

BUT every relationship encounters stress at some point, and now I know what I might have expected from him whenever that happened. And it's not something I would ever want to face again.

[Moselle]

"I am not what you think I am. You are what you think I am" Anon

Whose perception of reality is right?

[Turkish]

I'm 100% responsible for not leaving after the first date, when she started equivocating and I felt angry, my get telling me, "just remain friends."  

Trying to quantify that which is qualitative doesn't make sense to me. I like MapleBob's take, though I'd say, "you are 100% responsible for that which you own." One struggle in the Detaching process is that our views can change as our feelings change. Anyone whs been around a while has seen others go back and forth. I've done it. Occasionally I still do.  It's hard to seperate feelings from facts given our perceptions.

When I first talked to my L, I mentioned 50/50 custody. He stopped me and said, "it's joint custody." The kids aren't objects to be aportioned. Maybe so are our feelings about our actions in the relationships.

[bschooled]

50%. Only because there wouldn't have continued to be a relationship had I not been so ignorant to think I could fix him. Mine had Bipolar as well, so I only focused on articles from doctors who believed that it was all one big umbrella and with the right cocktail of meds the BPD symptoms would disappear. I was so convinced we were meant to be (we had dated in high school and I thought it was like those cheesy reunion stories I would hear about on shows like Oprah or Sally Jesse Raphael) that I used every excuse to rule out BPD. (Everything from exaggerating the symptoms of other BPD sufferers to self-diagnosing him with PTSD.) Because  my sister is a mental health nurse it wasn't easy.

It was my first experience (and I pray to God last) with being co-dependent in a relationship. I would probably still be in the FOG now had I not triggered his abandonment fears so much so that he did a pre-emptive strike and ran back to his emotionally abusive NPD ex/replacement mother figure.

[bschooled]

Thisworld- Mine did. Shame and guilt are the only things he knows. Thanks in big part to his wife, who has spent half his life convincing him that he is a burden and unworthy of love.

[bschooled]

Oops. I meant 100%, not 50.