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Why do I always blame myself for the breakup?

153 Answers
Last Updated: 04/24/2022 at 9:38am
Why do I always blame myself for the breakup?
1 Tip to Feel Better
United States
Moderated by

Andrea Tuck, LCPC

Licensed Professional Counselor

I tackle and discuss a multitude of social and emotional health issues. I have a belief that through empowerment and non-judgmental support clients' can thrive.

Top Rated Answers
palan
December 6th, 2017 6:24pm
People blame themselves for everything actually, but the hard truth is, nothing is really your fault. Aren't you always doing your best? If someone told you a story that was very similar to yours, wouldn't you have compassion for them and comfort them? Some relationships just have a shelf life, we learn what we need from them and then we wave a fond farewell and excitedly wait for the next person. As hard as it might be to hear, you've done nothing wrong. You're innocent -- so don't be guilty! :-)
Anonymous
November 16th, 2017 11:02pm
Maybe because the value you have for yourself is not enough,which means that you think everything that is going wrong its because of you
gentleSea91
November 5th, 2017 7:17am
I am also the same kind of person. I always take guilt for any misunderstanding or mishap happen in my relation. And I always blame myself for breakup. It is just because I love my partner so much that I cannot believe that they can ever do any mistake. It is my belief about them that makes my relation special. It is that very belief helps me sleep happily with trust about my partner. That belief is good but also have such cons like self blaming. Understanding that not blaming others but self blaming needs a lot of compassion and empathy. Do not feel bad about yourself. Moving away from that self blaming and knowing you are special is important.
Anonymous
November 22nd, 2019 2:56pm
Don't blame yourself. It’s a two way thing. Sometimes in a relationship we give our 100% but still it does not works because that person is not the one for us. So just don't make yourself feel bad over anything. Try to move on. Distract yourself.Spend more time with your friends and family. Read books or watch movies. Eat your favorite snacks. Take a good long nap.Do not overthink. Everything is going to be fine.just have some patience.Blaming yourself only make you sad and disappoint so just try to forget about it. Take your broken relationship as a lesson. Don't let your daily life effect by your breakup. Just look at the mirror smile to yourself. Love yourself .Listen to your favorite music.
FeelFreeToShare
June 25th, 2017 1:40pm
Things are not as simple as they seem. Breakup is something that involves both the parties and not only one of them. Blaming oneself is not right if one feels that he/she broke up for valid reasons. You must not carry the guilt and look ahead in life for better things.
TechnoMom
June 8th, 2017 2:27pm
Goodness, how powerful are you? :-) Seriously, it takes at least two people to be in a relationship, and it takes two to break up, as well. If both of you didn't want the relationship to work, it couldn't do so. And even if both of you DID want the relationship to work, sometimes one person has a different idea about what the relationship is or should/could be than their partner does, or has different values. Even if those values aligned at the beginning of the relationship, people change. So please, don't take all that weight on yourself. You don't deserve it.
Anonymous
May 21st, 2017 8:54am
You blame yourself because you feel pressured to make the other person happy which means when it no longer works you go over and over the situation beating yourself up and looking for faults in you personality. If the other person is unkind it reflects their personality not yours.
Anonymous
August 24th, 2018 10:41pm
Hey there, I’m so sorry you feel that way. I felt this way too. It was my greatest moment but it was still there. You may think it’s your fault but it’s not. You haven’t done anything wrong. You may blame yourself because you’re scared of what you did wrong but nothing Went wrong. It’s common for people to blame themselves for the break up. It’s not anyone’s fault. Things happen. Don’t give yourself a hard time for something you didn’t do. Try talking it out with the other person to see what happened. It won’t be as bad as you think.
MBS19
September 25th, 2019 12:23am
I think it is natural to blame one's self for such things. You were intimately involved in a relationship and it goes bad, we always ask ourselves "what could I have done differently" and if you can think of just one thing, you'll automatically blame yourself. Let's not throw around blame. Instead take that experience from the past relationship, take that "what I would have done differently" and apply it towards your future and future relationships. Another common misconception is to say "all my relationships end badly, I'm the common thread here so it must be me" I remember thinking this way for the longest time until it finally clicked in my head that just because a relationship ended didn't mean it's anyones fault.
maskedanonymous
February 15th, 2015 5:34pm
Because you feel that guilt of letting go of the other. But you shouldn't blame yourself. It will never be your fault even if you were the one who broke it up. A break up is something composed of fears and insecurities. Therefor, not you. For you are you.
Anonymous
February 1st, 2016 7:42pm
Breakups often cause guilt. Unless given a reason to believe other wise, you could believe you were the reason.
ListenMoreTalkLess
September 15th, 2016 2:48am
It is easy to self-blame after our breakups and think of what we did wrong or where it all went wrong. However, usually there is blame on both sides, but focusing on the blame does not help us to move on and heal.
Anonymous
November 5th, 2016 12:48am
Ending a relationship is hard for everyone involved, even when you are the person ending it. The odds are likely that anyone who is going down a self imposed, endless spiral of post breakup anxiety is pondering over one of these things. The amount of time it's taking to get over it. How he or she should've known better. The guilt of what he or she did to make the relationship end. But, there is no specific time, love makes us blind and we must let go of guilt.
Anonymous
November 26th, 2016 1:54am
Because we are all insecure. We think we did something to make the person stop liking us and it wrong. We breakup because we aren't in love with that person anymore and don't want to drag the person along.
avanef
January 25th, 2017 3:09pm
That's very common in relationships for both sides. I myself kept thinking I was the problem or that I started things when I was with my significant other. Just know, it probably wasn't your fault at all and you will be better from that breakup.
Anonymous
March 8th, 2019 9:35pm
Blaming yourself often seems like the easiest thing to do after a break up. It's easy to let yourself only focus on the negative. Taking sometime to let yourself see why you left in the first place is always a good place to start. When you realize that you now have that weight off your shoulders you can really begin to move on, grow, and recover from your previous relationship. I was in a relationship for 5 years and refused to see what everyone else was telling me. I was in a bad place during the relationship and let myself fall into a worse place after the break up by blaming myself. When I finally saw that I was bettering myself for leaving a great weight was lifted off my shoulders and it allowed me to like myself again. Its okay to admit that somethings were your fault, but its not okay to blame everything on yourself.
Tyedyedbutterfly65
August 29th, 2018 2:27pm
Its easier to blame ourselves then accept the fact that others have issues also and that we can not control them so we turn it on us, we are an easy target to aim at sense we are the ones in our heads.. We can also have someone tell us its our fault and believe them even if It isn't the case at all. We feel weak and we talk negative to ourselves. We think we are not worthy and not loved and nothing to anyone so we take the blame which is not always true of course we can have some blame but not always.
alfiedoggo
March 3rd, 2017 7:32pm
It is very common to consider yourself the one to blame. It's hard to get over breakups, and blaming yourself is certainly one of the side effects of letting each other go. Just know that you did nothing wrong and that there's better people in the world for you.
AsianDumpring
March 3rd, 2017 7:10pm
It's natural to blame yourself, especially if you didn't see it coming or you were the root cause of it. What you need to understand is that there's a huge difference between blaming yourself and taking responsibility for what happened. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Don't let past mistakes affect future opportunities
Healtogether
April 9th, 2020 2:47pm
Please try to identify to good deeds and accomplishments over the years and that will help you see value in yourself. Everytime this question pops in your mind remind yourself that nobody is perfect and relationships are not a single person's responsibility. If you were tru and honest with your words and actions there will be no reason to blame yourself. We need to remind ourselves that self doubt should be progressive and not damage self-confidence. If relationships have not worked out in the past an optimistic way to look at the situation could be to realise that there is more scope to explore.
creativeMist74
July 12th, 2020 3:32am
it is something that everyone does eventually after a breakup. you may be thinking of ways you could have done something different or ways that you could have fixed it. in the end it is no ones fault. if you cheated that may be a different story but overall you should not blame yourself. it is a big burden to carry and unnecessary as well by the way. you are a strong person and sooner or later you will realize it was not your fault and you will be happy again. remember your self worth and live life to the fullest.
Anonymous
July 5th, 2020 8:27am
Maybe it's because sometimes when we don't understand what went wrong or how it happened..we tend to find faults in ourselves. But not necessarily this maybe the case. You must be blaming yourself because the relationship is always made up of two people being together. Whatever happens, happens because of you two or the circumstances around. When breakups happens, we obviously tend to look what went wrong. The answer which satisfies us the most or feel comfortable for us believing in most, we tend to accept that. Regardless of, it's true or not. When we put in efforts and it fails, we tend to look at our mistakes and correct it first rather than others. It's normal to feel that way. I totally can feel you. But sometimes something's are just not in our control, and the sooner we accept that, we'll stop blaming for ourselves for everything.
CherryBlossom360
June 13th, 2019 8:41pm
Things happen, people get into fights, and breakups happen: It's all a part of this thing we call life and the best thing we can do is embrace it. Blaming yourself for a breakup probably comes down to you knowing that your actions could have been part of what lead to the breakup in the first place. Another reason why you might blame yourself for a breakup is because you can't stop looking back on what once was. You can't stop thinking about what you did or did not do while you were in the relationship. You need to realize that nobody is at fault here, including you. Breakups are a part of life and we all go through them at least once in our lives. :)
EmpatheticWarrior
June 28th, 2020 2:37pm
It might be that you always feel that the other person is better than you and you don't deserve to have them in your life. This is clearly not the case. There is a possibility that you both don't share common things. Blaming yourself is justifying that you deserve to be treated like that and you settle with whatever you've got. Know that if the relationship was meant to be, it would've still lasted. The fact that the other person left you means that they have a 50% role in the break up as well. Its always isn't your fault.
Charlotte996
June 25th, 2020 1:02am
For the most part, people have what we call "locusts of control." This means that we assign blame for things that happen to mainly two areas in our life: the outside and the inside. For the most part, people tend to lean one of the two ways. People within outer locus of control tend to blame things on people or situations outside them. Like, "It's not my fault, because I didn't know that blah blah would happen," whereas people with an inner locus of control tend to be more like, "It's my fault because I should have known better, I should have seen this or that." Both can be good and bad, but ideally, you want to be a bit of both. The side you lean towards is mostly decided by the experiences you've had in life. So, in your case, I'd wager that through most of your life you've tended to blame yourself for the things that have happened in your life. And with breakups, it's especially difficult to break this cycle. To find out why it is that you do this you'll need to do some reflecting on your experiences and question some fundamental beliefs you have about yourself. This can be a lot more difficult than it sounds though. Start with perhaps asking yourself, "Why do I feel this is my fault?" and then have a very close look at the reasons and feelings it brings up, and be very honest with yourself about it :)
positiveMelody4802
April 16th, 2020 10:48pm
I feel like im the one who is using them and i feel like i need them just for my things and i feel i don't love them as i say but it's just hormone for sex, but it's Wat all do right im not sure im not a bad person but i feel im selfish and egoistic,i try my best still it doesn't work, and i also felt the main reason is being frank, people they don't like to be frank and it's the reason i blame me for.nothing more to say tired no energy and im done.
Epikura
October 6th, 2019 2:53pm
Many people tend to take the blame for a breakup because it’s easier than to assess the complete situation. Relationships are very complex social structures and both partners are responsible for the way the relationship works out. Also taking the blame, a person scared of confrontation can defuse a situation and avoid an even bigger conflict. And perhaps when taking the blame upon oneself alone, the other person is more likely to forgive and they might give the relationship another chance. Seen from this perspective it’s perfectly understandable why one would take the blame, however it is unfair towards oneself and your partner/ex won’t be able to improve themselves without being confronted with their own mistakes.
Anonymous
April 16th, 2020 6:59am
No matter what, blaming yourself for situations keeps you unhappy because you feel like you have no control. When we move past blame, we are able to take responsibility and release the guilt attached to self-blame. If you punish yourself or others for mistakes, then these tips can help. Firstly look at the bigger picture, trust yourself and reframe what you should do. Every situation we experience is part of a bigger plan. When you can look at setbacks and opportunities for growth, life becomes easier and there is less pressure. Look at the blessing in each lesson. Instead of blaming yourself for a situation, look for the silver lining. Ask yourself: what could this situation teach me?
sereneHeart5846
April 11th, 2020 10:39pm
I’m sorry you’re struggling with these feelings. I’ve felt this way in the past too. I’ve learned there are a few reasons we choose to blame ourselves for breakups. One is control. We want to control our hurt or anger and blaming ourselves let’s us feel more in control. Another reason is a deeply seated sense of worthlessness, some people call it shame. If you can sit with your own thoughts for a moment, do either of these, or something else, ring true? Honestly naming what you’re facing is powerful to being conquering it. Why do you think you blame yourself in these situations?
Anonymous
December 18th, 2019 2:34am
I don't think you should blame yourself for the breakup or anything... Just because the relationship didn't work doesn't mean it's your fault... It actually just means it wasn't the right relationship for you... The right relationship would come, although it might take awhile to find it but it would come... Don't blame yourself anymore it's going to hurt you more than help you ☺️ 😊... Engaging in other things can help take your mind of a breakup and mostly at ease and when you feel better too doesn't mean you jump to another relationship you have to make sure it's the right one🙂