A relationship dies when partners do this

A relationship begins to decay as soon as one or both partners gets in the habit of personalizing blame.

The formal psychological term for this is “causal attribution.”

In a nutshell, when something goes wrong, one person can assign blame to the other by attributing the problem to what they perceive as his or her weaknesses, flaws, or characteristic behavior.

The accuser make things personal by beginning sentences with the word “you."
Examples may include:

“You never listen”
"You always screw it up"
“You’re always too busy”
"You're never on time"
"You never take my feelings into account"
"This is so typical of you"

It goes without saying that this type of attribution can be catastrophic.

Personalizing blame can elicit defensive behavior from the other person that may potentially lead to a vicious cycle of blame.

Once one person starts pointing the finger, the other tends to follow suit. And if neither is willing to admit fault and try to bury the hatchet, the relationship can fall apart very quickly.

In a stable marriage/relationship, rather than make it personal, partners tend to explain what’s gone wrong in more general terms.

They begin sentences with "we" (I think "we" need to work on communication in our marriage) as a way of signaling that:

Both partners are at fault
They're in this together and must work things through as a team

Speaking from a conciliatory position of compassion and understanding works wonders when it comes to getting to the root of hurt feelings.

Playing the blame game, however, does nothing but imbue the relationship with negativity, setting couples on a collision course that will probably spell the end of the relationship or marriage.

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