"We Both Did Wrong" Is How The Narcissist Convinced You The Abuse Goes Both Ways

You should know by now that you weren't the abuser, right? I mean, you don't need me telling you this, but also, maybe you really do.

Being told you both had your part to play in the relationship becoming so toxic and eventually deteriorating is a shameful way to duck out of accountability. The narcissist will have convinced you that you too, were the problem.

And once that seed is planted, it grows fast. You start rehearsing your own faults, listing them out, wondering if maybe you were half the reason things imploded.

Here's exactly how they do that.

1 The problem? Really?

You all know where I'm coming from, here. The problem you were led to believe all this time was you. You're too this, you're not enough that.

The narcissist wanted you to turn inward and start asking yourself those questions, because they wanted to really make you think those things about yourself. And you did, right?

You felt it was all your responsibility to pile it on and try to make yourself smaller and smaller and smaller day by day, hoping it would please the narcissist.

I had a client tell me she started apologising for her own birthday. Her own birthday. Because celebrating it made him sulk for three days straight.

You should never question your own behavior. Abusers don't ask that of you, but empathetic people do. The narcissist saw you had that empathetic quality, and they wanted to use it against you, making you believe the abuse went both ways.

2 Let's look at how the narcissist did it

Here's where we have to do a little bit of digging, because I firmly believe this is how we create a situation called the bigger picture, where you see what's really going on. You're not exactly innocent in all of this!

You drag up the past every single time I do something wrong. You're just as toxic as you claim me to be. I wouldn't snap if you just left me alone and stopped hassling me. Honestly? I think we're just as bad as each other.

It's all as bad as each other, but that last one is the one that cuts through the others. It's almost a reasonable comment, too, isn't it? Like they want you to agree with them and nod along.

What's really going on is that they're pulling you down to their own level, and that's pretty low if you wanted to know.

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One client told me her ex said, "See? You're just like me when you're pushed." She wasn't. She was exhausted, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

3 Mutual blame? The loosely termed 'genius' act by the narcissist

Of course it's genius. The narcissist loves the idea of saying anything that blames you as much as you blame them.

It's like holding you hostage on a sinking ship and saying your weight is contributing to how fast it's sinking, it makes zero sense, yet it does to the narcissist. They love to think that you're falling as low as they are.

If the abuse were to be going both ways though, there will be no actual abuser like there is in narcissistic dynamics. There will instead just be two people who are very messy and coming together to create a very toxic relationship between them.

It helps to force half the blame into your hands because it means dishing out any accountability the narcissist really should be taking on for themselves.

They don't want the consequences of you telling them they're in the wrong while you've had to be upset by every bad behavior and decision they've thrown at you.

I had a client whose ex would say, "We both said things we shouldn't have." She'd said one thing. He'd said hundreds. Same weight, apparently.

So why should you leave and escape it? You have to stay and face up to it! You're stuck. You can't leave, you know you can't stay, and that's the entire point. That's exactly why they tell you how wrong you are, too.

4 The one time you reacted, that's all they've got against you, but they used it well

A lot of the weight behind blaming you and dragging you into the reason that you've been the abuser as much as the narcissist has is when they do this, it is so annoying.

Beyond that annoyance, it's factually incorrect; after all, you're allowed to react to being constantly criticized, mocked, berated, yelled at. What person wouldn't eventually snap? That's what this is about though; that one time you did snap.

You were given so much crap from them that you felt backed into a corner, and you yelled. You threw your dinner plate into the sink and slammed a door. That, that one time, will be forever remembered by the narcissist as you being of equal blame.

The audacity of them comparing one time with their copious amounts of abuse every single day is as insulting as it is hilarious, but that's going to be all they've got.

They will bring up that door slam years later, word for word, like it was a war crime. Meanwhile the daily contempt they served you? Wiped clean from the record.

The rest of the time, you were patient, kind, loving, and you tried your best. They don't remember any of that though, because it won't write the narrative that you're too, to blame.

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5 Here it comes… "We both need to change"

I think this is something we both really need to work on. Excuse me, what? I don't think so! In order to change, you have to be a person who is doing something that isn't ideal or nice in the first place. You can't go from being good to good.

Narcissists will be so sincere when they offer this to you, too. They really think you will think, "Yes. You know what? I really think I need to change, too."

Then what, you chase them more and more, trying your hardest to make them happy and love you, and they get to just carry on like they're Mr Nice Guy. No. That isn't how it works. They really mean:

If you can believe that we both need to change, then you can take on your fair share of the burden and fix what I didn't even break."

When you see it so clearly, it really starts to make sense.

It's a clever little con, really. They frame joint responsibility as maturity, when actually they're just outsourcing their guilt onto you and calling it teamwork.

6 If you ever defended yourself, you are not the abuser

When you push back, it isn't the same as attacking, but the narcissist won't see it that way. Any time you try to assert yourself and call it for what it is, you'll be met with the wide eyes of horror. How dare you? Who do you think you are?

Equally, if you ever needed space from their drama, you'll be accused of walking away when things get tough, which is what the narcissist will love to blame you for.

There's a huge difference between starting a fight, and wanting to scream because you're standing right in the center of it. You are human, and nobody can blame you for wanting to assert yourself in some terrible situations. The narcissist wants you small, remember that.

Standing up for yourself was never the crime they made it out to be. Defence and abuse are worlds apart, no matter how loudly they twist the two together.

7 Your take home? Well, that's easy!

Here it is, on a plate for you! The narcissist wants to convince you, very badly, that you are as to blame as they are for the toxicity within your relationship. They're relentless in pushing that on you.

You need to look honestly at yourself and realize that you are not to blame for being the narcissist's next target. You're not weak, you're simply someone who got caught up with the wrong person, and now they're trying to lame you for things you didn't do.

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The blame was theirs. It was always theirs. And no amount of clever wording or twisted apologies can shift that onto your shoulders once you've seen it clearly.

You deserve far more than this.

8 Why This Trick Works So Well On Good People

Good people have a built-in willingness to look at themselves. It's one of the best things about you, honestly. You reflect. You ask, "Was that me? Did I contribute to this?" You don't want to be the kind of person who blames everybody else for their problems.

And the narcissist knows this about you. They counted on it from day one.

When they say, "Well, we both did wrong," a decent person hears that and immediately starts scanning their own behavior for evidence. You find something. You always find something, because you're human and humans mess up. That tiny bit of truth becomes the hook they hang the entire story on.

So the very thing that makes you a kind partner, your self-awareness, your fairness, your capacity to own your part, gets used against you. Twisted into a weapon aimed straight back at your chest.

People who don't self-reflect never fall for this. That's the sad, quiet irony of it. The trick only works because you were the good one in the room.

9 The Damage It Leaves Behind Long After They're Gone

Long after they're out of your life, you'll still catch yourself doing it. Something goes wrong at work and your first thought is, "Well, I probably had something to do with that." A friend gets upset and you're already halfway through an apology before you've even worked out what happened.

That's the damage. It doesn't leave when they leave. It sits in you like a bad habit you didn't ask for.

You start over-explaining. You take blame that isn't yours. You second guess every reaction, every feeling, every memory. Was I actually the difficult one? Was I too much? Did I misremember all of it?

And relationships after? Oh, they suffer. You go into new dynamics already braced, already apologising, already assuming that if something is wrong, half of it must be your doing.

Undoing this takes time. Real time. Because "we both did wrong" doesn't just live in the relationship. It moves into your head, gets comfortable, and starts speaking in your own voice.

That's the quiet cruelty of it.