Today while cleaning the apartment, my (21F) boyfriend (24M) accidentally threw away the last of my edibles which had been sitting on the coffee table since Friday. I only realized once I went to take some that it had gone missing. After some careful questioning, my boyfriend claimed that he threw away what he thought was a bag of tea (I guess he saw the marijuana leaf on the package and made an assumption?). He also claimed that it was empty but I knew that it only had one and a half gummies left in it. So it may have seemed empty, which I can understand where he might have been coming from.
For the record, I do not have a huge issue with the fact that he threw it away. Like I said there wasn’t much left, and to the untrained eye (he doesn’t take edibles) it could have looked like garbage. My issue is that once we established that he did in fact throw it away, and into a big dumpster behind our apartment where we couldn’t fish it out of, he was very adamant about the fact that he didn’t do anything wrong, and in fact insisted that it was my fault that I didn’t put it somewhere where he wouldn’t be able to find it.
For some additional back story, this isn’t the first time that he has thrown something of mine away and blamed my placing of it. A couple of months ago I bought a new pair of earrings and put it on the table beside the entryway. They were still in the brown paper bag that I bought them in, and again I asked him to throw away the recycling and he just threw the bag in with the rest of it without looking inside. Once I tried to find the earrings the next day, we figured out that the threw them away (after many minutes of him denying that he did so) and again he said it was because of my placement of the earrings that they “looked like garbage” and it wasn’t his fault he threw them away. I called him out immediately because he should have known to look in the bag first before throwing it away and he apologized quickly, but this time around he has more footing on the fact that my edibles looked like garbage.
He also has a history of never wanting to apologize to me and trying his best to explain how his mistakes are not a reason for me to get mad at him, and he says that it is unfair that I would be upset at him for throwing my things away.
Once I knew that he wouldn’t apologize for throwing my edibles away, I resigned myself to not be upset about it, because it was too late and there was nothing that I could do. He asked me if I was upset and I said “I feel like I can’t be upset, because you don’t think that you did anything wrong, and it’s too late anyways” and he said “I feel like if anything it would be unfair of you to be upset at me because it was just a mistake” I agreed and said that’s why I wasn’t upset, but he kept asking me again and again if I truly was upset or not, and after a minute I told him that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore because there was nothing either of us could do, and he got extremely upset and went to the bedroom and now I am here writing this post.
I know that I shouldn’t be upset at an honest mistake, but it feels like he weaponizes my feelings against me saying that it’s unfair that I would be mad at him. And this isn’t the first times that he’s made a mistake like this and blamed me for it. So not only can I not be upset, but it is also my fault.
So I want to know if it really is my fault that this happened and I should apologize, or would I be in the right to be upset at him for doing this. Any other view point would be helpful as well, thanks.
4 comments
How about setting boundaries: “stuff in this area is my stuff. Don’t touch it, even if it looks like garbage, because it’s my garbage”
I think you were pretty out of line with the earrings, and the blame game arising from that set the stage for this incident. I suspect he got defensive because he thought you were going to react the same way. Which you did.
When you say things like “after some careful questioning” and “once we established that”, it sounds like you are – literally – trying to make a Federal case out of this. The whole tone of the post is smug and superior, and the way you talked to him is pretty demeaning.
I get that a part of that comes from your frustration with him not accepting responsibility for his mistakes, but that’s not a great foundation for a relationship. The two of you might just not be compatible.
Honestly if you leave edibles sitting around on a common area I don’t know that theres much to be upset over it may be frustrating that they got wasted but if you really want to hold onto something you should take care to store them where they won’t be accidentally thrown away. That’s not to say that he couldn’t double check items before tossing them he totally could but it adds more time to an already boring and time consuming task personally I only double check something when it may contain something of significant value .Either communicate to him about items that shouldn’t be thrown out when you bring them home or store them away from the clutter. He didn’t really do anything wrong throwing away your edibles wasn’t an intentional action its a simple mistake so there really isn’t anything for him to apologize for if he knew he wouldn’t have done end of the story intent matters. An apology is unnecessary what matters is that you find a way to make it stop happening in the future.
Get a container that doesn’t look like garbage to keep them in for the future. But for now, unless you think he’s doing this to upset you, it sounds like an honest mistake that’s been done. There’s no reversing what happened.
What does concern me though is that you’re describing him like he’s malicious and thoughtless. At one point you say that he said “it’s unfair you would be upset I threw your things away,” which is obviously not what he meant. If he thought you left an empty bag sitting around he’s just cleaning up garbage, not “throwing your things away.” And then you made the argument a whole big deal about how you’re “not allowed to be upset” when really, there’s nothing he can do and I understand why it would be frustrating to literally have to express that to somebody.