Yes. He takes fully responsiblity for his A but will still occassionally try and use the victim or I can't do anything right card when we disagree because he has no rational support for his argument or thinks his opinion is fact vs just an opinion. I don't engage him when he gets this way. He been better but he still does it and I call him on it.

Thanks. Makes sense. How often did he try to play the victim card before the A?

Practicing alcoholics and addicts do the same thing. If one is blaming everyone else for their bad behavior, then they don't have to look at themselves. If they are not forced to look at themselves, they don't have to change.

In some situations there is a strange dynamic that Dr Harley notes, and that is the devastating effects of sacrifice on a marriage. For example, a spouse who engages in sacrifice [extreme giving] eventually reaches a point where resentment sets in when that sacrifice is not sufficiently reciprocated. When that happens, he/she becomes an EXTREME TAKER who feels entitled to TAKE: "by God look at all I have done for you - I AM OWED!!!" <-----this attitude can lead a person to justify lots of bad things.

That is an attitude that underlies some adultery. They believe they are VICTIMS of the BS because their sacrifice was not reciprocated. When actually they are only victims of their own behavior of extreme giving that led to RESENTMENT.

A sign of real recovery in a wayward is when they STOP playing the victim card. They stop playing that card when they begin looking at THEMSELVES honestly and taking responsibility for their crimes.