I believe in the power of a proactive mind set. The way I see it, if you live a proactive lifestyle it’s easier to live life on your terms.

I’ve been noticing a trend lately. It’s not something that just started to happen, but because I decided to be proactive about situations like this I see it all the time now. The trend is: The tendency for women to place the blame on you, or anyone other than themselves. Let me give you a very small sampling that happened a few weeks ago with my wife.

The other day, my wife was getting ready for work:

Her: “Where did you put my wallet?”

Me: “I didn’t touch your wallet”

Her: “You wore this jacket, and I put my wallet in that jacket.”

Me: “I wore that jacket, but there was no wallet in that jacket.”

Her: “I saw you take it out, what did you do with it?”

Me: “Say what you will, but I didn’t touch your wallet”

Her: Walks off frustrated, and mumbling under her breath.

I proceed to try and help her find her wallet. About 2 minutes later she says in a soft timid voice, “You were right, I found it, tee hee”. I started to get angry, because 2 minutes ago she would have testified under oath that I hid her wallet and now wants to pretend that whole incident didn’t happen. I choose not to get angry, because I’ve seen this many times before, and not just with my wife. My boss is a woman, I see it with her, I see it in my nieces, I see it in my friends’ girlfriends. It’s everywhere in many different degrees: A confident, I am 100 percent right and this is not my fault attitude, only to be shown otherwise, and laugh it off like nothing at all, knowing full well if you were actually at fault, you’d be crucified.

Here’s the point: Be proactive in your understanding of this aspect of women. Get your shit in order, and if possible save emails, texts, make notes to yourself knowing that women will blame you for shit whether it’s true or not. Also, don’t let it get to you. It makes things worse. Being proactive in situations like this means, you know at some point you’ll be blamed for some bullshit. Instead of letting your voice go up three octaves while getting pissy and defensive, respond with calm confidence, because you saw it coming a mile away. Proactive living takes a lot of practice, but it is incredibly useful in most interactions, not just the blame game.

So, how did I handle my situation? Well, let me tell what I would have done in the past first. I would have let it go in the moment, but would have stewed on it all day. Then when I got mad enough, I would have confronted her about it and asked for her to apologize for treating me that way, because it was disrespectful and how dare she blow it off, and if the roles were reversed blah, blah, you get it. And we all know what would have happened next.

What actually happened was: I smiled and told her she was a horrible wife and that I was going to punish her later for being so bad. Then I squeezed her in a tight bear hug, looked her dead in the eye and said “Say you’re sorry.” She did, gladly and we lived happily ever after.

tl;dr Be mindful of the nature of woman to want to pass blame. Make sure your shit is in order so you can be found blameless (unless you aren’t). Don’t let the nature of woman catch you off guard so your responses to that nature will be on your terms not hers.