You brought this on yourself / you did it to yourself./ he is the only one to blame. Help me with this please

I was wondering about these sentences:

  • I’m sorry to have to fire you, Jacob, but you brought this on yourself/ Can you say: ‘You did it to yourself’?
  • The family says he has brought shame on them. (So he is the only one to blame?)

What would you say @Arinker, @NearlyNapping.? @Anglophile, @Torsten

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  1. You brought this on yourself
  2. You did it to yourself
  3. He/you is/are the only one to blame.

“I’m sorry to have to fire you, Jacob…”

1,2, or 3 have basically the same meaning. Any will work, but “you brought this on yourself” is the most common, and sounds the best to me.

“The family says he has brought shame on them.”

In your second example, I don’t think any of the three work well. All three refer to something you did to yourself. In the second example the person is doing it to someone else.

I think the only time you would use “you/he is/are the only one to blame” is when it explicitly refers to one out of multiple people. In this case it’s not idiomatic, it is literal…the only one of many.

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Thank you very much, NN.

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  1. No, you cannot say You did it to yourself because he was the cause for his being fired.
  2. Yes, he is to blame.
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Thanks Anglophile.

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