To dump DP for this?

[Thousandthingstosay]

Been with DP a year. Been good and he's nice and kind and we have a lot in common.

But

If you ask him a question on anything he will give an answer as fact regardless of whether he knows the answer or not. He cannot seem to say "I don't know".

For example, I'll ask if you need a visa to go to a certain country and he'll say no when he doesn't know. Or has a friend accepted an invite for dinner or anything really. He says the answer he wants it to be.

We've had conversations about it and how I feel I can't trust anything he says anymore as I'm always thinking 'but is that true'.

He can't explain why he does it.

It happened again today over something trivial and I just think 'fuck this'. Cannot be arsed.

AIBU?

Hmmm. Some interesting counterpoints there.

There's no malice in him. Not a clue why he feels the need to do it.

Ego.

God there's a bore like this at work. He just spouts forth about his very specialist and academically revered subject and because he does this, people assume he is clever and right. The thing he doesn't know is that my family member has a PhD in the same subject, lots of which we have talked about so at least half the time, I know he has key things wrong or muddled. I like pulling him up sometimes (he looks down on me as not being as clever as him in his mind) as he tends to be doubly bombastic until I Google it !

My DH does this several times a week. He used to do it far more often.

It's like he was incapable of saying he doesn't know something.

Me and DD tease him mercilessly about it and he's getting better. We say, "Are you making things up again, or do you actually know that?" He's good humored about it so I don't think he's doing it with any bad intent.

12 months in… you’re coaching him on how to communicate…. this isn’t going to end well OP.

I think you know what you’ve got to do.

It's definitely a man thing

I've known a few women like this, I'm afraid. Whether it's innate, or merely aping men I couldn't say.

That does sound infuriating though my DH has the opposite problem and refuses to speculate on absolutely anything if he isn’t 100% sure of the answer. ‘Who do you think will win blah blah?’ ‘I don’t know.’ It makes for short conversations 🙄 I love a bit of ‘ooh maybe this or that’ chat.

Well your DP is probably right or he and I are both wrong. I've always thought it was a boy racer thing and that they deliberately adapt it so that the sound of the engine isn't muffled.

Maybe stop asking so many trivial questions unless you know it’s something he might know something about - for example, is he a mechanic by trade ? Does he own a multi-exhaust vehicle ? Is he a massive Formula 3000 fan ? If not just defer to google.

But you can also end it whenever you feel like.

My dh is a bit like this, and he seems to be getting worse as he gets older. Another habit he has is if I tell him something, maybe that I have just read or whatever, he will say yes as though he already knew it, even though he didn't. He can't explain why he does it. Very annoying.

You can't stay with a man when you can't trust anything coming out of his mouth. It will drive you insane.

No-bodys perfect. He just sounds like a know-all.

Do the same back to him - seriously, have some fun with it.

It's because he's a MAN so of course he has to know everything. Admitting that there's something he doesn't know would be an assault on his manly ego.

Given that your one example is of you asking a question and him giving the correct answer (at least in part), I have no idea what you actually want him to do.

I can come across as a bit of a know it all smart arse because I am interested in knowing things. There lots I don't have a clue about (sport, music, electrical engineering), but others where I do know my stuff. If someone asks me a question and I know the answer I will tell them. Somehow that's wrong?

"The main reason for having a dual exhaust system is to get the leftover air out of the cylinders faster so that the next exchange can start quicker. Since the speed at which the exhaust is forced out of the engine is limited by the size of the camshaft and the timing, you want to get more “used” air – exhaust – out at one time."

not my words but gives a different perspective.

A friend of mine does exactly this. As soon as he makes one of his assertions I reach straight to my phone to prove him wrong. I take the piss out of him all the time.

He'll also see random people in the street and tell me where they are probably going and what they're probably going to do.

I could never be in a relationship with someone like this.

I lived next door to a woman like this ( I was new to the area and she’d appointed herself as my new bf 😏) Is it market day in X Town on Wednesday? No, Friday. Go along Friday, no market, it’s on Wednesday. She’d have sworn black was white as long as she got her say. Very wearing.

Not just a man thing- I managed a woman like it and it was impossible. She was simply unable to say 'I don't know' or 'I don't understand, please can you explain it again?' False assurances that things were in hand, made up info given, so much time wasted and problems caused. I simply couldn't trust her and didn't have the time to sit on her and check every tiny detail. I gave her a lot of support in changing, OH, mentoring, strategies to check her understanding and progress, everything, but eventually she had to go. From talking to her, I think she'd had some mild additional needs at school and had learnt to do this as she felt that any admission of not knowing something made her appear not competent or able so she faked it out of shame. I felt for her but simply couldn't get it through that this wasn't helpful to anyone and there was no shame in saying 'I don't know'.

I also had a lovely ex who did this from time to time. Not to the extent of your bloke but noticeable. He came from quite a competitive, well to do background and was extremely confident. I think he was brought up to think that his best guess or opinion was as good as fact so no need to differentiate. He stopped when I brought it to his attention.

I wouldn't really want to be with someone consistently like this if I'm honest.

Whatever the reason for obfuscation, it takes informed decision making out of your hands (even about small things) and wastes time. As in the lady I mention, it could be very ingrained so if you've raised it and he doesn't change or want to change, I think you must accept this is how things are and decide whether you want to live with it.

It sounds like you have the ick. You think he’s a bit of a dick and he gets on your nerves. That’s plenty good reason to leave a relationship if you need one.

Why are you using him like Google though?

My ex was like this, only he got very angry and aggressive when called up on it. It just leads to a complete lack of trust in anything they say, because you'll never know if it's actually right or not, and they've got such a track record of bullshitting that you can't trust them about anything important. By the end of our relationship, if my ex had said the sky was blue I'd have had to sneak a look out the window to check, I had so little trust in him anymore.

Mine used to do this. Turned out he was a vulnerable narcissist. He always needed to appear clever and just assumed anything he thought must be right - just because he thought it, he also could never be wrong or to blame for anything. It's a mixture of chronically low self esteem and huge ego.

do you want an equal relationship or one where you have to 'teach' him not to be a knob?

OLD!!

If this is his only fault, I’d just resolve to not ask him questions that cause the problems.

How is that in any way realistic or reasonable? What a miserable relationship that would be.