Husband exaggerating AIBU

[herecomesthesunyes]

My husband was retelling a story last night to our teenage boys. I had said “we need to move that piano” (it needs moved back after the room was carpeted). He had said do you realise how hard we’ve tried to move that piano?! I was laughing because as soon as I said it I realised it was a cheeky thing to say. Anyway it was all good humoured. Then the teenage boys came back and he said do you know what mum just said? I was laughing because I knew I was going to get a roasting (again all good fun) and he said “she said you need to move that bloody piano”. Now I had not used the word bloody. And in my view that changed the tone of what I’d said. It was blatantly untrue. I said “I did not say bloody piano”. He’s now embarrassed (he denies this but he did look embarrassed when I said it) and annoyed at my “overreaction” in his view. (He’s a kind man and wouldn’t have done it to make me look bad, it was for story telling effect.)

i said quietly to him when we were walking home that I’d noticed he was increasingly exaggerating stories for effect. I have never mentioned this to him before as I wouldn’t embarrass him. But I notice it. And it annoys me.i find it hard in public when he’s telling these stories as I know he’s embellishing. He also misremembers things (quite conveniently stuff that puts him in a bad light gets changed in his memory over time). Again there’s no malicious intent just human nature but it is annoying and I notice it. We’ve been married 25 years so have a lot of history together.

I am quite sensitive to my kids’ view of me. He’s very easy going and I’m more uptight. We’re on holiday and I’m struggling a bit with smoky and noisy atmospheres when we’re out and the kids have picked up on this. So I am probably even more sensitive to him making me look bad than I would normally be.

so AIBU?

I’m beginning to have very mixed feelings about women being so conscious that it might be their hormones causing them to feel negatively about something. It’s good to be self-aware but it quickly becomes self-doubt.

The reason you have finally have had enough of him editing stories as it suits him is probably just that- you’ve had enough.

I find it really tiresome listening to someone embellish. If the story isn’t interesting enough in itself, just don’t tell it. If you want to create fiction go and write a fucking novel.

It's completely normal to embellish and exaggerate for comic effect. Yabu

How is it obvious? Lots of cultures (in my opinion) are more inclined to have family dynamics where kids (including young men) are encouraged to respect their mothers, by their fathers. In my opinion. I do not have statistics. I am interested if you have anecdotes or data otherwise. there is the stereotype of the spanish young man who worships his mother for instance - probably an old fashioned stereotype and not helpful - but nothing about culture is obvious and cultures are different from each other.
I grew up in England but my family are from a different culture and I didn't realise until I was older how common it is for the mother in an english family to be the butt of all the jokes and a dogsbody who is sneered at and laughed at, especially when she might not be as fit and strong as her adult sons and might struggle with some things. It's horrible

He’s a kind man and wouldn’t have done it to make me look bad, it was for story telling effect.

In that case, it wouldn't bother me.

Also, in the situation you describe, I might say that but wouldn't necessarily be meaning that it was a direct quote. I'd be describing it as a "bloody piano" that you had asked to be moved, rather than saying you had literally said "bloody piano".
For example, I might finish work and say to DH "how annoying, my manager says I need to have another meeting with that bloody irritating man" but I'm quite obviously not quoting my manager as saying "bloody irritating man".

I don't think he even made you look a tiny bit bad, he was just joking that you'd said bloody when I'm guessing your kids don't hear you say that so he knew he'd get a reaction from them and you. It's hardly profane, it's just a tiny embellishment to make a dull event a little bit less dull. He wasn't being dishonest in the strictest sense, comedy relies on exaggeration and embellishment.

Have you never stretched the truth to make people laugh more than they would if you stuck strictly to the facts?

You're probably more likely to make your sons think "badly" of you by overreacting and having a go at their father for something so minor

"Bloody" doesn't necessarily make it more grumpy, it's the tone of voice used. It could make it sound like an order if said angrily, it could be joking still with like an eyeroll. And the exaggeration was probably the second, emphasising the awkwardness.

I also can't believe people don't exaggerate stories a little bit, they just might not realise it.

It's also not just a male trait. I have to stop myself correcting people for retelling stories in a way which I know isn't what happened now because it will upset most people to call them out for it. And I know, even though I want to correct people, I will tell stories with exaggeration too.

OP, it's a bit ironic isn't it? You worry what your kids will think about you because you are "uptight" but then you choose to pick a non-issue and make it the end of the world. Maybe what you need to do is change your attitude instead of worrying about what your husband says and what your kids think about it. If you were a little more easygoing, I doubt the addition of the word "bloody" would make as much of an impact.

I get where you're coming from, OP. I don't think it's the 'bloody' that's at issue here - it's the 'you' rather than your original 'we' that's the problem. Your DH wanted to present you as having complained about your kids to him, then misquotes you to the DC as though he's on their side against you.

Yes, that would upset me.

This is honestly a massive overreaction. He must be walking on eggshells. He added the word bloody, that's all. That's not him saying you said it, that's just him saying we gotta move that bloody piano. But yeah, you've turned a normal bit of chit chat into a downer for some reason.

Yes I could have guessed your family are from a different culture as you seem to have a dislike of English men and are extrapolating some individual examples of negative behaviour you may have observed to cover all English men and boys. Thus you are using a stereotype to label them as all being a certain way.

If you don't think its obvious that men and boys can be disrespectful to the women in their family in all cultures then I'm obviously wasting my time discussing it with you any further.

Have you ever seen the Tim Burton film Big Fish with Ewan Mcgregor and the late Albert Finney? It's about a son who gets annoyed and estranged due to his fathers exagerrated stories.

We all embellish sometimes. Whether you care to admit it or not people exaggerate or omit details for fear their side is scrutinized more. Also people, especially close family, are more aware than you think when someone is embellishing. I'm sure your DC have witnessed enough disagreements between you and DH to recognize that some have been exagerrated. Drop it and enjo the rest of your holiday OP.

Sounds like a storm in a teacup to me. So he embellished the story (a not very interesting one) a bit and the word 'bloody' was used. Big deal!
Try not to be so uptight. You'll do your DC more harm being so touchy. They'll be treading on eggshells around you all the time.

Lots of food for thought here! Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. And yes it is ironic that they probably thought worse of me being annoyed by the embellishment than the original bloody! @Catza

oh and they’ve definitely heard me swear before (much worse than a bloody!)

If only I knew how to be less uptight. It’s quite hard.

I’m not uptight with them btw, it’s more other people. They’re definitely not on eggshells around me. I try really hard to be more chilled. I’ve stopped drinking which has made noisy/social environments a lot harder to tolerate unfortunately. I reflect a lot and really try my best.

@AdviceKneaded thanks ☺️

I don’t think there’s a cultural disrespect mum thing going on here. But my husband is definitely the good guy in the family. I’m a bit sad about that sometimes but he is a good guy so it’s fair enough!

You're sad about your husband being a/the good guy? Surely that's a good thing?

my husband is definitely the good guy in the family

It sounds as though 'good guy' is his persona, sometimes at your expense. A really, really good guy would say, 'Let's find a way of moving that piano' rather than mocking you to your DC.

No I’m delighted he’s such a good guy but I mean it puts me in light of the bad guy being black and white about it.

It doesn’t make you ‘look bad’ in front of your kids, though. I think you’re really overreacting to something totally harmless and lighthearted here.

Of course it is hard, you are unravelling years of habits here. One thing to start with would be to understand why things are bothering you. So, for example, noise and smoking bothers me too. But I know I have sensory issues. So when I feel annoyed, I remind myself that this is a normal level of noise, it is just that I am sensitive. All I need to do is find somewhere quieter or stay somewhere for a shorter time I can tolerate the noise.
Would getting annoyed help me to handle the noise better? No. Would complaining about it to my family make me more tolerant of noise? Also no. In fact, the more annoyed I am the more prominent my sensory issues become. So, the unintended consequences of my actions (complaining, worrying, getting frustrated) is that I make the whole experience even more difficult to tolerate. Which is a bit of a useless strategy if my primary goal is to have a nice time despite a noisy environment.
Make it a habit to reflect. You may find that, over time you are more likely to come up with an alternative solution to minimise the impact on you and your family.

They will be working on eggshells, or starting to, if they see you snap at their father for normal exaggeration in a story.
"Gotta be careful what we say in front of Mum in case she calls us out for lying like she does with Dad"

It seems there's a bigger issue in the relationship, though, which is that to everyone he's the 'good guy', and she isn't - which means that subtle put-downs from him are seen as her problem rather than under-the-radar meanness on his part.

Brilliant!

i haven't got time to worry about these small issues