To get very annoyed by dh rewriting history?

[Thecockapooandme]

It’s a bit of a weird and random thing. But it winds me up.

So we have a teenage ds. He can be a pita. Things like an untidy bedroom, leaving the kitchen in a mess after cooking, complaining when asked to help round the house. Losing things, bring messy. It’s probably things a lot of parents of teens have to deal with. Though I’m sure there are some perfect teens out there. Ds does attempt to do certain things but it’s always a sloppy job.

Dh and I will be discussing it at times, just generally about how frustrating it is and how to deal with it.

Dh likes to make out that he himself was a perfect teen. That he helped out without being asked, that he always cleaned up after himself.

I know this not to be true. I met dh when we were both still young. He still lived with his parents and I know for a fact he was messy, lazy round the house and so on. He then lived on his own for a while before we moved in together and he was lazy then. His mum would go round and clean his house.

After we moved in together it took years for him to start doing his share. I won’t tell you some of the disgusting habits he had and ridiculous ideas he had about cleaning.

We are in a place now where we’ve reached a compromise and dh is a lot better.

It’s the rewriting of history and pretending that he was perfect it sickens me a bit tbh.

Maybe remind him in front of ds what his disgusting habits were?

I’d say this is a sign that the relationship is rotting Op.

He says he was a perfect teen… in a happy marriage you’d joke about it.

Not be as pissed off about it as you appear to be

Is it funny though?

I feel like if ds is driving us mad I want to be able to have an honest and adult conversation with dh. Not sure if you have or have had teens but it can be quite a challenging time in the house when they’re growing up and seem to want all the perks but none of the work.

It’s really unhelpful when dh likes to pretend that he was so perfect. Especially when mess and cleaning is probably been the one thing that’s caused so much friction in our relationship.

I have 2
very challenging
and I’m not in a fundamentally unhappy marriage

So for example, when I met dh he didn’t know how to change bedding, he didn’t know that a bathroom needed to be cleaned because he thought that it self cleaned when you had a shower, he thought you used a mop to pick up all the bits and dust from the floor.

If I say to him kindly that he wasn’t such a clean and tidy person as he’s making out. He says things like “I did know how to change a bed, I was just pretending”, or “I used to clean the bathroom in our flat every day”.

Even though these were things we could have almost split up over at the time.

Why do you think trying to embarrass her husband in front of her son will help anything? Let alone get her son to clean up after himself?

Why is it so important to you to prove him wrong.

OP he has a different recollection to you. Seriously, let it go. Neither of you are going to “win”

Even though these were things we could have almost split up over at the time.

would that have been such a bad thing?

This would infuriate me OP.

Anyone rewriting history to make themselves look better is annoying; why can’t he just own that he was a slovenly twat, this trait has been inherited by your teen and the pissed-off-ness that your DH feels when your son doesn’t clean up after himself should be making him apologise to you for being so messy & unclean when you first lived together as he can now see how fucking awful it is to live with.

YANBU

Maybe because that isn’t his recollection

Neither will ever win

but it seems quite telling that this irritates the OP so much and that she is desperate for him to see she is RIGHT. When he clearly has a different view on his teenage years.

DH is convinced that he departed the womb fully endowed with the manners and domestic skills of a 30 year old. I could overlook that until he expected dc to be the same.

Either I changed his mind for him or he learnt to keep his mouth shut - it was one of the two.

Thanks, you get it.

It’s not because I want to be right. But it’s deeply unhelpful to the conversations about ds. How can you have an honest adult discussion when one party is bullshitting?

Does it occur to you that he doesn’t think he’s bull shitting?!

Well he knows what he was like because as I said, it was an issue that caused huge problems that we’ve worked really hard on and that he’s acknowledged and apologised for

But when we are talking about ds, a different story comes out.

What’s the marriage like otherwise OP?

SO what you’re saying is that he’s bull shitting, knowing full well he’s bull shitting, just to piss you off?

It would be like worrying about your child drinking and going to parties.

Instead of saying being able to say that you went to parties and how it must have been a worry for your parents and discussing best way to handle it. Pretending that you were a teetotal monk.

It’s unhelpful bullshit.

I know for a fact he was messy, lazy round the house and so on. He then lived on his own for a while before we moved in together and he was lazy then. His mum would go round and clean his house.
After we moved in together it took years for him to start doing his share. I won’t tell you some of the disgusting habits he had and ridiculous ideas he had about cleaning.

Was he phenomenal in bed?! Why else would you stick with someone like this from the very outset of meeting him!

It sounds irritating.

But it seems like there are two things happening that you're merging into one - he's saying things that feel dismissive of a very difficult time in your relationship, and you're struggling to talk about DS as a team.

Can you separate these? How exactly is DH insisting he wasn't a slob decades ago preventing the two of you from parenting DS? I'd focus on identifying that specific hurdle and how it can be overcome, because the two of you shouldn't need to consistently rehash that history and agree on it in order to tackle the present issues with DS.

I’m not really sure what you want me to say.

I’ve said that dh was terrible round the house and that he’s worked on it.

As for why did I marry him? Well because I felt that the good qualities outweighed it. Without listing them all there are a lot of fantastic things he does that would be enviable. But as time went on it became more apparent that it was a huge problem. He listened and worked on it.

But now with having a teenager, as I’ve said, I’m getting annoyed/upset/frustrated with dh and the rewriting history.

I don’t think he’s doing it to deliberately annoy me, no, but I do think he’s full of shit.

As I think I’ve said it almost caused divorce so perhaps that’s why I find it so bad.

OP my piss would be boiling over. In private I would call him out again and would enumerate exactly how useless he was when you first met and when first you lived together. If he persists, call him out in front of your MIL if she’s still around if you think she’d back you up

Up with that I would not put (cheers Churchill!)

i suspect he knows full well he’s bullshitting! Some bull shitters have no shame.

OP just laugh in his face every time, “ha ha we both know what a dirty slob you were! Still you managed to turn it around and you can help ds do the same”.

Why are there so many replies from one poster?