Anyone else have a DH with a false memory?

[smellywellies9]

This happens all the time but to give an example, we moved house around 5 years ago and did all the painting and decorating ourselves. We both took time off work and did all of it together, DH did all the ceilings as he was taller and I did the walls. It was very much a joint effort.
Having a conversation with some friends earlier and DH proclaimed that he did all the decorating himself and I didn't do any of it, he denied me having any involvement whatsoever and said it was all him. Not only did this embarrass me as it made me look like I was lying to our friends, but it also wasn't true!! DH does things like this all the time. Anyone else have the same problem??

It's not a false memory he is gaslighting you

Totally. He has a very poor memory for most things but occasionally just makes something up. Usually to make me look bad. We're separating.

Very strange OP. And no, I don't have this problem.

Does he maintain the lie afterwards when you ask him about it in private? I can only assume that he does this to make himself look impressive.

You’re being gaslighted by him, that is a form of psychological abuse and it is insidious. He is bigging himself up to make you feel bad.

He genuinely believes he's right, it's the weirdest thing.
The same same happened with some furniture that we put together. We had a huge row as he claimed it was just him that did it but in actual fact I did most of it and he just helped at the end.
Things like this happen all the time. It makes me feel like why should I bother in the first place as he will just deny the fact I ever did it in the future!
He used to smoke a lot of weed so I don't know if it's a genuine memory issue or so weird form of abuse?

Next project take lots of pics...
Then call him out on his utter bs..

Is he very self absorbed? Victim/martyr complex? Could it be that he's so wrapped up in what he had to do that he genuinely forgets you had any part in it?

Whatever the reason behind it, it doesn't sound like he sees you as a partner.

It's a standard form of abuse.

I was going to ask if cannabis was involved...

That's not what a false memory is, OP, that's just persistent lying

"A false memory" is just that, singular. Someone would have a false memory about a particular event, like being convinced that the away team played in black when actually they played in green. It isn't some type of processing disorder - like, for example, you might describe a person as having "a poor memory".

The fact that he does it all the time indicates that he is trying to gaslight you or just takes pleasure in your embarrassment.

I'm sorry if these replies are hard to read. Have you suspected for a while that something is amiss, is that what lead you to post? (Oftentimes, the thing an OP originally posts about is not the only issue going on.)

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?

Do you want to stay with him given that this is how he behaves towards you?

My DP does this, to suit whatever his narrative is at the time. His entire family do it and for the first year or so of meeting them, during which I had DS, I genuinely thought I was losing my mind. I could feel my brain splitting in two, I swear.

Now I call DP out on it every single time and tell him plainly that he is has lighting me. I think about leaving around 50% of my daily life atm.

Could he just have a really shit memory?

Mine does this. It's actually awful.

@Myotherusernamewastakenagain
He does have a really shit memory, I blame the weed smoking for that (doesn't smoke anymore), however isn't it convenient for him that he is the one that did EVERYTHING in all his memories and I did NOTHING apparently!! That's what makes me question if this is just a memory issue or not

@Cam2020 I haven't ever really thought about that before but I guess it most definitely could be that. He definitely likes to play the victim when it suits him and is generally pretty selfish

I think some people can get confused. But it's a bit telling that he 'forgets' how much you did and makes up extra stuff that he did. If genuine surely he would sometimes remember stuff in your favour?

My XP did this in the latter part of our relationship. I don't know whether he had a genuinely shit memory but I got very tired of my contribution to anything being edited out. (Eg We broke down, I managed to fix the car but when we got where we were going, he'd fixed it alone.)

If it was just a bad memory then surely sometimes he’d remember it wrong in your favour rather than always in his 🙄

DH did the same thing talking about when he painted the sitting room which I did while he was away for a week with work

@AlohaMolly Sorry to hear you are experiencing it too! It does make you feel like you're going mad sometimes! Does he acknowledge when you tell him he is gaslighting you? Does he ever admit he got his facts wrong? Any tips on how to deal with it?!?

My exH did this for years. I ended up making notes constantly as I thought I was going mad at times. He would only have thus 'memory problem' with me. Note he's now an ex.

If it was s genuine memory problem it would be happening with other things and people.

If it isn't then his memory is fine, your relationship on the other hand...

Yes, makes me bloody shit itch.

Especially when we’ve disagreed with something and then a week later he says something like “no you said not to, I said yes!” Even thought it was the complete opposite. It’s almost light gaslighting but I can tell he genuinely thinks that’s what happened and make me wanna throat punch him to Venus when he does it.

Mine had a habit of telling people about decisions we had made:

"and I said to Merryhouse [reasons why we should do this] so we did"

when in reality he would have done something totally different before I said the reasons to him

I can only assume that once convinced of the rightness of an argument he assumes that he's always thought that...

The really annoying one was when we were talking about our twenty-year-old pink and mahogany wardrobes and I said in passing "horrid things". His response was "well, you chose them!"

Considering I had stood in MFI repeating "I don't like these. I don't want a pink bedroom" I was decidedly pissed off.