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??

My ex is convinced I talked him into having children. Apparrently I used him. That's really not how it was but it doesn't stop him being a massively resentful tosser. I distinctly remember the conversations we had about having kids. I was the unsure one. Ah well, he's an ex now. Thank goodness

Mine did this @AdaFuckingShelby it’s really stuck with me because of how completely awful it made me feel. Having our first child was a joint decision and we tried for a long time, also he was the one who really pushed me to keep our youngest who was an accidental pregnancy. He likes to tell everyone else I trapped him and forced him into fatherhood though. Note he is also an ex thank god.

@Lachimolala

My ex is convinced I talked him into having children. Apparrently I used him. That's really not how it was but it doesn't stop him being a massively resentful tosser. I distinctly remember the conversations we had about having kids. I was the unsure one. Ah well, he's an ex now. Thank goodness

Mine did this @AdaFuckingShelby it’s really stuck with me because of how completely awful it made me feel. Having our first child was a joint decision and we tried for a long time, also he was the one who really pushed me to keep our youngest who was an accidental pregnancy. He likes to tell everyone else I trapped him and forced him into fatherhood though. Note he is also an ex thank god.

OMG yes.

Last summer H accused me of this (infront of DD) also accused me of tricking him into marriage (4 years before DD was born and I emigrated to live with him in Canada and he begged me to marry him)

Like several have said, he actually believes 'his truth', he is a male MM!

My ex did this, still does actually.

We went to court because of his threats and abuse. Was warned about said threats in court, by the judge. I was also awarded residency, a non mol and a prohibited steps orders This is obviously on record. He maintains(almost a decade later) that the judge told me off for wasting court time.

This is only one example. He’s totally re written history basically. I’ve often wondered if it’s a genuine belief or if he’s spent so many years convincing himself that he’s an absolute angel that he just believes his own bullshit.

Very much glad I don’t have to live with him anymore

My mum used to do this. Well, I'm sure she still does, but I've been blissfully NC with her for 6 years.

I did find out from a cousin that she'd never told anyone in the family that we're NC. Rather than just not mention me at all, or say "Well we've fallen out, I'd rather not talk about it" she simply started... making stuff up. So now the whole family think I've been doing god knows what with god knows who for god knows what reason. No idea what but all will certainly have been calculated to make me look like a clueless, pitiable helpless child and her as some kind of guardian angel/martyr. Which is laughably far from the truth.

When I was younger she simply told me over and over that things I remembered were not true. "What an imagination you have!" was her favourite phrase. It is absolutely insidious and a horrible, unforgiveable thing to do to anyone, let alone a child. Let alone a child who is crying for help because they are being abused... and to then be told "You have never been abused, gosh you are so strange and funny!"

It nearly destroyed my mental health. I constantly questioned all of my memories, about the most trivial things. She and my dad were so adamant that he had not abused me. Surely I must have been crazy and living in a delusional world? And wasn't I irredeemably wicked to make up such terrible lies about my own father?

It's only been in my 40s that I've been able to see her narrative-twisting as the harmful, brain-melting abuse that it is. In many ways its been more harmful than the actual abuse (serious sexual assaults on a daily basis for years) because at least with direct abuse you can say "This happened, the abuser is an evil bastard, it's now over."

But how can you heal from something you're told didn't happen?

I've recognised in myself a tendency to do the same, that's the most frustrating thing. Not that I tell anyone that XYZ happened or did not happen - but a tendency to paint myself as a helpless victim of circumstance rather than as the product of my own choices and work.

For me, giving myself permission to make the wrong choices sometimes, and to retrospectively forgive myself for them, has been the key to letting go of this behaviour. Because for me, that's the key - I didn't want to accept that I was a human being and capable of making bad decisions. I needed to believe that I had no choice in (for example) leaving school, not going to uni, taking that job, leaving that job, shacking up with that man, leaving that man, marrying another man, leaving that one... etc etc. If I believed I had no agency, then I didn't have to take responsibility for myself, or learn from my mistakes. I was keeping myself in a permanent victim/child state.

Now (with a lot of therapy!) I've been able to let do of those damaging narratives and remind myself that the reality is: I'm a fallible human being just like anyone else, and at times I've made bad choices. Once I recognise that, I can then commit to learn from those choices and not make them again. If I keep saying "But I HAD to!" then I'm free to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

OP It might be worth persevering with your fella, if you believe that at heart he is a good person who loves you. You did mention that he's "pretty selfish" which doesn't bode well. But I do believe that people can change - if they WANT to. Change is hard work.

My DM was thoroughly gaslighted throughout her marriage to my F. (He died 23 years ago.) She was convinced that he was a wonderful father to my siblings and me, and she convinced us of that too. The reality was that he sexually abused my DSis and me right through our childhood, which she knew nothing about.

I accept that my DM was a victim as well; he exercised coercive control and EA. He constantly accused her of cheating on him, which was totally ironic in view of what he was doing but he didn’t see it. She still makes excuses for him, that he behaved like this because of his illness (he had Parkinson’s Disease) and his medication.

I still have a relationship with her, because I do see her as a victim herself. It also helps considerably that my F is dead, obviously.

@EvenMoreFuriousVexation
I’m sorry for what you went through at the hands of both your parents.

my ex husband would do this. for example at one point he swore up and down I had agreed to him changing the flooring (I hadn't). another time he tried to make me believe the heater had broken when he had removed the fuse (we were separated and yes he's a total dick).

it's called gaslighting and he's being a prick. send him an article about gaslighting and maybe make a joke/laugh at him whenever it happens, that may stop him. Let's him know you know what he's doing without going full on into an argument

Yes!! I think we could actually be with the same person mine has exactly the same issue and I do think smoking weed heavily in the past is definitely a contributing factor. I genuinely don’t believe he is gaslighting (I know that lots of people will say that this is typical behaviour of a narc) because he seems really perplexed by it. To the point where he records important phone conversations with people as he is so scared of forgetting details/dates. There have been times where I felt like it could have been gaslighting but the more I see it, the more I think there is a genuine memory issue there.

ExH did this. Thought I was losing my mind, so ended up writing everything down. Then realised there was something very wrong that I had to do that. Now I know it's gaslighting.

Just out of interest, does he experience memory blanks as well as false memories? Where he has said or done something but has no recollection of it at all? I think that can be an indicator that it’s related to past weed smoking and not controlling behaviour

I have a sibling who was sort of like this anyway and then developed a weed habit so is absolutely beyond hope now. Not in a malicious way though, just has no grasp of anything really. Like commenting on something that showed he'd mixed up events years apart. He probably wouldn't stick to his guns though, just nod and be even more confused.

Weed is a total red herring here. He's an abusive cunt. End of story.

My ex husband did this. He still does it. I think he genuinely believes the things he says but having spent years trying to understand why, I’ve accepted there is no good explanation.

Either he knows he’s doing it and is a weird lying bastard, or he doesn’t and he’s delusional.

Most recently in court he fabricated an entire story about us jointly suspecting our daughter had been sexually abused a few years ago, describing in detail the chronology of this imagined event, and broke down in embarrassing sobs when questioned about it. Seeing him do this in front of other intelligent people, in court, under oath, was excruciating.

My advice - stop trying to understand whether it’s the weed or some other explanation, it’s hideous to live like this for you and it won’t stop.

My ex is a compulsive liar and used to embarrass me daily when we were together.

It would start off small with him saying things like "I agree we should do such and such, like you said..." but it wouldn't have been something I suggested. It would have been his idea that he was trying to trick me into going along with but I always pulled him up on it.

It just got worse as time went on and now he's completely rewritten history and tells everyone lies about me.

He got me into huge amounts of debt through his fraud and gambling. He now tells people that it was the other way round. He purposely went after a job in the same company as my DH then proceeded to tell all of the other staff these lies.

Why would anyone do that knowing they were bound to get called out on it? This makes me think he genuinely believed his version.

@smellywellies9

It’s controlling abuse. Call him out and ask/tell him to stop.

Wouldn’t you just dig your heels in and say x needs doing this weekend, I won’t help as you will tell someone the week following you did it all, so to preserve my long term health and avoid the rage this gives me I can’t help on things for the house anymore.
Then you negotiate some middle ground where he stands in the centre of the room, taps his heels three times, says smelly and I are putting the curtains up together , repeats three times, you video it and then you help. I’d be this is absolutley not being negotiated, I am never again putting myself in the position of having to pretend you did stuff I did, or have my blood pressure hit the ceiling as I rage, so I will just smile, pull out the video and whoever it is can see you are full of shit, and probably have a laugh while they do. They certainly won’t go home respecting you more. But if you don’t claim I didn’t help, no one would ever see it so who gets that video is totally in your hands.

Obviously not sure your relationship will or should last but to go with for now. Boundaries, and change what you can (helping or the conditions on which you will help) rather than protest later what you can’t - being him.

I think it's a type of passive aggressive behaviour. He will be barely conscience of it, but its (subliminal) intention is to 'negate' you and any power he perceives you have over him. These may seem like small things on paper, but they are signs and signals to a deeper problem.

Passive aggression is much more complex than the popular understanding of it. It's more common in men than women and exhibits itself in many forms. But underneath lies resentment, anger and fear.

lynnenamka.com/anger-management/anger-management-articles/the-boomerang-relationship/

@clpsmum

It's not a false memory he is gaslighting you

This was my first thought too.

Things my ex gaslighted me about:

That he did "90% of the housework and cooking" when in truth he didnt even come close to doing half of it.
He forgot that I transferred £5,500 to him when i got my redundancy payout from work. How do you 'forget' £5,500?
That he hardly ever had nights out and i saw my friends all the time. This one lead to me starting to write down how often he went out because i went out about twice a year and was always later going out and earlier home, he would treat himself to regular all dayers on a saturday and then spend the sunday in bed while i shifted myself and the kids out the house to not wake him.

It was like he didnt see anything good i did, ever. And could only see what i didnt do or what i did wrong, or the things he did. If he cooked tea (rare) i would have shopped for the food and would do the dishes and likely the bath/bed routine too.......but in his head he has been the one who has worked hard and i was lazy. It was awful, I contemplated suicide, had therapy and a near breakdown before getting away.

Gaslighting is awful

My H can be a bit like this. He isn't a narc but he has a terrible memory for stuff and like a PP said his brain seems to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately the fillers are always ones that reflect well on him, often taking credit for stuff I have done or put more work into.

I think there is another reason. I was 21 when we met (he was 14 years older), had just left uni and was pretty clueless/hapless about all sorts of things so he did tend to "look after" me quite a bit whilst I got the hang of being an adult! The thing is I am now nearly 47, very competent and successful in my career, a mother of two, and yet in his head I am still a giddy 21 year old who couldn't possibly do all the things that I actually do. It is sort of like when his brain fills in the gaps he fills them in from our original roles. (Actually he used to be a regular weed smoker which seems to be a common theme on this thread.)

He used to earn quite a bit more and therefore paid for most of the "extras" like meals out, drinks, a bigger share of our holidays. I now earn a lot more than he does and took over the role of paying for the extras some years ago. But from things he says, he still seems convinced he pays for everything. When challenged with the proof he seems genuinely surprised and baffled.

Another aspect is that he is very "out of sight/out of mind". All the stuff I do for the family in terms of researching and planning holidays or more recently planning, researching, budgeting and liaising with tradesmen for our house renovation (a 2 year project and still counting). I literally spend hours and hours on it but he seems to think I just make the odd phone call and it all happens by magic. I am not expecting undying gratitude but the lack of acknowledgment is a bit stinging particularly when he is talking to friends about all the works "we" have arranged.

One year I spent bloody ages as usual researching and planning a holiday (we have two kids a decade apart so accommodation is always tricky). I asked him to then go ahead and make the booking, literally 10 mins at the end of a long process. He was then adamant that he had done all the holiday arranging that year and next year was my turn!

My mum's like this - genuinely seems to believe she did things with us as children which childminders or friends' parents or school clubs did with us. Its not just the way she phrases things, she genuinely seems to believe she was not only present buy the central protagonist in events/ activities she possibly arranged in some but not all cases and certainly heard about soon after, but absolutely definitely wasn't actually personally present at.

@AdaFuckingShelby

My ex is convinced I talked him into having children. Apparrently I used him. That's really not how it was but it doesn't stop him being a massively resentful tosser. I distinctly remember the conversations we had about having kids. I was the unsure one. Ah well, he's an ex now. Thank goodness.

Mine said the same thing. Also about how we met: in his version, we just drifted together and "ended up in bed" somehow or another. Rather than him excitedly asking me out on a really adventurous, eventful first date, and it being the first time I'd slept with a man, so it being something of a big deal and not just something you drift into.

I am quite forgetful (not about this though), but that doesn't mean I always remember things to my advantage. It means that I easily accept other people's version as I know I can have a poor memory.

As others have said, it's a narrative that fits the story they have in their head, in which you are the baddy. They do often believe their story: read up on "cognitive dissonance" to see why.

I had an XP who would do stuff like this. I ended up keeping notes of everything he said and did in the end as I thought I was starting to lose my mind. I was right though.

I stopped challenging him and decided to ditch him. Best thing I ever did.

My ExH was like this. It used to frustrate me greatly but towards the end I didn't argue with him, and if he claimed he'd done all of everything in front of others, I got great satisfaction in doing a little head tilt and saying something like.. 'Isn't Mrwittyname amazing? He does all of everything. The kids and I are so lucky to have him...' Bystanders could taste my sarcasm. Probably a waste of energy but it was the only way I could salvage my sanity!

I'm so glad he is an ex.. I only feel deep shame that I didn't speak up when he gaslighted my parents. They loaned us a lot of money at one point, and it was meant to be a loan which he'd agreed to. We never made one payment. After a few years (when I was working again) we were in a good place but he totally denied that they'd given us any money at all. It wasn't the money (my parents had seen what he was like), it was his blatant disrespect for me/my abilities /my family that was so painful. Weirdly, with his family it was the opposite.

Interesting that he was also like this in his business and it served him well, speaking with absolute confidence and breathtaking arrogance about his abilities (often taking credit for others' work) gave people confidence in him. I wonder how much of the NPD/psycopath disorder is related?

My late husband did this, mostly about housework. In the days that we did 50/50 he had himself convinced he did 90%. The stuff I did apparently didn't count, because doing the food shop was 'an outing' and therefore counted as recreation.

Later on when the alcohol had got hold and he was doing absolutely fuck-all housework despite both of us working full time, he believed he did 50%. Yeah, right.

My husband is like this and he still smokes weed. He genuinely doesn't remember things correctly. But he is convinced that he does. It's really useful now the boys are older because they can backup the story and he does back down when they confirm that I am right and he's wrong.