Clashing over what has actually been said

[CurryLover55]

Find this so annoying! I doesn’t happen half as often now, thank goodness, as our relationship is in a much better place but sometimes we argue about what we said( ( or what we believe we said!). To give an example - DH & I have taken the same week off work & he planned to put laminate flooring upstairs ( landing, our room & DD’s room). Tonight he was insisting that he always said he was just going to do DD’s room for now but that’s absolutely not true. He said he wasn’t going to laminate the stairs as they were too tricky but he never said he was only going to do DD’s room. It’s so infuriating as he’s adamant but so am I! I’m not sure this is gaslighting but he genuinely seems to believe that he did say it rather than just think it. In the end we just let it go as actually it would be a pretty big job to do it all at once & it would be nice for us to have some days off but I’m still smarting because I know what he originally said! Wish I could record our conversations! Can anyone relate?

Hah yes and i read something that helped, it basically says these kind of things are when someone is having a conversation from their emotional side and the other is having q conversation from their factual side. So neither person really feels heard or validated and it's very unsatisfying.
In practical terms it could just be he changed his mind/realised he's over committed, but it's been ingrained into him that it's not ok to change mind, so the alternative is to rewrite history.
Maybe try to rewind the conversation and switch to think about feelings instead of the literal message, see if it makes a bit more sense?
Good luck!
PS if it's on purpose then it's something more sinister but i didn't get that idea from your op

Write stuff down.

Date it.

Both sign it.

Or do what I do and keep a note on your phone.

I'm actually the guilty one of this in our house

Ever since menopause began, my memory has been really bad !

But I could (and have sometimes) sworn blind that I told my DH or DC's something, which none of them remember !

Eventually I had to concede that it was my memory at fault

I just got used to using my phone calendar as a reminder, so I check it every day and put an asterix beside the things I've actually remembered to tell them

’m not sure this is gaslighting

Do you think it might be? What's the rest of your relationship like? Does he respect your point of view? Is he a good listener (apart from these odd occasions) Does he care about your feelings?