Assigning good or bad memories to the wrong person

[MimiDaisy11]

I have a parent who I really don't have much in common with and so have always found it hard to connect with. Plus they have a temper and I don't deal well with people who are unpredictably cold and hot. They have a much better relationship with my sibling as their personalities go better together and said sibling is more chilled with people with tempers and it doesn't bother them. That's expected in families. People get on better than others do.

However, I have noticed for a long time that they have the habit of misremembering things to make me seem more negative and the sibling more positive which I find annoying. For example, I'll buy them a great present for Christmas. One that means something to them. Then years later I'll hear them mention it and how great it was but they'll say my sibling got it for them. Likewise, they'll be telling a story when someone did something wrong and assign it to me when it was my sibling. Anyone else experience something like this? I know memories aren't perfect and we all can make mistakes, and maybe I've recalled a memory incorrectly, but it's been something I've noticed constantly so it's not a one off. Anyone else have something similar happen to them?

My STBex does this all the time. He rewrites our history to suit the narrative he has invented for me. He's done this for years. Memory is notoriously fickle and easily manipulated to suit what people want to believe rather than the truth. H wants to make me out to be the abuser because that lets him off the hook and he doesn't have to face up to his behaviour. Your parents prefer your Sister and therefore misremember events in her favour. No amount of arguing the truth will change there minds. It's firmly embedded.

My parents do this, and I have a good relationship with them so it's not always with bad intentions. It's always happened but more so the older they get.

They also do it with medical stuff (dad thinks it was mum in hospital, it was me!), holiday memories etc. Sometimes our brain connects things the wrong way.

@CorrBlimeyGG

My parents do this, and I have a good relationship with them so it's not always with bad intentions. It's always happened but more so the older they get.

This happens in my family as well. However always misremembering in a sibling's favour and demonizing you must be really hurtful.

Interesting, sounds a little similar to my father.

He says negative things because he thinks it's funny. Typical dad I think. We do share some things in common but sometimes I don't know what to talk about. I guess it stems from him having a somewhat repetitive life style.

You can't choose your family but you are stuck with them. I often think about Lisa Simpson and Homer Simpson. Couldn't be more opposite but they both work to find things they can share. So that's where you need to start.

My dad does get annoyed easily when he doesn't follow something, usually because of his age. It can be frustrating to others when you have to explain it in a more simple way and then he can get annoyed because he thinks you are pandering to him.

Can't win so I just go with the flow

Yes apparently I was a "stroppy nightmare" as a teenager my parents were getting divorced at the time I was stuck in a college they wanted me in doing what they wanted me to do while they had a tug of war over the house my mother made it clear she only got it because I lived there and was very unhappy about keeping me there my dad didn't want me either they sold my car so I quit driving lessons I couldn't see the point in getting a licence (I regret that now) plus my mother begrudgingly paid it each week and told me just how much she hated paying for it (ten pounds a lesson) my dad told me he wanted me aborted my mom got pissed regularly but I was so difficult and stroppy as soon as I turned 18 she threw me out they big up my sister who has spent the last thirty years with the same company she has absolutely fallen on her feet and done well but after thirty years she is still barely making above minimum wage and can't always make ends meet im a huge failing and disappointment because I have kids with special needs im a registered carer for but when I work im a terrible disappointment for being a working mother when I have a child with special needs

My mother has cut me out of her will stopping me having any part of her house the one I helped her keep in the divorce

Everytime I speak up on a subject its ohhh ohhh here comes stroppy again she never changes "hahaha" apparently im cold unfeeling and nasty why do they want anything to do with me? I was fine to look after her mother and her beloved grandchildren (who she never sees)

I dont have much to do with them anymore

Read up on scapegoat vs golden child dynamics.

Happens when a narcissistic parent (nod) Davies one child over the other.

• (npd) favors

Golden child and scapegoat dynamic maybe?

Yeah my mum used to do that with me and my sister. I was the golden child and my sister the scapegoat.

Our mum created complete fantasy narratives in her head. She once told other relatives that I had a gambling problem - this was after I played a "free £10 bonus" on a bingo site, won £40, but couldn't cash out due to the "play through" clause on bonus funds. I moaned about it to my mum. She took that and ran with it, creating a storyline in which I'd got into thousands of pounds of gambling debt and she'd had to bail me out?!

Pretty ironic seeing as she lost about 10k in the 90s blowing her savings on horse racing!!

Neither me or my sister have anything to do with her now.

My DM has a bad habit of doing this. Stories always somehow end with her being the hero of the piece and, more often than not, someone else the villain. Recently she regaled my younger sister with a story about a time our DF hit our other sister around the head for being naughty ("the 80s were a different time, I was parenting three kids, I don't regret hitting you all"). The story she told was a hodge-podge of half truths and lies. Somehow it all ended up being hilarious and entirely my sister's fault. But I remember the incident well, and quite differently - when I called her on it, she got stroppy with me.

Needless to say I am extremely LC.