He Didnt Believe Me

[JoeyP67]

My partner and I returned from a meal out earlier tonight
I was calling it a "date nite" . We'd had a nice time.
Once home, he reached for an already opened bottle of red and found it empty.. and this is what happened next.
Him "oh. Its empty"
Me " oh, is there any white?"
Him "yes"
Me "then why don't you drink that then ?"
I disappear upstairs for my warm socks and come back down.
He has a glass of white in his hand and approaches me , kisses me on the lips , says "I love you (I thought he was being romantic) then follows it up with "but dont feel you have to manage my drinking".
Me "I'm not" ....
He looks at me. I'm confused.
Me "what are you trying to say?"
Him "you poured it down the sink...
Me : "what ? no I didn't..."
He goes on to tell me I had poured the remains of the open red wine down the sink. I protest my innocence. I make myself a cup of tea and he calmly goes puts the tv on. Calls out what would I like to watch ? I am feeling both foolish (for thinking he was being romantic with the kiss) and angry at his accusation and judgement of me. I go sit next to him. He makes small talk about the t.v program. I am upset at what just happened so I calmly open up.
Me :: "I feel upset at what just happened there. I thought you were being romantic saying you loved me because I looked nice in my dress ...but really there was was something else behind it ...::"
Him: :" yes there was, I did think you liked nice in your dress but I was doing it to start the conversation off (about the sink pouring) nicely. "
I ask in future for him to just be direct and ask me, not fool me with a kiss first.
I tell him again I didn't do it.
He firmly believes that I had. His proof ?..... that he ran his finger over the plug and there was red on it..also that the bottle had been moved from where he put it. so, it's a fact he says, and all I have to be is honest.
I protest my innocence.
I can't believe his calmness. He says maybe I forgot that I did it. I seriously wonder if hes right and maybe I had forgotten but I am sure I didn't do it. I get upset and ask him not to play games with me getting me to think I've done something I haven't..
He refuses to back down. He sways between staying calm with his "facts" and getting agitated with me for pushing back saying stuff like "who was it then ? the fairies...?"
I ask him " why would I suggest you drink the white if I've a problem with you drinking" ? "Why wud I throw the red away to then offer you white? "
But none of it makes any difference. For me, we had a lovely meal out, I really made an effort to look nice and I cudnt believe he wanted the night to end on his mistrust. I said that I had told him the truth and that he had made the choice not to believe me. I felt like the rug had been pulled from under my feet. Said that I loved him and why would i lie to him ? He said it was because I was "2 dimensional". He turned the telly off and didnt want to entertain me talking about it.
He said "just drop it. I"d forgiven you while you were stood at the bottom of the stairs" I started to get a bit hysterical. He still wasnt listening to me and his comments were making it worse. I said I had nothing to be forgiven for. He got up to get ready for bed but then returned downstairs. He slept on the sofa. I said I didn't want the night to end this way and asked if he had created the tension purposely to avoid sleeping with me. He said no.
Im so tired. I have to be up again at 6.30am. He upset me so much my emotions are only just calming down 4hrs later. Hes slept soundly.

I really could do with some careful and honest advice here. Any one else been in the same situation? What do I do about this ? Am I being too sensitive about this? or is his behaviour way off the mark? I don't know how I feel going forward....

Ps ' We been living together since 2020.
Thanks
Joey

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply. I have some answers to your questions:

Yes, he is is a heavy drinker, with a high tolerance to alcohol. His pattern is on avg. 4 bottles of wine over a Thurs-Sun eve period.

Yes , I've gently raised his drinking with him and he doesnt see any problem as he has 3 dry days in a week. In the past I have hidden bottles of unopened wine to stop him drinking gifts or wine that I may want a glass of. If he finds it and he wants it, he'll drink it.

Yes, I do try and pacify him and it's not the 1st time. I do it alot as he has the ability to stonewall me after an arguement runway can last for a couple of days. The hysteria I felt last night was because I could see he was nonchelently heading towards stonewalling me. I am so unnerved by this, I wanted to avoid it. Its partly the stonewalling that raises my anxiety so I cant sleep at night.

Theres no back story on us sleeping together except I had mentioned us cozying up when we got home.

The comments about his behaviour and crossing boundaries and gaslighting and pulling strings are hard hitting.

I cant say if he has gaslighted me before, but hes deffo watched my distress play out in front of him before and his reaction is always to harden himself further to me.

I guess now I have these behaviours on my radar I can keep a log of when he uses them. Checking out the gaslighting film too.

Thanks eveyone
Joey

I would say that if he has watched your distress in the past then he is observing you to see what your reaction is, and if it's the reaction he wants, he learns that certain things he does or says will lead to that reaction from you.
He is probably trying to de-stabilise you. At the moment, you are probably a fairly confident individual who is able to set boundaries, stand up to him, question your relationship when you feel you need to, etc. - yes?
He would like you to be more compliant, placid, not question him on his drinking. He wants you to fit into his world. One of doing that is for him to get you to question whether you're being reasonable (which you're doing here). A more powerful way is to get you into a 'WTF' situation where you say one thing and he says the opposite.
You will end up questioning your reality.
I urge you to remain strong and not let him do this to you.
Short of leaving him, one way of not allowing him to affect you is to yourself disengage from these situations. That, of course, means that you need to stop being involved with anything to do with his drinking. That is very difficult because you presumably care about his health.
Your MH is more important though.

The problem is not believing you. If there is no trust, there is nothing.

Whilst I agree there should be trust, I don't think that is relevant in this situation. What I think might be happening is that he does believe her (he knows she's telling the truth from the way she reacts - it would have been blatantly obvious that she's telling the truth) but that he's trying to get her believe the opposite.

He's got a problem with alcohol and is trying to gaslight you into believing he doesn't. You have choices. Either put up with this and watch his health and behaviour decline (he doesn't believe he has a problem so has no incentive to fix it). Or don't.

BTW was the picking a fight after a "date night" done to deflect that he has ED when drinking?

This is how abuse can start.

Beware people who want you stuck on merry go rounds of 'prove your love/innocence/goodness/loyalty'. Beware of finding yourself stuck in 'if I could only find the right words to make him understand/believe me'. There are no right words. Because he doesn't want there to be.

This doesn't happen in healthy relationships.
I suggest you get out, fast.

Listen, the fact that you have to hide the wine sometimes is reason alone to leave him.

You already know he has a problem with alcohol. That doesn't get better. It gets worse.

No waiting around to observe what happens next! You've enough red flags even without the recent case of gaslighting.

Get out of there!

Oh, i see from your update he’s a heavy drinker. I bet he polished it and doesn’t remember.
He is unbelievably cold and callous to calmly watch you get more and more distressed and still carry on. He sounds like an abusive alcoholic tbh.

I would be making plans to leave based on the fact he’s a heavy drinker alone. That hardly ever gets better. And his behaviour towards you is cruel.

It really is classic gaslighting. I would bet my house he'd drunk that wine before going out.

Why would you tell him to drink the white wine if you didn't want him to have a drink? That doesn't make sense.

What's your living situation like, OP? Do you rent or have a mortgage? Whose name is on the documents?

How long have you lived with him?

I think if you were to continue a relationship with this stonewalling, gaslighting, alcohol-dependent twat, then having your own home as a safe place to go to would be a very good idea.

Who the fuck goes around running their finger over plugholes?!

Everything about this is wrong.

Detective inspector Setup McGaslighter that's who.

Someone who's drunk all the wine and is desperate to show that someone else has done it. If it costs her her sanity, so be it.

The two dimensional thing sounds like "narcissistic word salad".

"As part of their word salad, they will throw random words and comments into the conversation that have nothing to do with what you are talking about and make no sense. This is to throw you off and distract you from the point you are trying to make. This confuses you and gets the conversation off on tangents that deflect from the main point."

https://www.floridawomenslawgroup.com/the-narcissists-word-salad/#:~:text=The%20narcissist%20uses%20a%20word,you%20or%20say%20something%20mean.

The bit about how calm they can be when narrating a completely alternate reality gave me chills because this was my conscienceless abuser. It IS very destabilising and they know this. OP grab onto reality like your mental health depends on it.

This is a very creepy thing I just read. He is not a keeper. Save yourself.

So much support, means such alot. Thank you. Especially as I felt so disorientated. You've all helped me focus my mind.

To answer questions....

ED after a drink doesnt really feature. So I don't think that was influencing his behaviour.

Our living arrangement is 4years in a rental property so no real commitment there.

Yes I will hold onto my sanity.

Thanks
Joey

Create a log? How about you plan on living alone? Believe me living with someone like this will destroy you.

Weird. And classic gaslighting. Is this a one off? Maybe he was just hammered and didn't want to back down.

Do be on the lookout though.

Calling you '2 dimensional' has a chilling air to it. I'm a man but this whole scenario has something really sinister about it.

Also a bottle of wine a night 4 times a week really is problem drinking.

Run for the hills. Don't look back. This behaviour is scary and sinister. I'd be making moves to leave him and his bottles of wine. May he enjoy them ad infinitum whilst you enjoy life without him.

Please dump this abusive alcoholic. Don’t tie yourself to him for life. You’ll be so unhappy.

Is the property rented in both your names?

You need to find a way to get out

ASAP

Sounds like Tom and Belle on Emmerdale at the moment. He tipped the wine to get a reaction 😡😡

Sorry but this is ringing alarm bells to me, massive gas lighting and I’d feel the same about him creating the tension on purpose to avoid sleeping with you, seems odd otherwise if you had a perfectly nice date night. In my opinion he doesn’t sound very nice at all and very passive aggressive

You're the gaslighting him! You've poured the wine away - and then you're telling him you didn't then getting upset because he wanted to have a conversation about it. You could be my ex!

He needs to leave you immediately before you ruin his MH!

And before any one questions why I think that she knew it was empty because she immediately offered the white wine rather than being surprised it was empty!