DH's fabrications

[angsty]

Sorry it is long. I have been married to DH for twenty years, have DC, our relationship is generally good and he is a good man but there is something that is beginning to bother me increasingly, maybe it's me getting older and more irritable but I feel more annoyed about it than I used to. He basically comes out with (often quite elaborate) alternative accounts of things that are not true, although he clearly believes they are, it is not deliberate lying but his brain seems to construct scenarios that he remembers in a false way and that then fixes in his mind (and no, he is not dementing, he has always been like this and when I met him he was in his early 30s. It hasn't got worse, I have just got less tolerant I think).

It's not just when he's talking to me, and not just done for effect or a more amusing anecdote, which people do sometimes do in social situations. It happens often. And sometimes it really matters. When our (autistic) DC was very young, DH on several occasions gave false information about the development histories of his older children to medical professionals (eg saying that his older children had also been slow to speak etc, I checked with their mother and it was absolutely not true). This led to a delay in the diagnosis. When he took DC to a doctor more recently he gave an account of something having happened when I was out of the country, which was not the case, I was present when it happened. DH made it seem like he dealt with what was a medical emergency all on his own, when it fact it I was there and was the one that went to the hospital.

More mundanely, yesterday I was planning to book some flights and he said that a particular airline had previously let us down on a specific important family occasion by rerouting our flight, and so he didn't want to book with them again (it was actually a completely different airline, on a completely different occasion, between completely different cities).

Sometimes one can't prove that he is talking nonsense, sometimes one can (with the medical and airline ones I just showed him my diary and he had to admit he had remembered wrong). He can get quite difficult and insistent that he is right when you challenge him on ones that you cannot actually prove him wrong on, so I often just let them go, but I then feel annoyed. What would you do?

He tells lies. He is not being tricked by his brain, or any other reason you seem to infer. He is just a liar.

you either accept this or move on, he wont change. His lies are harmful and he is even telling them to medical professionals, being obstructive to their diagnosis. You need to think, do you want this?

One of my relatives does this self same behaviour and he’s doing this because he is a narcissist. People are indeed taken in by him because at times he can be plausible.

In your case I would be planning my exit from this marriage. He has caused you all harm to either avoid punishment or to otherwise big himself up as being the great I am.

He really does believe most of them, I am sure of it. He talks about his past career to people and relates things that didn't happen, to people who were supposed to have been there when they happened. They will look very surprised, even give me a look, but like me, will let it go. I can't imagine he would do that if he knew he was making it up?

He is used to you all just going along with him. He is manipulating everyone.

He is indeed manipulating everyone. My narc relative often talks about his talking to celebrities etc in his former job when we know this has not occurred.

I agree with PPs. When you said "it is not deliberate lying" @angsty I immediately thought of my ex who I was with for 30 years. It wasn't until we were apart and I was starting therapy that I learned what a very, very good liar he is. He seemed like he totally believed what he was saying and he also lied about things that were utterly pointless in lying about. I had to rewrite the history (not the same as him rewriting the truth to suit him) I thought was true from my point of view and see the things he had said with different eyes; I was actually doing just that about another memory that popped up today. Like @AttilaTheMeerkat 's relative, my ex is also a narcissist, lying is part of their make up.

It's a power move. If he's been doing it his whole life he probably developed it as a way of coping in an environment where he felt powerless.

Unless he has a lot of therapy there's not much chance of him changing this behaviour as it sounds so ingrained it's almost a reflex.

Up to you to decide if you can live with it any longer or not.

He really does believe most of them, I am sure of it.

He really doesn't. You are trying to excuse him for being a liar, probably becsue you have put up with it for 20 years.

He is lying, he knows he is lying. His brain isn't special, he is just a standard run of the mill liar, nothing special.

He’s a liar. A fantasist. You can’t trust what he says.

I'm not going to leave someone after 20 years for something he has done since day one, and I don't want to. I love him and I am happy with him overall. I just feel I am getting "too old for this shit" and I may start calling him out a bit more, I need to try and do it in a constructive way. That was really the point of this thread I suppose, to explore that. And just to blow off a bit of steam!

It's odd though, he knows very well that my job (in a forensic field) consists of basically hunting down the truth in complex situations in which people generally lie. Which is why I think he isn't trying to lie and that in the moment he believes what he is saying. He must know I will find out a lie if it is possible. He also knows that my mother lied to me about an important fact of my life all my life and how I feel about that.

And, something like past plane flights is so easy to check, he knows very well that I have kept a diary going back to 1991! And when I show him definite evidence that he's wrong about something he just apologises and moves on, doesn't seem very bothered at all.

My first H was a huge "social bullshitter" and raconteur who loved to big himself up in social situations and was always embellishing things for that reason. DH is not like that, it doesn't feel the same, it's almost like he doesn't fully understand the immutability of reality. I've seen him claim to have qualifications he doesn't have, to people who do have them and who know he doesn't. It's really strange.

Interesting point about part powerlessness. He had a very difficult childhood in which he was abused, as well as underestimated badly by his family.

I would find this unbearable OP. Whether he's a compulsive liar, a pathological liar, creating false memories or manipulating the situation for some other reason, it sounds incredibly stressful for you.

I think all you can do is have a strategy to deal with it, if not divorce, then decide what you're going to do when it happens.

You might repeat something to yourself along the lines of, do not doubt your reality and create some immediate physical distance from him so you don't get dragged in.

You might say something to him along the lines of, I don't agree Barry, this another instance where we remember things very differently.

How you deal with it long term I don't know, you're not going to be able to stop it happening, and if it follows the curve it's going to get worse. Only you know if you can live with it long term.

I don't doubt my reality at all! I have a very good memory and grasp on what really happened in the past (and, as I said, also a diary going back over 30 years which I can consult!). When I have any form of proof I do indeed tell him no DH, that's not what happened (not that we "remember it differently", I know for sure my memory is real and his story is not). He'll just say oh sorry, you are right. (Without proof it can descend into an irritable argument about who is right, with me knowing for sure I am and so getting annoyed, so I generally don't go there unless it is something important).

(I am a bit surprised someone has not pointed out that, were he on here, DH would probably be posting about the know-it-all wife who constantly contradicts minor points of his memory and always has to make her point by whipping out her infernal everlasting diary).

I don't think it will get worse, well it hasn't over 20 years in any case....

BTW his older children (adults now) know this about him too and just laugh about it. One sometimes calls it "Dad's industrial grade bullshit". They love him and have great relationships with him. But I guess they don't have to live with it!

It's odd though, he knows very well that my job (in a forensic field) consists of basically hunting down the truth in complex situations in which people generally lie.

Maybe he sees you as a challenge. All those lies you haven't commented on he'll think he's 'won'.

He also knows that my mother lied to me about an important fact of my life all my life and how I feel about that.

This is the narcissist's bread and butter - they find your weak points, usually at the beginning when they've earned your trust and you share your innermost thoughts and feelings with them, then they later use them against you.

What you say in your first post about him saying he was the one to deal with a situation or him getting difficult when you call him out also could well come under the narcissistic behaviour possibility.

Ya a defence he developed to help him survive abuse. You would need to be incredibly careful about how you go about dismantling it - if indeed it's even possible. He'd need to seek professional support. Would that be a condition of you continuing in the relationship?

I've named changed for replying to this, but I am exactly like your DH.

I genuinely think things have happened that when you look at the evidence/diaries/call logs etc physically cannot have happened.

I'm not lying. I honestly think that what I am saying is true.

It's like you saying '1+1=2' and then your partner/family/friends look at you weird and say 'umm, no. 1+1=3'. You would fight to the death that the answer is 2, but then they type it into a calculator and the answer is 3. So you have to accept you're wrong, but you really don't think you are and will always secretly believe that 1+1=2.

I think my brain gets confused and sometimes pieces together parts of different jigsaws and because the pieces fit, it must be right, even if half the jigsaw is a cloud and the other half is a lobster. I think my brain takes what actually did happen/what I should have done/what happened yesterday/what I wish I had done and smooshes it all together and says this is what happened and that's the account I 'remember'.

Thankfully my family know I'm not lying/being malicious so they just correct me and don't get angry at me. I now normally start with 'I might be making up memories but...'

It's actually pretty scary if I ever think about it properly. If you can't trust your own memory/brain then who on earth can you trust?

Which is a long winded way of saying, I get it Op. If your DH is like me, he doesn't know he is doing it and there isn't anything he can do to stop it. But I fully appreciate how annoying it must be, especially about important things like your DC's health.

Apologies, it hasn't got worse. Got you. I think what I was suggesting getting a strategy to deflate his bullshit ballon because it sounds pointless and energy sapping to engage with a liar. It's futile.

Great if you've got the documentation to back yourself up, but honestly, this isn't how I would like to live. You possibly started documenting everything, and keeping decades worth of diaries as proof because you felt that a pile of steaming industrial grade bullshit would be forthcoming at any minute. It sounds exhausting not be able to trust your husband in this fundamental way.

I honestly couldn't respect a man who lied about his qualifictions, let alone all the other trivial shit you're going head to head about, it sounds tiring in the extreme and he must have one hell of a list of redeeming qualities to outweight this.

It sounds like some sort of personality disorder owing to his upbringing

Memory is notoriously unreliable and easy to influence. And the way we take information in, understand and store it is affected by how we feel at that time. I would guess he is 'in his head' a lot, which is influencing this situation. Its his response to it which is the problem I think, rather than that it is happening. I would be having a conversation with him about it when you are both calm, and explain that, given the way he seems to remember things, it would be helpful to check with each other before confirming important details.

People like this believe their own bullshit. He'll never change.

Children love their parents anyway , no matter how rubbish they actually are. Your adult child is astute and has the measure of their father by calling this his industrial grade bullshit.

I take everything my narc relative says with a huge pinch of salt because he is lying to big himself up as the real truth of how his life has turned out is not acknowledged .

I've seen him claim to have qualifications he doesn't have, to people who do have them and who know he doesn't. It's really strange

I think that while you say things like he really believes it and it is not deliberately lying nothings going to change because you’re making excuses for him. You know full well he is deliberately lying and by pretending to believe he doesn’t know he’s doing it you’re being as dishonest as he is.

Your strategy of challenging him doesn’t seem to be working. I would end the conversation abruptly each time he lies and I would reconsider socialising with him if he’s intent on embarrassing you both.

You perhaps also think it’s easier to stay with him rather than to uproot yourself and your life now. It’s a decision that may come back to bite you.