Husband completely rewritten history and I'm hurt

[HilaryFrog]

Husband has completely written history to paint me badly and I am hurt and I don't know what to do.

During the pandemic my marriage almost fell apart. He had to work from home and I developed Long Covid after getting very sick with covid and was bed bound for 10 months, I still did some things but I had to spend hours in bed I was so unwell and it took a couple of years to regain full physical ability. This caused our marriage to become extremely strained, of which the situation in the house became very toxic, we are argued all the time, things became very heated, he resented me for being sick and felt I was a burden, I resented him for how badly he was treating me for being sick. The situation resulted in me having a serious mental breakdown which required hospital admission, he never visited me and we separated. I was unwell and stayed elsewhere as we felt it was in the childrens interest that I was the one to move out as I was too ill at the time to be their main carer and they needed some stability.

After time apart we rekindled our relationship. We felt this was in the best interest of our children and also we were getting on really well. The passion returned and I feel like now we have a good relationship. Or so I thought.

A year ago I went back into education to get a career of my own. This has meant that the dynamic in the house has changed, and whilst I once was the childrens primary caregiver, he now is, as my university is a 4 hour round commute away. This is not ideal however he did not wish to move and this is the closest uni that did the course I wanted. We both agreed to do this.

At the weekend we were talking and I mentioned something I had been upset about, he asked me to elaborate and I said " actually I think it's best we don't talk about this you will get defensive and I don't want to fight". Although we get on now we don't really discuss what happened during the pandemic. He always gets very defensive and it's not worth the fight. My friends believe this is because he has a hard time accepting that he didn't handle things well and behaved abusively at times during that period. Unfortunately this has meant that I have been left with some painful things I carry about it I feel have never had a resolve. He said "no it's ok let's talk about it I won't get defensive".

So we did talk. He didn't get defensive. What he did do was present a history that is entirely rewritten.

Before i got sick I was the childrens primary care giver. I ran a childcare business from home and was a stay at home mum. I wanted to get a carer of my own but he said we couldn't afford the childcare. I did majority of the cooking in the week, often having dinner cooking for when he got in and all the emotional labour and care around the kids. The house would get on top of me alot so he would often come home to a mess, sometimes a huge mess due to me trying to juggle dinner for lots of children, kids reading and homework and the last few hours of the day always seemed to get away with me and he would have to help me tidy up when he came home. I did most of the cleaning that wasn't these daily reset tasks however he would do the big pull everything out feel cleans. I tried to follow that organised mum thing. I would say he did more in the house then many men do but it was fairly balanced between us. We had a night pack down routine where I would settle the kids and he would wash up etc. the kids mostly were my job but he did look after them so I could do a hobby or go on a night out with friends etc. I think white balanced. The pandemic did change they due to how ill I got and that is a huge grief of mine.

We also had a joint account (that we no longer have). I organised the account because we had got into some debt and I had asked if I could try organising it. We each had an allowance out of it to spend on what we liked and the rest was joint.

In his version of events
I was never the primary care giver to the children, he apparently has always been.
That he has always done " atleast 85% of everything" even before I got sick.
That I "controlled the finances" and spent it all on clothes and things I wanted (we did sometimes argue about me buying things, but I never ever bought out of our joint money and he had full access to our joint account I just organised payments to things)
And he claims that his reaction in the pandemic was more then reasonable considering all of this and I should be grateful that he wanted to make things work and not seperate because he insists if we had "all it would have taken is me to see a solicitor and you would have lost everything" ( I got legal advice at the time and this is not true). He thinks he was entirely justified in the way he treated me because of this.

I am so hurt. This is a huge distortion of reality.
To me the pandemic was a huge life stressers that we both handled badly. He behaved pretty shockingly towards me being so sick, however I understand that it was very difficult and a huge life shift and he was very stressed and I also didn't handle things well at times...and we've moved past it and my health has recovered. To me it was a painful 3 years and things are better now.

He does have a habit of rewriting history on a day to day if he's done something wrong. For example he'll regularly deny he said something or did something or exaggerate about timings or amounts until you show him evidence he did such as screenshots or whatever. He openly admitted for a while his long term memory isn't great and was doing brain training stuff as he was worried about it (which he now also denies he ever said it did).

I don't know what to do or how to move forward now. I'm so hurt he believes such a distorted reality of our pre pandemic life, especially as I gave up my personal goals for a decade to be the stay at home parent.etc.

I feel heavily gasslit. Like I'm going insane. I've been sat going through old bank statements trying to prove to him I never spent from the joint account.

I feel so hurt part of me wants to leave. But also like I don't wish to explode my life or my childrens life right now. When we were thinking of separating before things did get messy and I don't trust it would be a calm seperation. I don't think I would be able to continue my course, and I definitely would have to suspend it as I would be devastated and I don't think I would cope with a seperation and the travel and heavy work load.

And like the children are happy and I want them to have a happy family, and I mean until this conversation I was the happiest I have been since all this happened. Like actually thinking we had saved our marriage.

But I don't know how to carry the hurt from this completely delusional narrative about the past.

Sorry if this was a long read. I just don't know who to talk to about it. My friends developed a dislike of him due to how he was treating me during the pandemic and so everything they say is quite biased, where I have felt like we had moved on from all that.

There are some women on MN whose men in their lives are so shite that any childcare is met with bedazzlement.

Childcare is irrelevant if he’s being an arsehole to the OP.

If he’d agreed to move nearer uni and jobs he wouldn’t be having to do the child pickups. So he’s made a rod for his own back.

Agree with this.

When I say they were more evenly split I meant in terms of house responsibilities as I did the vast vast of all the childcare and child related jobs. I also did majority cooking and most cleaning (although he would do sporadic pull it all out deep cleans). He did have to tidy up after work most days as his arrival home always matched with the time the minded kids were leaving and tbh that last 2 hours of the day where I had after school kids and my young ones and I had to cook every dinner and get it out always got away with me in terms of house mess. I didn't expect him to clean it up when he got through the door but he (atleast said) he was happy to and we'd reset it together.

He has always been the bread winner in terms of earning more. He has a well paid job that has only got better and better paid. I did however work as many and sometimes more hours then him minding. The problem was that my own kids took up a lot of the ratios and although I worked long hours most of those hours except the 3 after school hours were very badly paid (approx £4.20 an hour which was the local weight at the time and I could only have one child. So he came out with a lot more. We used to put both wages in a joint account and then give ourselves an allowance from it for personal spending and the rest was joint, which at the time I thought we both agreed was the best way but it seems he says now he hated.

As for driving he is the only driver. Although for most of our relationship neither of us could drive and then after he passed his test I did try to learn to drive. I had lessons for 2 years and even took a test (which I failed). I'm just a very anxious driver and not very great at it. Unfortunately getting sick meant I couldn't continue the lessons and since recovering we no longer share finances and I can't afford to cover the lessons by myself to give it another go. Atleast for now. This is something I am going to take up when possible.

As for me also behaving badly when I was sick, what I mean by that is that I often responded to his outbursts with also shouting back, and I don't feel I acted very grateful for all he was doing after a while as I was so sick and so scared for my future, and he was so angry and bitter towards me, and I just felt so sad and abandoned in it all, and also I was so frustrated that he wouldn't just hire in some help or anything that I could see might help us and make it better that after a while I fear I focussed on that hurt and abandonment feeling and became resentful myself. I have acknowledged that and apologised about that and tried to see it as a collective bad time we handled badly.

But yes he absolutely has done a lot and carried a lot of stuff for the family. People are asking why I got back with him after the seperation, but honestly other then this thing that happened when I was ill I felt we had a good relationship and I hoped we could point it behind us together. I just feel sad at this rewrite he has done in his brain where I seem to have always been this tag along not contributing anything, when that just was not the case before.

This, it’s time to put the past behind you and move on, he’s doing all he can to enable your university course, I can’t see what more you expect him to do. You can’t change the past no matter how much you might want to and he’s entitled to an opinion. He doesn’t have to share your point of view.
it sounds to me as if he’s doing all he can to be helpful, stop digging, it’s never a good idea and you admitted it only leads to arguments.
I’m with your husband on this one.

Totally agree with this. Women the world over carry hugely disproportionate caring responsibilities in the family alongside paid work and it's just the norm. A man does it for a few years and it's used to excuse and explain away clear signs of abuse. OP was unwell enough to require inpatient psychiatric care and her husband didn't even visit her and here we all are saying how hard he's had it doing the childcare. OP you don't owe him anything cause you were ill. You don't have to sacrifice your career or education to 'pay back' the years you were unwell. That's what partnership is - sometimes you pick up more of the load when the other person can't. Sometimes it's unequal because it has to be and you don't get to lorde it over your partner and make them feel badly about it years after the fact.

Go to therapy yourself. Even if he won't, it can still be helpful.

This was the first opening conversation you've had about it.

If you're stuck in a position where the sensible thing to do is to stay (at least in the medium term - the next couple of years) then trying to reframe this may help.

He's likely coming from a place of how he felt.

He felt like he was the main carer, he felt like you spent money. But now how he felt has been written into fact.

For balance having a partner down for 18mths during the pandemic must have been incredibly hard work for him. My DH was down for 4mths when my DC was a 1yr old and it was hard. I was in survival mode and it was hard not to be resentful. I didn't have the capacity to play nurse, as well as work full time and take care of everything domestically and childcare.

I don't think running around trying to put evidence in front of him is particularly helpful. I would reply, 'that's how you felt and I appreciate you sharing your feelings but feelings are not always facts.'

This is not me siding with him at all - I'm just saying if you need to sit it out, or want to try and resolve it - it will take more than one conversation and just because he's rewritten something doesn't mean you have to accept it - but it can help to try and give some ground and reframe the rewriting as how he felt and approach the conversation from there.

Interjecting with - I can see how you felt like that. I felt like I did xyz and abc and push him into a space where he recognises that this conversation doesn't need to be rooted in facts but can come from a place of how you both felt - might help to get closer to a middle ground.

With the children’s age won’t it be tricky to move because of School?

Yes in many ways he is supportive then most for sure and I want to acknowledge that.

The uni decision was something I had always wanted to do and he encouraged me to do it. I wasn't able to get a job when the kids were small as he insisted that we didn't have the childcare money and I had to wait until they were older, but he did always say when they were older I could persue the career I wanted. The local local jobs here are all retail or bar work which I would be miserable doing long term and are pretty low paid, however the uni course does set me up for a career that is decent pay with the scope to grow. I can't go back to home minding unfortunately as he now works from home and doesn't want all the kids in the house.

We talked about me going to uni a lot and it was a joint decision to go for it.
I did suggest moving closer to uni as his job isn't dependent on location but he is happy here and doesn't want to move so he said no. So we knew from the get go the commute would be long. I did in the middle of last year say that maybe it wasn't working as I was so worn out and it was a lot for him, and tbh I feel so much guilt about the children, and I didn't know if it was working but he said that he would be angry if I quit because then his extra contribution with balancing the home stuff would have been for nothing. He said "if you quit we will have issues"

So obviously I am pleased to be going to uni, but I don't want it to seem like I have just decided I'm leaving them to it so I can faff around getting my dream carer and who cares what he thinks or anything. The decision to do the uni was discussed and joint

Yes. That is a factor.

I also thought the same thing.
Is je re-writing history or is this how he feels, OP and you're getting defensive because you see it differently?

Also, how you run up the debt you briefly mention? Was that on household stuff or clothes etx for yourself? Is that the spending that he got annoyed about?

I was in a marriage that made me feel like I was going mad. Like I was absolutely losing my mind as he would say things and then deny them straight away. I left and thank god I did. I've been away from him 12 year and it's still the best decision I ever made. Don't stay with someone who does this to you. It's more serious than you realise.

Thank you for this perspective. 🙂
I did tell him I disagreed with his version of events. He basically said he didn't care if I disagreed, that he would only believe me about not spending all "his" money from the joint account if I proved to him with an itemised list of where everything I bought for myself during the time we had a joint account was bought from (which is why I've been looking at bank statements). He even scoffed when I said I had been working during this time from home as a minder too for 7 1/2 years saying "it was not that thing more like a year or two" but I mean I can prove how long I worked as a minder with my books and tax returns.

Thank the Lord!

I thought I was going mad reading some of these responses sticking up for her DH. Flabbergasted at what some people have said and how much they’ve completely excused his behaviour.

As another sensible PP said, he’s exhibiting classic signs of DARVO. And his behaviour is controlling and abusive.

I think the fact he won’t consider therapy is very telling.

In my experience, this is because an impartial trained therapist would ask too many questions - with you they can bluster and browbeat, gaslight etc. But they know they wouldn’t be able to do this with an outsider. They don’t want to be found out.

I know finding out that they value you so little is devastating. I’ve been there. So for your own sake access counselling for yourself.

You won’t be able to change his mind with things like facts and figures. You may have to accept for the time being there can be no discussion about this - and as you said, you didn’t want to as he becomes defensive.

I was married for 40years, but very unhappy. I finally went to a therapist, who helped me see that my now ex was a narcissist. Suddenly all of his confusing and contradictory behaviour made sense.

Im not say that your husband is a narcissist, just that seeking therapy helped me finally understand my marriage and what was wrong, and why there was nothing I could do to change it.

But I wanted to say I understand how heartbreaking it is to find out how little you are appreciated. In my ex’s case, he always, always had to be the victim.

I thought the EXACT same thing about him not wanting to attend therapy.

This is a man who doesn’t want to accept any wrongdoing and takes zero accountability for his behaviour and actions. He knows full well his behaviour was wrong because he’s tried to justify it by blaming OP for how he behaved.

Going to see a therapist puts him at risk of having his behavior picked apart and making him take accountability. And he doesn’t want to do that. Because then he can’t spin it as OP being the bad guy.

OP says “we” got into debt - she was trying to sort it out.

He said he won’t pay for more driving lessons - that’s a bit different from they cannot afford them.

" I should be grateful that he wanted to make things work and not seperate because he insists if we had "all it would have taken is me to see a solicitor and you would have lost everything" "

Lording it over you saying "I could have broken you on a whim but chose not to" is really sinister sounding to me. Reminds me of this:

Umm you word this like I just decided to go back to uni so far away from the house. What actually happened is that I needed to consider going back to work. He isn't happy for me to go back to minding as he now works from home and it's a lot. Plus the kids don't want me to go back to minding. We talked about the future in terms of career, as the jobs round here local local are not carer jobs but low paid work and I looked into courses that would get me the qualifications for jobs I wanted to do in the field I always intended to go into before I got pregnant.

He encouraged this the whole time including when I was like the problem is the closest uni that does it is quite a commute. When I said I was worried about childcare and the reality of that much travel. He kept telling me to do it.

So the decision was a joint decision, that he also encouraged and was not me just insisting I go to uni and all be dammed at the consequences.

Although I do think that ultimately it gives me the best chance of having financial security and Independence. When we separated and I was ill I was stuck on universal credit in a tiny tiny house looking at having to work in a supermarket or somewhere, which would have made me very miserable based on previous experience of doing that. Right up until I got sick I have lived in an area I hate, doing a job as a means to an end, while he has built himself an very well paid career he loves and has loads of scope in. He is very satisfied in career and has a financially secure future. I guess I want that too in a way that's dependent on me and not him and I never want to in a stuck on UC position again. Maybe that's selfish of me. I don't know.

To me this shows he’s abusive - “that didn’t happen”, completely minimising financial contributions.

Couples therapy would be a bad idea with a msn like this.

I know it is only a very small part of OPs situation, but I think I would take a firm stance on going through statements to provide “evidence” of where money came from. It is ridiculous - not least because you are wasting time better spent on end of semester exams or assignments. Ignore the request and should it come up again just reply with “can you please give me a list of the purchases you are questioning”.

I am proud of you doing your course. I think it is a pity you have to go in for 4 full days, I assume that it is a vocational course with on the job experience (I am thinking AHP or teaching) so you are not able to attend lectures virtually. I hope that you manage to catch up with reading during your commute.

You onviously both have lots of resentment towards each other, and I can see you both have a bit of a case for that. You couldn't help being ill, but that left him to pick up the pieces and do the lion's share. You both have a version where each of you was the victom.

Don't fall into the trap of arguing about the 'truth' of it - you both have your own truths.

You need to ask whether you care about each other enough to make this work.

I agree. And im surprised that there are only 2 other replies questioning if you are being unreasonable. If you had enabled voting i wonder would it have been so one sided.
Before you were ill the house was a mess every evening, he did the big deep cleaning with you at weekends, you were too anxious to learn to drive. He carried things when you were ill. It sounds like he behaved badly but you say you also did. You split and he was carer for children. Now you are together again he is once again juggling everything while you go to uni. You say yourself when you get home most stuff is done, so its not the same as when ge was out of the house.
I think that you are only looking at things from your perspective and yes, you had a tough time, but he is also allowed his perspective.

You haven’t moved in you just don’t talk about it anymore. Which is why you guys are having these arguments. Nothing is resolved. No one has moved past. All the feelings and anger are still there. Thus us nit a solution nor is sustainable. There’s quite clearly barely contained anger from each of you over the past.

Yes the debt was joint spent on living and setting ourselves up in a home. It was not the case that I personally was in lots of debt seperate to him.

I ended up organising the finances because he was doing it and we were getting into debt and I asked if I could give it a try. He was happy with this or so he said (now claims he was not at all)

The arguments that used to happen about clothes and books etc was that we had our own equal allowance from the joint money we had for spending. The idea of this was that we had joint money as the bulk of the money but we each had a small bit to spend on whatever we liked. He often choose to save his. I often spent mine on clothes, or coffee play dates or books. He disagreed with this. But this was only from our personal spending allowance of which we had the same. I never bought anything like this from the joint money.

Thank you for this perspective. I have enquired about therapy and waiting to hear back from people.