Issue came up tonight. Updh is obsessing about getting house ready for a party. So concerned about what others will think etc. Meanwhile so much stuff has been put off for years, often due to lack of money (he is underemployed), him not bothering with stuff, him not wanting me to do things without his permission or supervision etc.
Suddenly he wants stuff done. However he starts a project then abandons it, makes projects more complicated than necessary etc.
Tonight he had a list. One item was something I asked him to fix two or three years ago. We had the part leftover brand new. He angrily told me no, that I was wrong, it just needed to be cleaned not replaced (ie I needed to clean it). So i responded yes good idea. He asked if I could get the part. I said we have one. Him: we do? Me: yes... And I reminded him of the story. He had NO memory of this. And told me I should have asked again. (Why? To be raged at?)
I end up feeling a little crazy when he doesn't even remember this stuff.
I feel like at the time he knows exactly what he's doing, using rage to scare me into doing things his way. Maybe he really doesn't realize he's doing it...
I often wonder if they are forgetful or gaslighting. It does make you crazy!!
I generally found that anything my x said in a rage was soon forgotten...and I was expected to forget it too.
One of his regular statements was, you should accept that my first response will always be anger, just wait an hour or so and then we can talk about it. No, no, I should never have had to accept that. There were also times when he outright denied having raged, even minutes after it happened. Sometimes so vehemently that I started to doubt my own recollection. As a result, I doubled down on my journaling.
And oh my goodness the half completed projects and/or finding the most convoluted way of doing things. And god forbid I tried to suggest a different way of doing things. I remember a shower door project (kit) where he decided to drill through the holes on the frame instead of using the template provided (the holes needed to be bigger than the ones on the frame, to allow for anchors to be used in the ceramic tile), resulting in making the holes on the frame too large and the door wobbly and leaky...but I couldn't say anything. As soon as he moved out I bought a new kit and did the job correctly.
I am so sorry that you are dealing with this. I can certainly sympathize.
So is it dysfunctional of me that I do remember this stuff... From 3+ years ago etc?
I can't imagine how having a good memory is dysfunctional.
I can remember things from when I was 4 so I certainly hope not.
I have often wondered if rages were just to scare us into obeying, too. My pd pretends to bite himself and hit his head for extra drama.
Don't take the things they say (that don't make sense) seriously, having a spouse who remembers where spare parts are from several years ago is a wonderful thing. :waveline:
My husband doesn't remember a lot of things either, and especially not the terrible things he's said to me. And even the simple home projects are complicated when a PD is involved.
This is one of the things that I still wonder about when I look back at my relationship with my BPD ex gf.
I think the problem lies with us accepting/realising that it's called a mental illness for a reason.
They are mentally deficient, they do not have the same cognitive processes available to them that we do.
They are not complete.
The flip side, which is what makes it confusing, is that most of them are very narcissistic, and lie and gaslight at every opportunity, so as the OP says, we don't know if they've genuinely forgotten, or if they are gaslighting us, getting a sadistic little kick out of us slowly doubting our own cognition.
An example of this would be my split with my BPD ex gf.
She discarded me, I said to her that it hadn't been working for a long time, so it was definitely for the best, and we went our separate ways.
BTW, the disappointment on her face when I said that, rather than beg her to stay, is now completely understood. She wanted to cause me pain with the split, and didn't like my positive reaction to it.
Anyway, back to my point, as bad as the relationship was, I still helped her through a lot, treated her right, and when we split, I walked away with my head held high because I knew I'd done everything in my power to make it work.
I've treated every woman I've had a relationship with right, because I was brought up right.
And shortly after the breakup, I bumped into some friends and she was with them, and although I talked to them mostly, me and her did exchange a few words, and it was fine.
No animosity.
Then recently, a year later, after she smeared me to hide the fact that she cheated on me and ran straight to him when we split, I bumped into her and a few of her friends.
Some of them talked to me, laughed with me, but she just stood there and glared at me the whole time.
And I mean a real glare!
Now, did she forget that the split wasn't nasty?
Did she forget that I looked after her and got her through some real hard times?
Or did it just suit her narrative to treat me that way in front of the others because of the lies she'd told them about me.
Maybe she forgot that some of them were there the last time we bumped into each other, and that she was fine with me then.
I know it's a different kind of "forget" than what is being talked about in this thread, but it is something that I've wondered many times.
Not knowing if they really have forgotten something because they are mentally challenged, or whether they're just using it to their advantage, whether it's to keep up a lie, or sometimes just for the sick, sadistic kick they get out of it.
BTW, I do have several stories of the type of "forget" that you guys are talking about, and I have no idea whether they were genuine either.
I did read about a brain wave study a while back that indicated BPD in particular has what you could call abuse amnesia from the flip side. They forget that they have abused us. Any time they commit abuse, the damaged part of their brain refuses to store the memory. I did see this play out over and over again with my uBPDm. Enough so that I'm inclined to think there's some truth to the study. However, that doesn't excuse them or their atrocious behavior toward us.
That said, my memory is insanely good and I trust it. She never got to gaslight me or properly guilt me because I'd argue the point, knowing I was right. Probably makes me sound like an insufferable know-it-all, but that's okay. I got out with my sanity mostly intact.
Andazea, absolutely agree on that one. My uNPDw can rant and abuse me and the kids for an hour throwing every insult under the sun at us, just to come back 5 minutes later and wonder why we are not speaking to her.....
I've seen a variety of memory problems from H.
BPD Amnesia
Caused by "feelings over facts." He might accuse me of "never" doing X. There are some categories I don't JADE but others I dunk on him and give him explicit examples. The ones I don't JADE on I can't win because my examples are amorphous in his mind - like I "never" do the dishes (I do 97% of them). But his memory of doing them once last week is much stronger than the fact that I did them all since and for weeks prior, which he never even noticed. But if there are strong examples of a thing, I see in his reaction that he suddenly does realize I'm right. He might back off (maybe even apologize) or he might try another tactic but I see that he believed he was right and then realized he was wrong.
Dissociation
Certain traumatic incidents seem to be genuinely fuzzy in his mind. He remembers the fact of them but not the details. I'm speaking of times he has melted down with me and behaved badly. I think it's devestating to him so he can't deal, so it goes down the well.
ADHD
Ordinary "checked out." It doesn't even enter the brain so there's nothing to stick. "You have a doctor's appointment on Thursday at 10am." "Uh huh." Never even heard me, won't remember. Or he'll hear me but still forget later.
Neurodegenerative
And something that is worse than the above. Non-loaded/triggering events that were too significant to forget. Like having been to a specific and distinctive location 9 months prior - when he is such a hermit, having been anywhere at all was a major event. And then not remembering *when he returns* - no "aha" moment.
Is there any chance what you described could be the latter? Your H would likely cover for it out of embarrassment (mine doesn't).
My uNPDh gaslit me for years until I finally stopped doubting myself and started standing my ground on the truth. In more recent years, H seems to have "selective memory" regarding certain past incidents and has even asked me to refresh his memory on details. Surprisingly he hasn't challenged my memories on said incidents but rather seems surprised himself? Like he's hearing all this for the first time.
Lately, H seems to be experiencing genuine cognitive decline. The adult kids have observed and discussed this with me privately. We all agree that his history of manipulative behavior, gaslighting, projection, and disordered perspective makes it hard to sort out just how much we should be concerned for him health-wise versus PD behavior as usual. We are trying to figure out how to gently suggest he seek a medical opinion without him blowing up or shutting down in denial.
Or if we should even say anything at all to him. After coming Out of the FOG with PDs, it's still hard at times to know when to actually be worried. isn't it?
Before I learned to mc and not jade so much, if we got in a fight and I brought up anything past he had done he'd accuse me of keeping score or dragging out past things etc.
The thing is... If he were just being normal/lazy and said ugh I don't really feel like doing that now... I would ask another day. The fact is he had a mini rage about it and angrily implied that I should be doing something better/more/ different to fix it. All of this added up to me not asking again and continuing to be triggered every time I looked at the undone thing.
Then he wonders why no one tells him stuff etc. He is unapproachable when he's like this
Right there with you on that, sister.
I agree with those mentioning the amnesia/dissociation effect. I have had this happen too. Then SO wonders why I'm still upset the next day. After raging viciously, overreacting. I think it's part of the mechanism for dissociating, I've heard it's even like a dissociative identity. Sam Vaknin is really good on this topic. I appreciate others sharing their experiences. I have lived through very similar things. It is much easier for me not to Jade now. That came with learning to identify and validate my feelings so that I could experience some comfort and easing of the pain. Coming here helps too.
So, I wonder if it's abuse amnesia. Or gaslighting, because he has completely re-written the past, especially the farther back events go, the farther they are from the truth. So, is he trying to 'change' the past, by presenting things in a different light? There's so much that I could record here, but, it's all the same. I spoiled my kids, and they're brats and all that, when in truth, I was lost in a fog while he bullied and picked on them, and he has to justify why DD is VLC with him. I don't blame her.
But I guess the question is, does he know he's doing it? Like, he can gaslight his way out of the past? Or does he really not remember, so it must be my kids, because he is and always has been a stellar human being
IMHO, they know exactly what they're doing because they can usually control themselves in front of "people who matter" like bosses or anybody that they might want to win over.
Mine had everybody outside our house completely snowed but behind closed doors he raged, abused, gaslit, rewrote history, hid our stuff from us and subtly sabotaged us.
They do this stuff and act all put out and butt hurt that we won't have anything to do with them. That's just part of the scheme though. IMO they are trying to make us feel guilty for throwing up boundaries.
I used to let mine think he won regularly. It made me less of a threat and I could get a little bit of peace.
You have to be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.
IME, this can be both genuine forgetting and gaslighting. I can't remember which literature I read about PDs, but they describe exactly this behavior of saying something nasty in a rage and completely forgetting it when the rage was over. The author emphasized that they truly don't understand why their targets are still upset, once they're feeling better.
I've also read studies of how peoples memories of past events change over time. In general, people's memories smooth over disappointments or mistakes made in earlier years.
And I've experienced enough gaslighting and casual lying from H to know that's an every day event as well.
Honestly, I don't think I'll ever know 100% when he's gaslighting, lying, or has forgotten. It's infuriating, to be sure.
First of all, I feel compassion for every person on this thread who has shared the bewilderment of their PD partner not remembering abusive behavior.
I'm grateful for each of you sharing, because I finally found people who have experienced similar circumstances to what I've experienced.
My uPDw of 20 years has recently said and done deeply painful things repeatedly - some things she's said multiple times. When I've calmly brought up the more severe incidents to her later in order to seek reconciliation and told her how I felt/how it affected me when she spoke to me that way, she has no recollection of doing or saying them. She denies that they happened. She has accused me of gaslighting her, "not seeing her accurately", and criticizing her. It's crazy making, confusing, and so frustrating.
WH
:like: all of the above. yep. in every instance of abusive behavior, amnesia. just the other day after cooling off, I tried to set a boundary about things said to me within the last week. unpdh response, I don't remember ever saying that. I put it in context of the day... it took him a cigar, a couple of baited comments to try to get heme into another disagreement, two walks, a phone call to one of his flying monkeys...
finally he said a terse compulsory "Im sorry," and eventually said "I should never talk to you like that." ya think!?
That was after telling me he does everything for me, can't seem to make me happy and theorized maybe we should be like other couples who after a half century together move into different houses. he means none of it. including the i'm sorry. just wants things back to normal and hammers at something to change the focus of his behavior which he is nor really sorry for because he doesn't remember saying it and would do it again tomorrow if it would shut me up which is what the goal is anyway. has NO compassion for my feeliings regarding his words. says he cares but tells me he cannot give me what i want... comfort.
I believe him. not capable and when he does I feel like i am in a sci fi movie it is so uncomfortably unreal.
There was one time, back when I didn't understand, and was still trying to GET HIM TO UNDERSTAND, that he said something terrible, and I took him aside immediately, and calmly said "When you say X, (repeated his exact words) like you just did, it's hurtful...etc.." He literally had just said it.
Nothing. I got nothing.
In all of my attempts to get him to understand the connection between what he did and said and how it made people feel and act toward him, I always walked away thinking "there's something wrong with his brain"
No normal person acts like this.
My husband does it too. It makes me feel like I'm going crazy!
There was one continuing incident, when our child was born where he started calling someone else our child's mom. It hurt me pretty deeply, but I said nothing. I just doubled down and found a friend of his to call daddy because it hurt me so much. On his end, it didn't hurt him at all! He found that just fine. Recently I brought this up to him and he denied it, even though this has been ongoing. Finally, after continuing to tell him this is true, he then of course shifted tactics from not remembering, to making an excuse, which really wasn't better in any way.
So finally, I have seen that he DOES remember (at least I think he does), but that he just denies it to get out of having to make an excuse for his bad behaviors. Sometimes I think he genuinely does forget, but overall, I think he uses it because he doesn't even want to be bothered to come up with a reason for it. Like it just is because he's entitled to do it somehow.
I think narcs don't temember because they are constantly lying to themselves, and can no longer keep track of what's true. Which is the point.