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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2025-01-30 05:02:02+00:00.

Original Title: My [31F] boyfriend [30M] staunchly believes we did an art class together a long time ago. We never did and it is tearing our relationship apart, as he thinks i am lying, and i don’t know what to think

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRA1920121

My [31F] boyfriend [30M] staunchly believes we did an art class together a long time ago. We never did and it is tearing our relationship apart, as he thinks i am lying, and i don’t know what to think.

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

MOOD SPOILER: Nothing hinky, low stakes

Original Post Nov 29, 2019

This is kind of weird but i am at the end of my rope with this. Me and my SO Tom recently started dating again, currently we have been together for 6 months now. We were a couple for 3 years ago during university.

We were close back then, but i ended up getting an amazing job offer from a big tech company and was required to relocate to SV, Tom unfortunately was being forced to look after his two younger siblings, after his mother passed away. We ended up separating when we realized it wasn’t going to work. Last year i moved back home, after i went through a painful failed engagement, and a combination of burnout and my dad not being in good health. We ended up getting back in touch, and one thing lead to another.

At the start of this month i moved in with Tom after his final younger brother moved out to go to University. Stuff was great, and i was happy and he seemed happy. Then something weird happened, and i don’t know what to make of it.

Two weeks ago we were talking about redecorating and renovating (fixing two decades of wear and tear). Tom offhandedly mentioned that he still had “paintings we did together in art class”. This really confused me, i have no memory of doing this art class, but he remembers it like it was yesterday.

This lead to kind of a weird argument, where i denied this ever happening, but he would not drop it. Eventually i just kind of pretended to vaguely remember, just to get out of this. He didn’t believe me, and he spent 4 hours digging through facebook, his computer, and even dug out his old cellphone. He found nothing. He seemed hurt and confused, and i begged him to lets just forget about it.

However this started eating at me all of last week, my ex-fiance would do this. He would lie and give different accounts of events, or claim things happened that i didn’t remember. However they were always minor and meant to hurt (and almost always bullshit). This was just weird.

I ended up spending hours combing through my records, and found nothing. He said we went and bought our supplies at a specific place, i have no bank records of that. I have no records of this ever happening, and i even asked a few people i used to be friends with who never remembered this. It bothered me a a lot.

On Wednesday we went to Tom’s Storage unit to fetch some stuff, and it immediately turned into him hunting for the art. He swears he put it there, he even remembers him putting it in there so vividly. But there was nothing, there was some art but from his family but nothing matched what i apparently painted (apparently i painted some sort of cute pink donut from some gum commercial?) or what he painted. He even went on to vividly tell me how we would go and grab food before heading over to the college after a certain class we had together, but i don’t remember this at all.

I was annoyed, really annoyed. We had a big fight driving home, where Tom complained that i just don’t remember, i was at the telling him i think he is wrong. It was awkward that night and i broke down and told him he was wrong, and this isn’t going to work out if this continues.

Today has been really akward, and i feel this stupid little thing of no significance is going to rip this relationship apart. Tom seems dead set in his way, and i was honestly considering that this is a sign of mental illness, but this is the first time i have ever seen him act like this, and it bothers me so much.

What am i supposed to do? I feel even if i just finally say “oh yes i remember now it is just going to lead to a huge argument”.

TL;DR My boyfriend thinks we took an art class and is making a mountain out of a mole hill about this, and i dont know how to handle this.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

inconclusivehush

I don’t think he is lying. I think he is having a false memory and may be confusing you with someone else or even he had such a great time in that art class his mind stuck you into the memory because he associates you with great experiences through his life. I think he is having a hard time letting it go because it is making him feel crazy and he is questioning his own sanity… at some point we all remember things incorrectly and it can be very disconcerting if there is something that goes against what we “know” to be true…

OOP

So the part that bothers me, is he is dead sure of when it was happening when we were a couple. Specifically he is dead set that it was every Wednesday after we had a certain class. He remembers the specific class, the professor and the fact that it ended around 6 pm (which is 100% true), but he remembers us going to this art class for 2 months, afterwords which didn’t happen.

I remember that class being hell but nothing afterwords which is why i am confused. Which is why this is bothering me so much.

bex-the-cat

That’s the thing about false memories. You can’t tell them from real ones. My boyfriend will insert me into some of his old concerts and I have to tell him I wasn’t there. But he also realizes he may be remembering incorrectly.

Sit him down and tell him you love him and that it doesn’t matter. Y’all can paint together all you want now.

Update Dec 3, 2019

Wanted to thank everyone for the advice and help. I did what people suggested and sat him down and explained why it was bothering me so much and how my ex used to gaslight me. He apologized and told me he must have been remembering things wrong.

But it didn’t matter at all, because we found the answer to the mystery last night when we visited his sister, and this topic came up.

It turns out that his sister was the one who did the art class with him, and it wasn’t actually at the local college but at a local crafts store. She didn’t have the paintings, but was able to dig up a bunch of photos of her and Tom’s stuff, including the painting that Tom remembered.

This was a weird last two weeks, but i am glad this is over with.

TL;DR; We were both wrong.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

matts2

“I did an art class with someone I love, it must have been you.”

Eyehopeyouchoke

This happens soooo much. There is a special name for it, but i can’t think of it. Your brain won’t remember all the details so it’ll basically just kinda fill in the blanks with what it thinks should’ve been even if it isn’t correct.

Edit: I think people are correct with it being called confabulation. I remember learning about it some in a psychology class. I remember learning that when it happens people aren’t trying to lie and don’t have any negative intentions, it’s just our brain at work trying to connect the dots however it can. Some people have also chimed in with the Mandela effect and while the two are very similar they are not the same. Mandela effect generally effects a lot of people and is usually the case of an event that never happened, but people believe it happened. Again, people aren’t necessarily lying when it happens. Confabulation is mostly about when an event really happens, but your brain can’t recall everything so the brain just decides it’s going to fill in the blanks with what it thinks is best fit even if that’s not what really happened. It real is quite bizarre and I encourage everyone to read about both Mandela effect and confabulation!

[deleted]

I do that with my sister and my husband, since they’re my 2 best friends. Last week I said to my husband “like that time we were hiking and I to go pee behind a bush… No wait. I told sister about that, not you, damn it.”

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