So it’s not just her who does this, I notice it with others also, but much more rare. It will be little things that I said, that she will repeat in a few weeks or so and say that she said it. Sometimes it’s something funny that I say to her, or something she overhears me say FIRST.
What the hell is happening? Sometimes I can put my life on the line because I will certainly know that I did it/said it! It’s not even worth to bring it up anymore when it happens. Is there a name for this phenomenon or have I gone MAD?!?!
-One more thing, If I were unknowingly writing a University paper and included information that I thought was my own, but it were referenced somewhere else, would I have a case to not get kicked out, since it was subconsciously done? Is there a way to prove such things?
There are several sources of input for most people, including: other people, television, books, and now of course, the internet. We are bombarded by information that we only half pay attention to. It is not unusual at all to pick up something subconsciously and then have it pop up later as what seems to be an original thought.
By the way…the longer you’re in a relationship, the worse this seems to get.
I wish I could notice myself doing it so I could have some sort of a reference.
The one situation I remember specifically was when I was driving and she was in the car while I was talking to my friend.
My friend asked how my new rescue American Bulldog was doing. To which I replied, “He is doing great, but I still treat him like an autistic child. I pet him and love him, but I won’t put my neck out if he is holding a fork.”
About a week later she said the exact same thing to me in a different context. It was not worth debating since she could swear that she said it to the friend that was in the car with us. Relationships, eh?
Women do that sometimes. I was convinced that my ex-wife was insane because she claimed that I NEVER DID ANYTHING despite taking care of the kids every week night until she got home in the wee hours, taking care of most domestic chores, felling trees on the weekend to clear land, and working all day during the week to support us. It was like if she wasn’t there to see it in real time, it never happened and even then, you needed a notarized signature from both of us to prove it later.
I realized she honestly believed that before we got divorced but I didn’t know how bad it was until it came time to split up possessions. She honestly believed she had owned them all before we got married and therefore everything should be hers including things that I had been given to me by my family as a teenager. I didn’t really want anything but it was the most insane argument I have ever been in because I knew she believed it and there was no way to convince her otherwise. The capper was an old style 32" TV bought a couple of years earlier that weighed a ton and caused me no end of heartache to get back from the store because it was so big and heavy. She claimed that she bought it and hauled it into the house by herself. I quizzed her about the details on where and how she did that with no success except for lots of irrational screaming.
I sympathize with you, There is no known way to convince a female that she is acting irrationally or believes something that isn’t true. You can either dump her or live with it but another one has a good chance of pulling the same thing.
You remember it, but you don’t remember the details, so sometimes your mind invents things to fill the holes.
Sometimes it doesn’t just cause little annoying things such as your examples. There has been cases of ideas/theories/inventions/etc being accidentally stolen in this way.
I got a kick out of this thread, over the past 100 years at any given time a couple pf dozen guys have been involved in redeveloping the the primitive bow and arrow. In the past 15 years the competition has grown becaus eof the internet. One guy will say something about a new discovery he made and within a week 10 guys are claiming they said it first. I gave one of the worst offenders some bad information via a telephone call one time and waited patiently for him to publish his new findings. I don’t think it took a week. I let him run with it for several months before publicly challenging him on his “facts”. Suddenly they became mine again which I vehemently denied and challenged him to show where I had ever said it. their memories work very conveniently.
My wife doesn’t take credit for stuff I do or say (which makes sense, because the stuff I do and say is pretty stupid), but she loves to say “I told you!” or “I told you so!” when we’ve never discussed that particular topic, ever, or even when she has, in fact, expressed the exact opposite opinion. It’s annoying sometimes and it’s cute sometimes, but I don’t think she’s going to stop doing it any time soon.
Eh, my housemate does this too- while she was at work, I found she’d left the kitchen in a complete mess, so I tidied it all up so I had space to cook, then when she got back told her that she’d left it in a right state, and I wasn’t happy about it. She immediately went to the kitchen, then told me that she hadn’t left it in a mess, look, it was all tidy!
She also ‘remembers’ that she’s done things that she was talking about doing, but never actually did; regularly repeats anecdotes I’ve told her as though they actually happened to her; occasionally gets very confused about who owns what, especially if we’ve been sharing use of things (like kitchen equipment), and will occasionally ask how we’re going to divide things when we move away, when all of it was either bought by me or given to me.
It’s not malicious, it’s just that her short/mid-term memory is really awful, so she uses random cues to try and work out what it is she should know, and sometimes, this is utterly wrong.
ME! Me, dammit! When did “me” become a taboo word?
Sorry, had to get that off my chest.
I have a sister who does this, too - she “remembers” doing things as a kid that I actually did. She also “remembers” things that never happened. She’s a very creative person; I think that extends to her memory.
I had always attributed the “That’s mine!” issues in a break-up to either a) spite, b) wanting a prized memento, or c) forcing a later meeting/reconciliation.
Many years ago, I took a girl out to lunch as she had forgotten her purse. While walking back to her office, we stopped by a store and picked up a CD. Upon return to her office, she insisted that the CD belonged to her. I recalled to her that I took her to lunch because she had forgotten her purse, and she agreed. But she still insisted the CD was hers. I didn’t know if she was joking, but it seemed like she was getting agitated. I pulled the receipt from my pocket with my name on it…when I actually took the CD she stormed off in a rage as though I’d killed her puppy. At the time, I thought that she hadn’t really forgotten her purse but used it as a ruse to get me to take her to lunch. And, I thought that she wanted to take the CD as part of an elaborate plan to force me to have to see her again. I see now that I’m not quite so charming as I believe, and to this day I’m just the jerk who went to lunch with her and stole her CD.
Something to keep in mind is that memory is active. A lot of studies have shown how active it is. As time goes by, we do two things: we simplify and we rationalize. We tend to remember things in ways that fit with the rest of our world view, and tend to minimize or eliminate the contradictions.
An important note here is that it isn’t just others who do this. We all do it. Memory is not like a digital recording. What you think you remember is partly recording, partly reconstruction.
When someone repeats something clever that I said, I smile. It’s nice to have people appreciate my genius, even if they don’t remember that it’s my genius. Let it become a nice little inside joke until nobody remembers or cares who said it first. Chance are, it was neither of us anyway!
