Originally Posted by timetohealguy

My ex did the same thing when she was drinking heavily.

Her best female friend actually contacted me to warn me that my ex was saying things about me to her best friend that clearly were not true.




I have an example of exactly that dandylion ...

One night my ex said she wanted takeout dinner from a local restaurant, and she asked me to drive so she could walk from the car into the restaurant and pick up dinner for us both, then I would drive us home and we would eat dinner at home. She seemed sober when we left home.

There is no parking near the restaurant, which is on a very busy street, so she jumps out of the car to get the food and I sat in the car in an alley behind the restaurant in a parking area where you can stop with the engine running but you can't leave the car there and get out of the car. I figured it would take her 10 minutes at the most to walk to the front door of the restaurant, wait for the food, then walk back to the car.

20 minutes or so later, there was no sign of her back at the car, so I drove past the front of the restaurant to see where she was.

I see her sitting at a table inside the restaurant, but there is no parking so I can't stop the car.

So I then spend 10 minutes or so trying to find somewhere to park and then I walk to the restaurant. So by now it is about half an hour or so since she got out of the car to grab our dinner.

When I walk into the restaurant, she is sitting at a table, has eaten her dinner and is drunk, and she hands me a bag with my dinner in it, which is now cold. It was like she had forgotten that I was waiting in the car for her and that we were going to go home and eat dinner together.

All I said to her was "what are you doing ?", quietly, when I first walked into the restaurant before I realised she was drunk - a pretty reasonable question. When I then realised she was drunk, I was disappointed that she was drunk yet again of course, but there was no argument, no disagreement ... there is no point in arguing with someone in that state.

I don't know if she drank quickly before we left home and then the alcohol's effect came over her - either that or she bought alcohol after getting out of the car and before going into the restaurant.

She was on prescription medication that should not be combined with alcohol, plus alcohol, so the effects of the alcohol would often happen very rapidly when she drank - one minute she would seem almost sober, 5 minutes later she could not walk.

She could not walk out of the restaurant on her own , so I help her to the car, drove home, had to help her out of the car, carry her into our house, and put her into bed to sleep it off.


A few days later my ex's best female friend calls me on the phone, and says that she is concerned and wants to talk to me, because my ex told her best friend about an incident in which I supposedly "yelled at" my ex.

So her best friend tells me my ex was complaining to her best friend that I had "yelled at her because she took too long to pick up our dinner". I had no idea what she was talking about, and then when I ask when this supposedly happened, I realise that my ex was talking about the same trip to the restaurant ... but with no mention from my ex of alcohol or any other details to her friend. Just "he yelled at me for taking too long to pick up our dinner". There was absolutely no yelling.

So my ex had concocted this ludicrous story to her best friend that she had simply gone to pickup dinner for us, and that I had then "yelled at her" for "taking too long", with no mention whatsoever of getting drunk.

I honestly think that she believed that was actually what happened and that my ex had convinced herself that there was no drinking that night, and that in fact it had happened just as she told her best friend.

This I see as the worst of denial, where not only does a drinker "edit out" the drinking, but they then remove all details of the madness of their behaviour and then add details which simply never happened, in order to smear / blame their spouse.

So it's not just making up things to fill in the blanks - key parts of an incident like "I got drunk" and "I was so drunk I could not walk" are completely edited out, then things that never happened get added in. It is like some kind of paranoia combined with denial.

So yet another crazy drunken incident during which (1) she got drunk, (2) she clearly forgot I was even waiting in the car for her, (3) she ate dinner on her own while waiting for her, and (4) she could not walk and I had to help her get to the car then carry her into our house ... gets twisted around into something that bears no resemblance to reality and which portrays me as a grossly unreasonable and impatient spouse, who verbally abuses his poor suffering spouse who was just trying to pick up some takeout dinner. Ta - da ! The wonders of the alcohol hijacked brain !

I told her best friend the whole story of course.

I hate to think the picture my ex was painting of me to her family of origin, given the gross distortion of that incident.