I (F30) recently found out that the way my husband (M30) communicates when I'm not there is contributing to people thinking I'm dishonest. How might I go about fixing this without throwing my husband under the bus?
Over the past year and a bit there's been this narrative that has popped up that I'm being dishonest, and it even resulted in the loss of a long-term friendship because she was absolutely convinced that I'd lied about something that I hadn't. I've been trying to figure out why, and since I have a therapist to help support my general mental health already, I've asked her to be brutally honest with me and tell me if there's something about the way I'm speaking, reacting, etc. that could come across as dishonest. She didn't think so, and I know that I haven't been lying, so I've been very very frustrated that this has been popping up more frequently.
My husband has a bad habit of correcting me in front of other people, and in addition to my therapist suggesting that this may be a contributing factor, I've also considered that maybe this has been a contributing factor. For an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about: one time we were chatting with an older couple sat next to us on holiday. They asked if we were on our honeymoon, and when I said we were just dating, they got noticeably less friendly and the conversation just kind of ended abruptly. Not a big deal, but I interpreted that as them not thinking we should have been on vacation together if we weren't married, and I still think based on their facial expressions and reaction that that was part of it. After our trip, this couple came up and I mentioned offhandedly that the conversation abruptly stopped and they seemed unimpressed that we were travelling together unmarried. My husband then jumped in infront of other people and corrected me, saying that I was reading into it too much and that's not exactly what happened. While it's entirely valid if his interpretation was different, and it's entirely possible that my interpretation was incorrect, I wasn't lying, and I also explained that that was how I thought it seemed. This is a pretty good example of the kinds of situations where he'll correct me publicly. I'm not lying, and maybe we have interpreted things differently, but when he corrects me definitively in front of others it makes me appear dishonest. He's also very forgetful, and if I remember something and he doesn't, his default is to say that he doesn't know what I'm talking about when it's in front of other people, then remember when we have a follow up discussion in private. Often saying things like "ooooh that's what you were talking about, I thought you were talking about x, so that's why I said I didn't think that happened." But ultimately, it doesn't help if he only realizes what I was talking about in private, but continues to call me out in public.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and he tells me that he had communicated something to a family member a little while back that I'll leave out because it's quite identifiable. I didn't know that he had done this, so felt bad that I'd been communicating with them as if my husband hadn't just shared what he shared, and felt it was necessary to apologize and clarify that I just didn't realize, wasn't trying to be insensitive, and didn't mean to make them feel uncomfortable, I just didn't realize. The family member then gets back to me and says they're confused, my husband never told them what he told me he told them.
Long story short, I discuss this with my husband, and it leads to a bigger conversation about a bunch of instances where people have been upset or there's been drama over the last year or so, and it comes out that he communicates things differently to different people, and it's causing a bunch of confusion. He also doesn't communicate things clearly, and just kind of assumes people understand what he means even though he's not actually clearly communicating. For instance, I was upset about something one of his family members had done to me, but I specifically said I wasn't looking for an apology, I just needed it not to happen again. The family member then reached out because he had told them I expected an apology, and they had a lot of attitude when they did it because they obviously didn't like being told what to do. After discussing this, he clarified that he said that I expected an apology because that's what he thought needed to happen, but he told the family member I expected one, not that he felt it was what was needed. When I responded to the family member I didn't know this though, so I essentially said that no one was forcing them to apologize so I wasn't sure why I was getting this angry apology out of the blue. Meanwhile, I had no clue he'd said I expected an apology, so I look like I'm all over the map and a little crazy.
Essentially the take away from our most recent conversation is that he doesn't communicate things to others well, or accurately a good chunk of the time. Not because he's trying to lie, but because he gets overwhelmed in social settings or when there's conflict. However, I have no idea how many of these little situations have happened where he's told someone something or communicated that I expect something, but I don't actually know. And this coupled with correcting me in front of people over minor details is 100% making me out to be a liar when I'm not, or at least making me appear dramatic or unreliable when that isn't the case.
I have no idea how many relationships have been impacted by this, or when it's going to come up again with the other people he's talked to, but I'm sure a time will come when I'll need to address this with some of these people. My question is, how would you people suggest I go about doing this without completely throwing my husband under the bus? I'm obviously not going to go out of my way to address this with external people, but there have been a couple of conversations over the last few years where people have point blank told me they know I'm lying, and I've been genuinely very confused because I didn't have any idea what they were talking about. In one situation I tried to ask follow up questions and the response was that my own husband knows I'm a liar, but they wouldn't elaborate. At the time my husband said he was also confused, and I actually haven't spoken to this person since.
However, after talking to my husband we have identified a lot of situations where this has happened. We basically ran through a bunch of interactions, I shared my interpretation, explained why I was confused that someone had said whatever they said, and he then shared how he thinks he explained this situation / his interpretation that was ultimately different from mine. Thinking of all the potential instances that this has happened in is so overwhelming, and I don't know where to begin in trying to explain this to people without them thinking I'm telling "more lies" to cover up "lies" or without making my husband look really bad. I honestly just feel like my credibility has been completely assassinated and it really bothers me.