AITA for calling out my husband’s exaggerations in front of others?
A woman is frustrated by her husband’s habit of exaggerating or fabricating stories in social situations, even when the topics are trivial. When he shares these embellishments in public, she instinctively corrects him, which leads to tension. Her husband accuses her of undermining him,
while she feels he’s unwilling to address the root issue: his habit of exaggeration. Recent examples include workplace-related tales and personal anecdotes. She wonders if she’s in the wrong for correcting him publicly and whether she should let such harmless exaggerations slide. read the original story below…
‘ AITA for calling out my husband’s exaggerations in front of others?’
To summarise, my husband has a tendency to exaggerate a lot. Whenever he does this in front of others, I land up correcting him in-front of everyone. My husband seems to think that what I do is undermine him all the time by doing this.
I keep telling him that he should work on himself first by improving this habit of constantly exaggerating and sometimes even compulsively lieing in front of others. He tells me that perhaps I should refrain from correcting him all the time as well.
However he can’t seem to stop his habit and I can’t stop myself from correcting him either (comes to me involuntarily). Today he started a big fight with me over this issue. He keeps telling me that I keep on undermining him. But he seems not willing to make any moves to fix this trait of his either.
Ami I really the a**hole here? Should I perhaps try to control myself better and let him know my options while we are alone together and go along with whatever he is saying in public. Just a note, the things he makes up tales about are usually always non-consequential stuff.
Should I perhaps learn to let it go more? Two examples from today that my husband is mad about.
1. To further justify why he disliked a client at work ( whom I also happen to dislike) he was saying stuff like she (this person) had gone and escalated one of my husbands colleagues to the other clients by saying unfavourable things about this man. As far as I knew this did not happen (I work in the same office) and so I asked when did that happen, that I did not recall anything of this nature.
2. He was showing a cute picture of us to a friend who asked if we kissed after that picture. He said that we did but he wouldn’t show her the picture. I mentioned that we did not kiss after that picture and have no such photos.
Take a look at the comments from fellow users:
StAlvis − NTA. F**k *casual* lying **_so_ f**king hard**. This is *exactly* the s**t that’s ruining society: utter disinterest in truth. the things he makes up tales about are usually always non-consequential stuff. I would **love** to see a list of some examples!
kem81 − NTA This isn’t a “I caught the ugliest catfish in lake erie” kind of lie, which is a lie that harms no one. Hes lying about a client and that can affect someone’s money. He’s lying about your relationship. And why?
Why does he feel the need to lie about a kiss and to also lie about having a picture of the kiss? Dude is a compulsive l**r and should get called out every time. Tell him there would be no need to correct him if he could just not lie. Super simple
slackerchic − NTA but girl you need to go in the opposite direction with this. The next time he’s like “I caught a big fish” you need to be like “No, it was an eel! Remember? You kept telling me it was a fish and I kept telling you it was an eel.
Then I made you google it and you were so embarrassed and then those fishermen laughed at you? They made up that song called “The eel is not a fish” and they got some of the locals from the bar to join in?
Then that parade came through and they told them and then the whole parade started chanting “An eel is not a fish, HO HO!”? Then they lifted you onto the passing float and honored you as the village i**ot?” IDK girl just GO OFF. He wants to make a tall tale then you just make it taller.
CuriousEmphasis7698 − NTA. The people OPs spouse is making these exaggerated statements to, or giving outright lies to, have every right to know that the statements the spouse is making are over-spoken and best and outright false at worst. It sounds like OPs spouse is a compulsive l**r,
which is something that he needs professional help for. OP should be calling out this behaviour. Depending on the circumstances there could be anything from legal repercussions to ‘simple’ social blowback to allowing the spouse’s statements to stand unchallenged.
OP is not undermining the spouse, she is correcting statements that the spouse has to know are varying degrees of false.
TrainingDearest − NTA. Your husband needs professional help- there’s a reason for ‘why’ he has this need for habitually lying (the exaggerations are lies too), and until that gets addressed, he’s not going to change.
You are right to correct him, because it’s disrespectful to the other person to be fed lies – especially things like the incident in the office where someone may ‘use’ that false info or share it further. As for the people that seem to think you should talk to him privately when he does this: NOPE.
He knows exactly what he’s doing, these aren’t simple mistakes – it’s his chosen social pattern. It’s dishonest and WRONG for him do this to these other people, and if he wants to dish out that disrespect, then has earned the consequences.
My MIL was a habitual l**r about details too. It was awful because she would re-write every thing, either edit it down, or spin it up, depending on what she ‘thought’ you wanted to hear. It’s exhausting.
Direct_Surprise1312 − The two examples you used probably didn’t warrant a public correcting but it sounds like he should work on this issue. By constantly correcting him publicly, he’s focusing on that rather than the issue of him exaggerating.
IdkJustMe123 − ESH (mostly him) what your husband does is extremely annoying and frustrating, and I will never understand why people do it. However, this is the man you’ve chosen to spend your life with. If it bothers you so much, tell him in private that it’s a big issue for you and he needs to cut it out, rather than calling him out in front of everyone else
laurasdiary − NTA His unnecessarily lies and exaggerations put you in the uncomfortable situation of going along with the untruths and therefore being complicit in them; especially the ones that involve you or you were supposedly present for.
Even if they are inconsequential lies, exaggerations, or misrepresentations, why should you, op, have to be responsible for them? How embarrassing it would be for you to be caught in a pointless lie that he told and you had to either ignore or go along with. It’s unfair of your husband to put you in that position.
jimmyjames2003 − You say it’s inconsequential, and your examples seem to be, but you still feel the need to call him out. You’re telling him he should be able to control his impulses to exaggerate, but you can’t control your impulse for correcting him. Or at least casting doubt on what he’s saying.
In the first example you give, you don’t even know that he’s not telling the truth. You just can’t verify that he is telling the truth. But your own admission. You seem to think that your knowledge of the things he’s talking about is 100% complete, and 100% accurate on your memory.
All that over something you say is inconsequential. So what’s driving it? What are you getting out of it?. YTA
Is it better to address such tendencies privately to maintain harmony, or does honesty in the moment matter more? How would you balance this dynamic? Share your thoughts below!