RE: Would you like to trade stories about the dumbest argument you have ever had? I'll go first.
I have a "type" of argument that haunted my ex-marriage. The examples were endless, but here is the last occurrence which fortunately happened with a witness.
A we were becoming ex-spouses, of course we tried counselling. The counsellor, a woman who knew my ex from previous professional work, asked us if we thought the housework was evenly divided. I said I thought it would be more equitable if I actually could do more of the serious cleaning that my disability prevented.
My ex literally stood up and screamed, "EQUITABLE!? How can you say it's equitable when I have to do all the vacuuming!?"
She clearly heard one word and ignored the context. I tried to explain the difference, as I had so many times. I pointed out that I did not believe it was equitable, that I certainly did not want to say it was, that I don't remember saying it was and that if it turned out that I did say it was, I apologized for misspeaking. It was no use.
The counsellor was on my side. She heard me correctly, tried to tell my ex what she heard, but got nowhere. However, the woman had a recorder running. So she stopped the recorder, backed it up, played it back. Obviously I was right. I felt vindicated, not only for that time but for all time. Until my ex-wife turned to me and said, "That may be what you said, but I know what you meant!"
I started leaving her the next morning.
First of all, I'm sorry your marriage did not work out. I hope you are doing well.
But... man you got evidence on tape! Do you know how jealous people are of you for that? That is the dream scenario. You knew you were right and had proof! Even in silly arguments that would be the best. And the "That may be what you said, but I know what you meant!" gave you a pretty clear signal of what would lie ahead. Its similar to nonameslefttouse's situation where the guy he knows was arguing with made up facts in his head.
After that I had to go back in my head and reassure myself of all the other ones:
Me: I'll mow the yard in the afternoon.
She: I thought you were going to mow the lawn this morning
Me: I filled up the gas in the truck
She: Why didn't you get gas while you were out?
On and on. My shrink calls it gaslighting, but sometimes I think she was just unattached to reality.
As a result, I keep my phone on record all the time, I have a script that uploads it to the cloud by the 5 minutes and overwrites the files from the month before
can't use logic to combat fantasy lol