Truth About Dyslexia podcast
Why He Swears He Told You: Dyslexia, Memory and Relationship Fights
A new Truth About Dyslexia episode for partners who are tired of the “I told you” argument. I unpack why a dyslexic or ADHD brain can feel certain about a memory that did not quite happen, and the simple questions that can stop a small mix-up becoming a fight about trust.
Listen to this episode
Why He Swears He Told You: Dyslexia, Memory and Relationship Fights
A new Truth About Dyslexia podcast episode is out now. Listen below, or read the practical ideas and personal reflections from Why He Swears He Told You (Dyslexia and Memory).
What you will take from this episode
- A person can feel completely certain about a memory without deliberately lying.
- Asking “What’s your picture?” can move a couple away from proving who is right.
- Shared calendars, notes and clear messages can get important details out of both people’s heads.
- A quick battery check can help partners understand an energy dip without making it personal.
- Dyslexia or ADHD can explain a pattern, but it is not a free pass to avoid repairing a mix-up.
The “I told you” fight is rarely about the dinner
A new Truth About Dyslexia podcast episode is out now, and this one is for the partners trying to work out whether the person they love has forgotten something, avoided something, or genuinely believes they told them already.
You know the moment. They say they told you about dinner at their mum’s, a plan for the weekend, or something you needed to pick up. You know they didn’t. Within minutes, you are no longer sorting the plan. You are arguing about honesty, effort and whether either of you can trust the other.
I get why that is exhausting. A lot of the messages I receive about relationships come from women who love a dyslexic or ADHD bloke and are wondering whether he is lying, lazy or simply does not care. I cannot speak for every person, but I reckon the explanation is often more complicated than any of those labels.
For many of us, the problem is not a lack of confidence in the memory. It is almost the opposite. We can be incredibly confident about a memory that is not quite what happened.
Dyslexia memory problems in relationships can feel completely real
I tend to think visually. Rather than storing a tidy transcript of words, my brain can hold pictures, scenes and little movies. The trouble is that those pictures are not necessarily recordings. My brain can grab a few real details, fill in the gaps with what feels likely, then file the finished scene away as fact.
I shared an example from my own life: I found a lighter in my bag while travelling and could vividly see myself buying it at a petrol station back in New Zealand. It turned out to be my mate’s lighter. I had been to that petrol station and the lighter was in my bag, so my brain built a believable movie around it.
That is easy enough to laugh about with a lighter. In a relationship, it lands very differently. Someone may think about telling their partner something, picture the whole exchange, get distracted by a buzzing phone or the kettle boiling, and somehow the thought gets filed as a completed conversation.
That does not make the impact disappear. Being told you are wrong about your own reality is frustrating, especially when you are the one who has to carry the consequences of a missed plan. But it may help to know that certainty is not always evidence of deliberate deception.
Stop trying to win the memory argument
The reframe I have found most useful is this: stop trying to win the fight about what happened. If one person is looking at one internal movie and the other is looking at another, trying harder to prove your version can make both of you dig in.
Instead, try asking, “What’s your picture of it?” Let them describe what they remember. Then share yours. You are not agreeing that their version happened. You are recognising that there are two different experiences in the room.
After that, ask the question that actually moves life forward: “So what do we do now?” The answer is often wonderfully boring. Put it in a shared calendar. Write it on a fridge whiteboard. Make a household rule that if it is not in the phone, it did not happen.
For more everyday conversations about how dyslexia can show up after school years, listen to the adult dyslexia podcast.
In my episode on emotional object permanence and dyslexia or ADHD, I talk about why people, promises and intentions can feel hard to hold onto when they are not directly in front of us.
Monday him and Thursday him can both be real
Memory is not the only thing a partner may notice shifting. Energy can move around too. On Monday, he may be up early, making pancakes, fixing the gate and planning a big weekend. By Thursday, he may be quiet on the couch, forget the dog food and sound prickly when you ask about the very plan he was excited about.
It is understandable to wonder whether you did something wrong, whether he is unhappy, or whether Monday was an act. My experience is that both versions can be real. Sometimes the battery is simply flat.
One small question can make this easier: “What’s your battery at?” Ask for a number out of 10. If the answer is three, it may not be the best time for the big relationship conversation. If it is eight, there is probably more room to talk.
If the daily effort of managing life leaves someone wiped out, why dyslexic and ADHD people can burn out from everyday life may put words around that experience.
A short text can turn into a six-hour rabbit hole
Picture thinking can move faster than language. A text saying, “Can we talk tonight?” may be a perfectly ordinary request to discuss hallway paint. But before the person has finished their morning coffee, their brain may have built a full disaster movie: they are being dumped, they need to move out, and someone’s friend has been involved somehow.
The partner usually does not see any of that happening. They just see someone come home quiet, distant or defensive. Then they start trying to work out why he is overthinking, while he is already living inside a story that has not happened.
One practical fix is to give a little more picture in important messages. “Can we talk tonight about the hallway paint?” is only a few extra words, but it can save a lot of unnecessary stress. Context is not over-explaining when it helps the other person stay out of a rabbit hole.
The episode on the power of words for dyslexic thinkers explores why words can carry such powerful pictures, feelings and assumptions for dyslexic thinkers.
If you are the bloke listening, awareness has to lead somewhere
This part matters. Dyslexia or ADHD is not a free pass. “I’m dyslexic” is not the end of the sentence. It is the beginning of a more useful conversation about what you are going to do differently.
Tell your partner how your brain works on a good day, not only in the middle of a fight. You might say that your memory builds pictures and that they can sometimes be wrong. You might explain that when you go quiet, you need 20 minutes to work out what you think.
Then do the important bit: come back after the 20 minutes. If your partner says, “That’s not what happened”, try not to defend the movie immediately. Ask, “Okay, what’s your picture?” You may still need to apologise, sort the plan and repair the impact. Understanding your brain is there to make that possible, not to get you out of it.
If you want a wider look at the overlap between dyslexia, ADHD and the messy business of self-understanding, my thoughts on the dyslexia and ADHD overlap is a good place to go.
Three things to try this week
First, get the important memory out of both your heads. Use the shared calendar, the fridge, a whiteboard or whatever you will genuinely look at. If it matters, give it an external home.
Second, check the battery once a day. It takes seconds and can stop a low-energy day being mistaken for a relationship problem.
Third, when it goes sideways, swap “That’s not what happened” for “What’s your picture?” You are not surrendering your reality. You are finding out what the other person thinks they saw, so you can get back to the practical issue together.
If you are trying to understand whether dyslexia may be part of the picture, the free adult dyslexia quiz is an educational place to start together.
Two people, two movies, one shared life
The fights are rarely really about the dinner, the dog food or a text message. They are about two people each believing the other person’s version must be wrong.
You are not going mad, and he may not be lying to you. You may simply have two brains in the same house using different ways to store, interpret and communicate information. Accepting that does not make every mix-up disappear. It can make the next conversation easier.
Read the full episode transcript
He swears he told you. You know he didn't, and now you're not arguing about dinner anymore. You're arguing about whether he's lying to you. If you love someone with a dyslexic brain, you've had this fight, probably this week. This one's for you, the partners, the ones trying to work out what on earth is going on in his head. It's Stephen from the Truth About Dyslexia.
Let's get into it. Okay, so this episode comes from a comment on one of my older ones, a short one called Our Pictures Can Lie. Emily wrote in and said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit here, Wow, this is really eye-opening for me. So many of the arguments in my relationship are about his misrecollection, or his lack of recollection of events or words. Please do a longer episode. I need help.
And there was a little praying hands emoji on the end, which honestly I felt. So Emily, this one's for you, and it's for the heaps of you who message me the same thing, because I'd say most of the messages I get about relationships come from women, women who love a dyslexic or ADHD bloke and are slowly going a bit mad trying to work out if he's lying, if he's lazy, or if he just doesn't care. And I want to say this up front: he's probably none of those, but I get why it looks like that. So let's unpack it properly this time. First, a quick recap for anyone who missed the short one. Dyslexic brains are visual.
We don't store words, we store pictures, little movies. And here's the bit that matters: those pictures aren't recordings, they're built. Our brain grabs a few facts, fills in the gaps with stuff that feels right, and files it away as a memory. And once it's filed, it feels 100% true, not kind of true, true. I told a story in the old episode about finding a lighter in my bag while I was traveling. I could see myself buying it at a petrol station back in New Zealand, clear as day.
Turns out it was my mate's lighter. I'd never bought it. My brain just made the movie because the lighter was in my bag, and I'd been to that petrol station before. Now that's a lighter. Who cares? But think about what that does in a relationship, because if my brain can build a whole memory of buying a lighter that I never bought, it can also build a memory of telling you about the dinner on Saturday, complete with where I was standing, what you were wearing, the lot.
And I will defend that memory like my life depends on it, because to me, it happened. Let me paint you a picture. Meet Sarah and Tom. Sarah runs a cat cafe. Tom's dyslexic, and he drives one of those little tugs that pushes planes around at the airport. Big job for a small vehicle.
It's Thursday night. Sarah says, So what time are we at your mum's on Saturday? Tom looks up. What? Your mum's. Dinner.
Saturday. Tom goes, I told you about that on Monday. And Sarah's face does the thing, because she has no memory of this. None. She was here Monday. She'd remember.
So now we're off. Tom's certain. He can see it. He was making a coffee. She was on the couch with the laptop. He said, Mum wants us round Saturday.
She said, Yep. Done. It's a full movie in his head. Sarah's equally certain. Nothing happened. And she's starting to think, is he doing this on purpose?
Is this how he gets out of things? Or worse, is he just making stuff up now? Twenty minutes later, nobody's talking about the dinner. They're talking about trust. Here's what actually happened. Tom thought about telling her on Monday.
He built the whole picture of doing it. And somewhere between the kettle boiling and his phone buzzing, the picture got filed as done. His brain ticked the box. The words never left his mouth. He's not lying. He's remembering a picture his brain made.
And to him, that picture is as real as the couch. I've described our working memory before as a dodgy old filing cabinet. Stuff goes in. Not all of it comes back out. And sometimes the wrong folder comes out with total confidence. And I know how frustrating that is from your side, because you're not working from a dodgy filing cabinet.
You're working from what actually happened, and you're being told you're wrong. So here's the reframe that I reckon changes everything. Stop trying to win the fight about what happened. You will never win it. He can't see your version. You can't see his.
And every minute you spend proving your version is right, he feels more like an idiot. You feel more like you're going crazy, and the dinner still hasn't been sorted. Instead, try this. Okay, what's your picture of it? Let him tell you the movie, then tell him yours. Not to prove anything, just so you both know there are two movies playing.
And then ask the only question that matters. So what do we do now? Nine times out of ten, the fix is boring. A shared calendar, a note on the fridge, a rule that if it's not in the phone, it didn't happen. Not romantic. Works though.
Now, the second thing Emily's comment made me think about: energy. Because our memory isn't the only thing that swings around. We do. Let me paint you another one. Meet Priya and Dave. Priya's a wedding photographer.
Dave's got ADHD and dyslexia, and he tests water slides for a living. Yes, that's a job. Yes, he loves it. Monday, Dave is the best husband on the planet. He's up early. He's made pancakes.
He's fixed the gate. He's planning a weekend away. He's talking a mile a minute. Priya's thinking, This is great. He's back. Thursday, Dave is on the couch, hasn't said much, forgot to pick up the dog food, gets a bit snippy when Priya asks about the weekend away he was so excited about three days ago.
And Priya's brain goes straight to, What did I do? Is he unhappy with me? Was Monday fake? No. Monday was real. Thursday's real too.
That's the spicy mix. Our energy runs in waves, and the waves are bigger than most people's: bigger highs, deeper dips. And the dips aren't about you. Half the time, they're not about anything. The battery's just flat. What helped in my house was one question: What's your battery at?
Out of 10, that's it. If he says three, you know Thursday's not the day for the big conversation. If he says eight, go for it. And the bloke gets a way to say, I'm flat, without having to explain the whole thing, which, to be honest, we're not great at. Third one: rabbit holes. This is the one I think partners see the least because it's all happening inside.
Meet Jess and Marcus. Jess is a court stenographer. She types faster than people talk. Marcus is dyslexic, and he's a lighthouse keeper. Yes, they still exist, sort of. Jess sends him a text: Can we talk tonight?
No emoji, no full stop, just, Can we talk tonight? Marcus reads that at 10 in the morning, and by 10:15, in his head, he's been dumped, he's moved out, he's living in the lighthouse full time, and he's worked out which of her friends told her to do it. Jess wanted to talk about paint colors for the hallway. That's a rabbit hole, and they are fast. I've said before our pictures move quicker than words. By the time I've noticed I'm upset, my brain's already built the whole disaster movie and cast it.
And the tricky part for you as the partner is you don't see any of it. You just see him come home weird, quiet, prickly, and now you're overthinking why he's overthinking. Two things help here. One, give more picture than you think you need. Can we talk tonight about the hallway paint? Cost you five extra words and saves him a six-hour movie.
Two, when he's clearly gone somewhere in his head, don't try and drag him out with logic. Just name it. Are you in a rabbit hole? That question alone snaps me out of it about half the time, because it makes me look at the movie instead of living in it. Now a quick word to the blokes, because I know you're listening too. She probably sent you this.
None of this is a free pass. I'm dyslexic is not the end of the sentence. It's the start. The full sentence is I'm dyslexic, so here's what I'm going to do about it. Tell her how your brain works. Actually tell her, not once, in a fight, properly on a good day when your battery's at eight.
Say, my memory builds pictures and sometimes they're wrong. Say, when I go quiet, I'm not ignoring you. I need 20 minutes to work out what I think. And then, this is the important bit, come back after the 20 minutes. And when she says, that's not what happened, try not to defend the movie. Try, okay, what's your picture?
You'll be amazed how quickly a fight stops being a fight. I'm not perfect at this. I still stuff it up, but I stuff it up a lot less than I did 10 years ago, and my marriage is better for it. So let's make this practical. Three things to try this week. Number one, get the memory out of both your heads.
Shared calendar, fridge whiteboard, whatever. If it matters, it goes on the wall. Then when he says, I told you, you can both just look. No fight. Number two, ask about the battery. What's your battery at?
Once a day takes three seconds, tells you whether today's a Monday or a Thursday. Number three, when it goes sideways, swap that's not what happened for what's your picture? You're not agreeing with him. You're just finding out what movie he's watching so you can both get to the same page. And one bonus for you, Emily, and everyone in your shoes, you're allowed to be frustrated. This stuff is hard on the person who has to live with it too.
Nobody talks about that enough. You're not a bad partner for finding it exhausting. You're a human one. So here's where I want to land this. You're not going mad, and he's not lying to you. You've got two brains in the same house running two different operating systems.
His builds pictures and files them as facts. Yours records what actually happened. Neither one's broken. They're just different. And the fights aren't really about the dinner or the dog food or the text. They're about two people each thinking the other one's version is the wrong one.
The day you both accept there are two movies playing, that's the day it gets easier. Not perfect. Easier. Awareness. I say it every week. It's the best friend of a dyslexic.
Turns out it's the best friend of the person who loves one too. Huge thanks to Emily for the comment. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes a good episode. So if you've got a question, keep them coming. If you're the partner and you want more of this, come and join us in the Right Brain Resetters group. It's not just for the dyslexic ones.
Plenty of partners in there working it out together. You can find it at rightbrainresetters. com. And my book is out now on Amazon. It's called Dyslexia and ADHD Explained from the Inside: What I Wish They'd Told Me. There's a whole section in there on relationships.
If you want to understand what's going on in his head, that's the place to start. Or buy it for him. Either way, if this helped, send it to someone who needs it, especially if that someone is sitting on the couch next to you right now. Thanks for listening. Have an epic rest of your day, and I'll be back next week.
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