I'm not saying that this applies to your husband, but the first thing I thought of when reading that is that it describes emotionally abusive or manipulative people. My grandmother was emotionally and physically abusive to my mother and aunt all her life, but people outside the family never knew that. All the people at her funeral talked about what a generous, caring person she was and everyone in the family was thinking that those folks must have known a different woman. And my mother always thought the problem was her and not her mother.