Anyone else have a spouse that is a compulsive liar?
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Anonymous
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How do you deal with it? My DH lies about big and small things. It's almost like breathing to him. What's your experience?
This is about to end our marriage. |
Anonymous
| I don't have this, but my little brother is about to marry a woman who lies all the time. I don't feel like I can tell him this (he may already know?) She is great in almost every other way. |
Anonymous
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is your DH willing to seriously work on this, such as going to therapy? To me, that would make a difference, the willingness to take responsibility for correcting this problem.
Personally, I backed out of a relationship with a man who lied about big and little things. We'd been heading toward marriage, and the lies, along with some other issues, killed the deal for me. For my ex, lying was such an important part of his character that I didn't see any way to work through the issue. |
Anonymous
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My DW lies about the dumbest things. Example: We were at a restaurant that we had visited earlier with an attractive female friend. The friend had flirted a little with the bartender. When we went back, DW mentioned that we might be bringing this friend back later in the week. Bartender did not remember her. DW later phones the friend and tells her the bartender "asked about you and is really looking forward to seeing you again!"
Totally unnecessary and utterly untrue. I asked her why she said that, and she said she just wanted the friend to feel good. But by lying? I don't get it. |
Anonymous
| Little white lies may be one thing, but lying about big things is pretty much a deal breaker. And sometimes the line between little white lies and major lies is not that clear, and certainly varies from person to person. A relationship must be built on trust- how can you trust someone who lies all the time? If it's some kind of mental compulsion that someone's getting help for I guess that's one thing. But lying for the sake of lying? I don't understand how someone could keep up a relationship like that. |
Anonymous
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OP here-It's dumb stuff and serious stuff with DH. He'll talk to someone on the phone saying he's sorry to get back to them so late--he just finished putting the girls to bed, and he got in from work late, none of which was true. Harmless, but still.
He was supposed to set up a new bank account. I asked what was the minimum deposit. he said $200. I checked online, and there was no such account. He said he actually hadn't paid attention to the minimum, and why am I in his business? OK.....The next time I asked about it, he said he was still waiting for the debit card. When I asked when he thought a portion of his paycheck would start being deposited in this account, he said a couple of weeks. I finally asked him (three months later) yes or no, did you open the account? He refuses to answer, because I'm a controlling B****. |
Anonymous
All women do this at some point in their lives, and it is totally not on par with the stuff the OP is probably talking about. If your friend thought the bartender was interested in her, it's a self esteem boost to hear he remembered her. No woman is going to tell her friend "That bartender you liked didn't even know who we were talking about when we mentioned you!" |
Anonymous
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Yes, my DH is I'm ashamed to admit, a compulsive liar, but I think/hope it's only the small stuff. But really, every time I catch him in it, I lose respect for him.
Example: "Where's my leftover [whatever we ordered for dinner.] "I don't know." "Well, seriously, did you eat it?" "No." "OK. So I don't go stark raving mad looking for it in the fridge, did you take the white container out of the fridge and eat the contents of it?" "I might have. Not sure." Seriously? He constantly accuses me of not telling him things, so I put everything in email now. I sent him an email, he responded to it, then denied receiving it (and was mad that I hadn't given him the information). I showed him the email, and he literally said, "that part of the email didn't come through." It was the middle part. He just didn't read it and didn't want to admit to it. I laughed right in his face. |
Anonymous
| My DH lied about a bunch of stuff early in our relationship. It was mostly all stupid stuff. I guess since it wasn't major I just figured it was immaturity. Fast forward 9 years into our marriage and I have uncovered multiple affairs. All of that small stuff from the beginning is now making me question if I can ever trust him again. It is a pathological problem that needs treatment. If we didn't have kids, I would be gone for sure. It sucks. |
Anonymous
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OP here again: 14:44 that's one kind of lie that drives me crazy. Because he'll say something, and I'll go on the assumption that he's telling the truth, like continuing to look for the thing he's actually thrown out, or wondering if I bought a product already opened. I'll go nuts for a minute trying to remember if I check if the jar was open before I left the store.
For a while I was wondering why all our plants weren't dying. I kept asking him if he watered them. He said no. Anytime I would check the plants, the soil would be wet. Hmm. (this type of thing really messes with my mind). One day I caught him watering the plants. Me: I thought you said you never water the plants? Him: Well, I'm just watering this one because it was dry, and thought I'd water the others while I was at it. |
Anonymous
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My mother is a pathological liar and she's gotten worse over time, not better.
When you can't believe anything someone says to you, it's over. |
Anonymous
| Ill be honest here....I used to be a liar like your dh. Not about big stuff and mostly like the leftover example used. This was mostly in my teenage years and I have since gotten much better. I went to therapy once I was ready to acknowledge something wasn't right and here is the very basic explanation. I am an overly anxious person and I would anticipate being yelled at for eating the leftovers, therefore I'd lie. Even if it was totally irrational to think someone would yell at me, I'd lie anyways. Growing up my mom would tend to over react with things and yell or get mad over small things and later on I had an abusive bf who yelled at me for everything. I would definitely urge your husband to see a therapist. It doesn't sound like he is doing it to be malicious, he's just doing it. Good luck op! I'm so ashamed of how I acted in my teenage years |
Anonymous
| 14:44 that is my dh exactly. I do think the food stuff is related to him coming from a big family and not wanting to admit they ate the last of something... I have heard this from others too. But, the other shit. I ask dh if he went to the dentist or doctor and he says yes, if he took the baby to the park, if he bathed the baby etc. Complete BS. Drives me crazy. And he has an important job w/ hundreds of people working under him. There is no way he could pull any of this shit at work. And he is very smart so I am pretty sure he is a completely different person over there. Although, actually he admitted that for laughs he lies to people at work about me and not in a good way. Which is also scary in its own way. |
Anonymous
he lies to people at work about you? and not in a good way? sorry, PP, that's just beyond unacceptable. I'm from a big family, by the way, where there were severe punishments for everything, including food consumption. No one (except my parents) dared to eat the last of anything. Some of my siblings did, but they usually made sure they had a believable story blaming someone else. Regardless, not all of us reacted by becoming lying manipulators. That's not a guaranteed outcome; there's a certain degree of choice involved. |
Anonymous
| Read about narcissism and determine whether DH meets the criteria. If he does, get out now. If he's just a compulsive liar, get him into therapy and you might be able to salvage the relationship. Without therapy, you won't ever be able to trust him, and you don't really have a relationship. I'm so sorry you're going through this. GL! |