What would you do if you realized your best friend is a complusive liar?

[Anonymous]

My best friend since I was 10 has developed a habit of lying. Perhaps she always has lied but it has only been the last few years I have noticed the pattern. She's lied about jobs, finishing college and sometimes small things like funny anecdotes that are simply not true. I know they are not true because I was present when the scenarios occurred. On the college front, she came clean about it after several years of lying to me, her parents and many of our friends. I tried to be understanding and really just listened to her explain why she felt she needed to lie.

Since then she has continued to lie about small an big things and obviously it is sad and disturbing. We have been friends for almost 30 years. I love her but it is hard to maintain a relationship with someone who lies (and sometimes lies very poorly) to your face. These lies do not harm me or my life per se but it is stressful to always wonder.

Do I caught her off? Confront her about her problem (I call it a problem because it has cost her friends and jobs)? Or just let it ride?

[Anonymous]

I would RUN FAST.

This lying is typical of narcissists and psychopaths. I've been unfortunate enough to be in the path of a psychopath for 32 years and it brought nothing, but misery and sadness.

[Anonymous]

My DW is a bit of a compulsive liar. She exaggerates stories, adds and changes details unnecessarily.

I used to correct her, but I've given up unless I feel it will come back to bite her on the ass.

[Anonymous]

OP, this level of lying is scary. You must be too close to the situation to realize how scary it is. My advice is to distance yourself from her as much as you can. I wouldn't have a heart-to-heart talk with her about any of this, either. That wouldn't accomplish anything. You friend sounds like she's well beyond any help you could offer.

[Anonymous]

My best friend does this. Confronting them about lying is probably not a good idea. And, it won't change the behavior. I have learned the kind of stuff that can and cannot be believed. My friend has been dealing with mental illness since we were teens. I can deal with it or distance myself. I've chosen to deal with it, but it has caused some problems over the years.

[Anonymous]

My mom is like this. Sometimes she lies about stuff that is so unnecessary to lie about, that I take pretty much EVERYTHING she says with a gigantic grain of salt these days. Now, I can't really "get away" from my mom, or cease to have a relationship with her. Maybe you don't want to do that with your friend either, after so long. But just be on guard when you talk to her and learn to just say "Oh, okay, Sharon" when she says something particularly ludicrous. Chances are, it's not actually harming you, it's just annoying. I don't know why they do it either.

[Anonymous]

The principal in my son's elementary school in Bethesda was a compulsive liar. The school system knew but did nothing about it. He even lied under oath.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was a pathological, compulsive liar for many years. I am not anymore. I do not have the ability to share my story right now, but I will try to do so later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DW is a bit of a compulsive liar. She exaggerates stories, adds and changes details unnecessarily.

I used to correct her, but I've given up unless I feel it will come back to bite her on the ass.

Dad, is that you? This sounds like my mother. She lies about EVERYTHING, but it's so subtle. More like exaggerates and embellishes everything. It drives us crazy.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if OP is still around, but here is how I stopped being a compulsive liar:

I started lying in my early teens. I had been a very sweet kid, but when we had to move cross country for my dad's new job, I was FURIOUS with my parents and with fate, so I decided to be really bad. Since I had always told the truth, I wasn't caught for a while. When I was first busted, my parents came down hard, but they both felt sorry for me and were distracted by the move/new job, and they were honestly no match for me.

My lies and stupidity put me in a lot of bad situations. One night, I was date raped by a much older man. I went home and tried to process what had just happened, and it felt like my brain shorted out. A year earlier, I had been a decent person. Now, who was I? I had violated every single principle I knew was right. Some part of me decided that I would prove nothing bad had happened to me. I couldn't face the consequences, the TRUTH, so I would make my own reality in which what happened to me was actually a wonderful, good, romantic thing, a story of true love. So that's what I set out to do.

So I became a living lie. I lied about absolutely everything, whether I needed to or not. I made my parents' life hell. I was a horrible person. I was diagnosed as bipolar, but that was incorrect. I was just very stubborn, very lost, and very determined to make everything "right," on my terms. Everyone else was crazy--I was the sane one, I told myself. If everyone would just let me do anything I wanted, life would be perfect! The strain of being a constant liar was so oppressive.

When discovered and threatened with prosecution, the older man left town. I got even worse. I stayed a terrible liar for about 10 years total, through college and marriage and children. It defined me.

How did I stop? First, I finally admitted to myself that I had been wrong, but I had also BEEN WRONGED when I was raped. And my relationship with that man had not been the love of my life--it had been the ruin of my life. Facing that was the hardest thing I had ever done. Second, I was diagnosed properly, and solved some physical ailments, which completely changed my emotional/psychological health. Third, I found God (or, rather, I let Him find me), and I confessed my sins and resolved to do better with His help. Fourth, I came to an agreement with my wonderful, patient, long-suffering spouse: I would work on my lying, but it would take time. If I said a lie, I would immediately say, out loud, "I'm sorry, that was a lie. This is the truth...". He agreed to never get upset when I did that. At first, pretty much every sentence had to be revised. But I slowly got better.

Now, I can tell when it's been a while since my last confession, because my old habits start creeping back, usually with self-serving little lies. But then I apologize to my husband, go to confession, and start over again. My default setting now is to tell the truth, and I never thought that could be the case.

So, OP, if this is a dear friend, maybe you shouldn't give up on her. Maybe there is a reason she became a liar--a combination of temperament (because I can still tell a great, dramatic story!), circumstance, motivation, and habit. And I promise you, it is a terrible way to live. Of course, you can't fix her--she needs to decide to fix herself, and it would take humility and time, at the very least. Depending on what she is up against--because it could be mental illness--there is great hope or very little hope. But if you care about her and are close to her, you could ask her why she feels compelled to lie all the time. She'll most likely just get really angry, but it might be the start to recovery, if you approach her lovingly and without condemnation.

[Anonymous]

I'm a nanny who worked for a woman who lied a lot. It got to the point I didn't believe much of anything she said. Occasionally I'd call her on a lie, mainly because it contradicted something she had said earlier regarding the kids and I needed clarification. She'd get angry (but sometimes tried to hide it, but darn those micro-emotions giving her away.) Ultimately our working relationship took a downward spiral and did not end well.

I'm not sure there's really much you can do to cure crazy. You've known your friend for decades and it would be hard to just give that up so you need to decide whether the lies are a deal breaker or not. Maybe just distance yourself some vs. just cutting her off entirely. Follow your gut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would RUN FAST.

This lying is typical of narcissists and psychopaths. I've been unfortunate enough to be in the path of a psychopath for 32 years and it brought nothing, but misery and sadness.

So what? It's also a sign of immaturity, insecurity, dementia and neurosis. True "psychopaths" are very rare.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who is overweight and perhaps a bit insecure. She made up an entire relationship while at college ( I attended a different university). One of our friends confronted her directly about it- in a somewhat hostile fashion. I felt it was all too sad. I think there is a pattern of lying in her family, but I don't believe she has lied to me on a large scale since then, maybe just little white lies.

[Anonymous]

Walked away. I knew she could only change if she wanted to and at the time, she wasn't admitting to lying. I didn't want to play a game of catch her in a lie, or pretend to believe her as she lied to my face. I think the big thing was that her lies were manipulative, always to make herself look good, and bonus if you felt like crap. She would also be the person that would always answer the phone, always make the plans etc, and only years later I realized everything was self serving. Say she emailed you while you were studying abroad. You respond back. That gets spun to your group of friends as you choosing to only write to her, and she spins your information so she stays the center of attention. You meet a guy out and he calls while you aren't home. All of a sudden, they are "dating" and he is so in love with her etc. and you are left thinking you must be dog chow because the guy seemed interested in you and in a week can't live without your roomate. Say you can't find a job and you are lamenting to your group of friends and everyone is trying to cheer you up. She will give an insincere, oh that's tough and proceed to tell you how she tripped over a rainbow and landed in this awesome job where her boss thinks she should go to law school. We would be trying to cheer up a friend having guy problems and each person is telling a dating war story ... Hair twirl when it gets to her, "well gee that sucks, I've don't know what it's like to be dumped, at the moment I have two boys chasing me and it is hard to decide who I want...". I look back and can't believe how long it took to catch on. Other people in the group felt that she thought she was so much smarter and was laughing at our gullibility. In the end, I knew there was probably some story, but I didn't know what it was, she wasn't even admitting to lying much less at the stage to get help, and it was frankly hard to have a friendship with someone that lies. How can you pour your heart out to someone knowing they will use that information to make themselves the center of attention. They may tell a truth you give in confidence or even make up something about you, and in return tell you how their life is perfect and they ride a unicorn to work so their commute is only five minutes from Burke to DC.

[Anonymous]

I had a good friend who is now more of an acquaintance because of her lying. For the most part she either lied to look good/save face or she lied about very little things that no one needs to lie about.

I never quite understood why she lied as it was so easy to catch her in lies. Also so many of her lies - she didn't even need to tell you the story in the first place, let alone lie about it. They were unnecessary lies.