Did You Ever Catch Them Lying About Something That Really Caught You By Surprise

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Just as the title says...

I was thinking about something today. I've caught my wife being dishonest or not forthcoming about many things throughout our relationship. It's caused me to wonder if she actually knows that she's lying or if in her mind she actually believes it. I'm starting to think that she does justify her actions and dishonesty about them in her head before its ever manifest outwardly. Does that mean it's a lie? I've also heard her tell stories to people about situations I was a part of and her version is completely fabricated or wildly inaccurate. I've had to give people the real version of things later when she's not around.

I bring this up, because as a result of my hurricane of a relationship I have with my wife, I've really learned to rely on my gut instinct a lot more now. My gut warned me very early on in my relationship with her that there were red flags all over the place. I ignored my gut and tried to make a decision with my brain instead. 10+ years later, here we are.

Anyways, my gut has made me think quite a few times over the years that she could be having an affair. Then, last year, I found out that she was texting and receiving literally hundreds of texts between her and a coworker. There was actually quite a bit of other circumstantial evidence to support her having an inappropriate relationship as well. She adamantly denied it when I finally confronted her with all the evidence and she got very defensive and even started crying and yelling at me. It continued to be an issue in our relationship and I've still never been satisfied with her denial and response to me. Something just keeps telling me that something did happen. I just don't have any concrete proof and probably never will. It is what it is and I really have moved on for the most part.

I'm just curious. Has anybody had a situation with their BPD partner where they just knew the person was lying about something but they couldn't prove it? Or did you find out about a lie and it really surprised you that they were capable of doing what they did? In my case, my wife is very good at presenting herself to the world as wife and mother of the year. It would shock people if they knew she was capable of being unfaithful. I still have this nagging feeling in my stomach that she was though.

Basically, throughout my years of being with my wife, there have been numerous situations where her version or perception of the truth has been completely skewed. Maybe she did have an affair. Maybe she convinced herself that she really didn't I don't know.

What are everyone's thoughts about BPD and lying and BPD and unrealistic perceptions of reality?  I think it might be a good discussion for those of us who feel like we've driven ourselves crazy by knowing in our guts that we're being deceived but with no proof to back up what we feel. I guess this topic also goes hand in hand with gaslighting, which my wife also does to me on a regular basis.

[mstnghu]

Just as the title says...

I was thinking about something today. I've caught my wife being dishonest or not forthcoming about many things throughout our relationship. It's caused me to wonder if she actually knows that she's lying or if in her mind she actually believes it. I'm starting to think that she does justify her actions and dishonesty about them in her head before its ever manifest outwardly. Does that mean it's a lie? I've also heard her tell stories to people about situations I was a part of and her version is completely fabricated or wildly inaccurate. I've had to give people the real version of things later when she's not around.

I bring this up, because as a result of my hurricane of a relationship I have with my wife, I've really learned to rely on my gut instinct a lot more now. My gut warned me very early on in my relationship with her that there were red flags all over the place. I ignored my gut and tried to make a decision with my brain instead. 10+ years later, here we are.

Anyways, my gut has made me think quite a few times over the years that she could be having an affair. Then, last year, I found out that she was texting and receiving literally hundreds of texts between her and a coworker. There was actually quite a bit of other circumstantial evidence to support her having an inappropriate relationship as well. She adamantly denied it when I finally confronted her with all the evidence and she got very defensive and even started crying and yelling at me. It continued to be an issue in our relationship and I've still never been satisfied with her denial and response to me. Something just keeps telling me that something did happen. I just don't have any concrete proof and probably never will. It is what it is and I really have moved on for the most part.

I'm just curious. Has anybody had a situation with their BPD partner where they just knew the person was lying about something but they couldn't prove it? Or did you find out about a lie and it really surprised you that they were capable of doing what they did? In my case, my wife is very good at presenting herself to the world as wife and mother of the year. It would shock people if they knew she was capable of being unfaithful. I still have this nagging feeling in my stomach that she was though.

Basically, throughout my years of being with my wife, there have been numerous situations where her version or perception of the truth has been completely skewed. Maybe she did have an affair. Maybe she convinced herself that she really didn't I don't know.

What are everyone's thoughts about BPD and lying and BPD and unrealistic perceptions of reality?  I think it might be a good discussion for those of us who feel like we've driven ourselves crazy by knowing in our guts that we're being deceived but with no proof to back up what we feel. I guess this topic also goes hand in hand with gaslighting, which my wife also does to me on a regular basis.

[SadtimesAZ]

This is easy, I know my wife was lying every time she replied with you're insane, you're delusional, leave me alone or called me a narcissist when I questioned her about anything.

[Enabler]

My W is a compulsive liar. I didn't realise how good she was at it with no facial tells and totally believable emotions until 2-3yrs ago... and even then I'd say I didn't really really really believe how apt she was at lying until about 15 months ago. Here's some good ones:

I find a receipt for a pregnancy test which was bought using her card, just after a scheduled therapy session (she no longer goes FWIW) in the pharmacy below the T centre. I sat on it for a month before asking her. I kinda tee'd it up and said "maybe it was for a friend". She instantly rode with that avenue and said that it was for a friend and she couldn't say any more. I have since found another receipt for a pregnancy test bought just before I know she went on an afternoon/evening out with her lover.

She was discussing phones with her friend around the garden table. She mentioned she wanted a new phone as her 'is rubbish'. Friend says "You've only had that one about a year, did you get it on contract?". W responds, "Yeah, I got it on contract", friend replies "well depends how long you're contact is I suppose". They then have a long conversation about phones on contract and new phones... I know for a FACT that her lover bought the phone for her 6 months before she started using it (at the time she lied to me saying she'd got it through a new contract). I know because when she changed her phone and backed up the phone to the PC to switch phones it enabled me to scrape all of her whatsapp messages and see months and months and months of conversations between her and her lover with him asking when she is going to switch to the new phone he bought her (which had a finger print id etc etc to protect their secret love affair).

Plenty of lying about use of time and what she's done.

I think some of the lies she believes, some she doesn't, either way she is amazing at concealing her emotional reaction to guilt and shame... which I am perplexed by.

Enabler

[ColdKnight]

Enabler,

Have you confronted her?

[mstnghu]

From my experiences, I've also found that it's not just the big lies that irk me to no end. The little unnecessary ones used to control and manipulate situations are just as bad and do just as much to corrode our relationship.

I have so many examples of blatant dishonesty and manipulation from my wife and here is just one example. One day a couple of years ago, I suddenly wasn't able to send or receive text messages from my phone. Co-workers kept coming up to me asking if I got important work-related messages because they hadn't heard back from me.

So it turns out my wife had gone into our phone plan online and turned off my data usage. The phone plan is in her name and she pays the bill so she decided I was using too much data and it cost her extra money. I found out she had done this when I called our phone carrier to find out what had happened. It also turned out that she had taken me off of our plan as an authorized account holder so I can no longer make any sort of changes to the phone plan. It also means that she basically owns my phone number (the one I've had since before she and I even started dating) and she would have to "release" my phone number to me if I wanted it back! The phone company rep said that the only person who had authority to make these changes was the main account holder aka my wife...but the rep couldn't specifically say that.

When I confronted my wife about this, she denied, denied, denied. She finally did admit eventually to turning off my data usage and then went on a tirade about me using too much data. I told her I'd happily get my own phone account as soon as she "gives" me back my phone number. She still wouldn't admit that she had anything to do with taking me off our account as an authorized user or taking control over my phone number.

This is just one little example of an event where my wife tried to have control over me and then lied about it to cover it up.

[ColdKnight]

Were there certain little innocuous lies that you remember very early on that you chose to ignore because you were so attracted to her?

I know I certainly did.

[Enabler]

Enabler,

Have you confronted her?

I used to confront her but I came to the conclusion that the behaviours were going to happen regardless of me confronting her, I just wouldn't be able to detect them as she would find better ways of covering he tracks. Confrontation doesn't have the wake-up call with a pwBPD traits that it might with a non, the high sensitivity almost allergy to guilt and shame results in attempts to suppress guilt and shame, deflect and lie rather than sit with the pain, acknowledge guilt and make a mends. I also believe that she feels guilt and shame about these things herself regardless of me mentioning... AND... actually, by acknowledging them and asking her she's able to blame shift directly to me e.g. how did you find the receipt, why did you scrape my whatsapps. It enables her to cognitively move from feeling bad about her behaviour to legitimising her behaviour because I found out and must be some kind of sick stalking @ss. The number of times I've come away from a confrontation of clear and irrefutable wrongdoing thinking "how the heck did she manage to twist that round to being my fault?".

Not acknowledging but having a clear sense of your own reality keeps guilt where it belongs and enables you to make quality choices. There's a song in the charts at the moment with a line "Shame never made anyone less gay"... well "shame never made anyone less likely to do bad things"... it just forces pwBPD to lie about them, and really I mean FORCES them to lie, they have no choice because admitting guilt is too much.

I don't advocate for the whole website but I did find the 20 rules of BPD as a framework for understanding:
www.anythingtostopthepain.com/20-rules-for-understanding-bpd/comment-page-1/

Enabler

[Enabler]

That question only she can answer. I think it's a good idea to get into the mindset of a pwBPD or pwBPD traits. The more we can empathise the better choices we can make about how to handle situations and have better insight as to the origins of conflicts.

[Red5]

99, trust your gut… always !

That is all, Red5 out ~>

[mstnghu]

Were there certain little innocuous lies that you remember very early on that you chose to ignore because you were so attracted to her?

I know I certainly did.

In my personal situation, there were numerous red flags very early on in our relationship but lying wasn't really one of them. I did however notice that she exaggerated and embellished stories. She had a tendency (still does) to retell situations in a very inaccurate or dramatic way. My immediate friends and family know to take everything she says with a grain of salt though. I've always had to fill them in with the facts later when she's not around.

 One thing specifically is that she tends to tell stories with a filter that causes her to always look like she was attacked or victimized by somebody. Often times somebody meant her no ill-will at all and had good intentions but she tells a story as if that person was doing something to her out of spite. Once she paints somebody black, there's no going back.

[mstnghu]

I used to confront her but I came to the conclusion that the behaviours were going to happen regardless of me confronting her, I just wouldn't be able to detect them as she would find better ways of covering he tracks. Confrontation doesn't have the wake-up call with a pwBPD traits that it might with a non, the high sensitivity almost allergy to guilt and shame results in attempts to suppress guilt and shame, deflect and lie rather than sit with the pain, acknowledge guilt and make a mends. I also believe that she feels guilt and shame about these things herself regardless of me mentioning... AND... actually, by acknowledging them and asking her she's able to blame shift directly to me e.g. how did you find the receipt, why did you scrape my whatsapps. It enables her to cognitively move from feeling bad about her behaviour to legitimising her behaviour because I found out and must be some kind of sick stalking @ss. The number of times I've come away from a confrontation of clear and irrefutable wrongdoing thinking "how the heck did she manage to twist that round to being my fault?".

Not acknowledging but having a clear sense of your own reality keeps guilt where it belongs and enables you to make quality choices. There's a song in the charts at the moment with a line "Shame never made anyone less gay"... well "shame never made anyone less likely to do bad things"... it just forces pwBPD to lie about them, and really I mean FORCES them to lie, they have no choice because admitting guilt is too much.

I don't advocate for the whole website but I did find the 20 rules of BPD as a framework for understanding:
www.anythingtostopthepain.com/20-rules-for-understanding-bpd/comment-page-1/

Enabler

I can definitely relate to this! Toward the end of last year, I installed a GPS tracker in my wife's car. Of course, most reasonable people would consider that to be stalker-ish, as would I. HOWEVER, people in the types of relationships we're in unfortunately have to adapt to the situation and at times act in ways that are out of character.

It was actually the idea of a couple of my co-workers who also thought she was having an affair when I confided in them what types of things she was doing. One of my co-workers purchased the tracker on Amazon for me even!

The tracker worked great and I was able to see all the different places she drove day after day but never told me about. She works about 25 miles away from our house, so she basically doesn't have to worry about me or anybody else she knows bumping into her around town when she's there. Throughout the time I had the tracker in her car, I caught her in all sorts of white lies about places she'd been and a couple of outright blatant lies about her whereabouts. Since I never actually drove to those locations to catch her up to no good, anything is speculation at this point.

I bring this situation up because after a couple of months, she somehow discovered the tracker and was furious with me. She couldn't believe I could do such a thing...nevermind the fact that she and her mom had been pulling stalker-ish moves on me for years!  In the past, I've caught both of them following me while driving. My mother in law finally admitted one day to driving through the employee parking lot at my work to see if I was really there! I can't even count all the times my mother in law showed up "unexpectedly" to our house when she lives over 2 hours away from us! Of course my wife "knew nothing about her coming". I've ended up behind my wife at a stop sign before, wondering why she's even in the area. My son was in the car and said "Look, there's Mommy! Why is she trying to drive away from us?" as she's ignoring my phone call from right behind her! The wife has even told me that she "has eyes all over town watching my every move".

And yet, after all that, she has the nerve to get mad at me over the tracker. Creepy or not, I still feel justified in doing it and did get some interesting information from it. That's what she's really upset about.

[ColdKnight]

Enabler and Mstnghu,

It sounds like you are both in very similar situations. Are you both expecting them to suddenly leave someday.

What keeps you going each day?

What do you suppose keeps them from painting you black and leaving?

[SadtimesAZ]

Wow mstn my wife said that exact thing word for word. People watching my every move, in fact she and her mother tried hacking my phone to track me. Want to hear something really crazy? My ex filed a police report stating that I hacked her Instagram account on March 26th with her mom listed as a witness. I got an alert from gmail my account had been logged into by an ip address across town the same morning but my security camera shows me being at home! Somehow several emails were deleted and my location tracking had all been turned off or deleted through Google all while I was allegedly stalking her!

[mstnghu]

Wow mstn my wife said that exact thing word for word. People watching my every move, in fact she and her mother tried hacking my phone to track me. Want to hear something really crazy? My ex filed a police report stating that I hacked her Instagram account on March 26th with her mom listed as a witness. I got an alert from gmail my account had been logged into by an ip address across town the same morning but my security camera shows me being at home! Somehow several emails were deleted and my location tracking had all been turned off or deleted through Google all while I was allegedly stalking her!

I'm not sure what the dynamic is between your ex and her mom, but in my case, my wife and her mom have a very toxic co-dependent relationship. My MIL is very controlling and manipulative (like my wife) and has very strong narcissistic traits. They are two peas in a pod and they feed off each other. My MIL has been entwined into me and my wife's relationship for years and she'll help my wife with whatever scheme she comes up with. I never really know who the instigator between them is. They both seem to be equally responsible for the s**t they try to pull on me.

I've also suspected my wife of trying to hack into my email and also my icloud account. She does have access to my phone because I want to be an open book and not let her have reason to think I'm hiding things. She constantly reads through all my texts (and constantly misinterprets them) and gets into my social media through my phone. I don't even care anymore.

Not too long ago (before I ever put the tracker on her car),  she set up the phone tracking service through our carrier so she could track my location based on where my phone was. She made sure to not give me access to hers though. She then started making crazy accusations of locations I had been that I'd never been anywhere near!

[mstnghu]

Enabler and Mstnghu,

It sounds like you are both in very similar situations. Are you both expecting them to suddenly leave someday.

What keeps you going each day?

What do you suppose keeps them from painting you black and leaving?

In my situation, I really thought this summer would finally be the end. My MIL and her husband recently moved to another city about 2 hours away from us. Then my wife's brother and also her aunt/uncle moved out to the same area. My wife and MIL have this plan that me and the wife/kid were also now going to move out there. That's their plan, not mine. They expected me to just go along with it and give up my own family and good-paying secure job and just pack up and move. They even said that if I couldn't find a job right away, we could all move into my MIL's pool house! Hell no! They seriously expected me to be completely on board with it and were pretty pissed when I gave them pushback.

My wife basically kept saying that she was going to move out there one or or another by the end of the summer and I did tell her that I wasn't planning to go. I told her that yes, I did think we should divorce and start figuring out the custody situation with our kid.

My wife works at a school and she was supposedly not going back there when the new school year started. Well, she went back. We're still together and things are still miserable. I honestly don't think that she'll leave on her own. I think I'm going to have to be the one who ultimately decides enough is enough. I've already done a lot research of divorce laws in CA where I live and I've consulted with a couple of lawyers. I'm slowly working on my exit strategy but I know I have a huge uphill battle ahead once I finalize my decision. It will be WWIII with my wife and MIL. 

[Cat Familiar]

So you’re still together, wondering if she’s faithful, being pressured by your MIL, and thinking about planning your exit.

What are your considerations?

[ColdKnight]

What do you think is keeping her from leaving? Do you think it is
your indifference?

[mstnghu]

At this point, the main reason I've stayed is because of our 8 year old son. It's definitely not healthy for him to be part of our toxic dynamic, but I'm also worried about how she'll treat him when I'm not around to be a buffer.

She loves him, but her neurotic behavior causes her to have some very unhealthy treatment toward him at times. I think she truly believes she's doing what's best for him, but she does much more harm than good in many situations. We have huge disagreements about parenting and it goes far beyond that. On one occasion, I confided in a therapist through Kaiser about some of the things that were going on at home. Being a mandated reporter, the therapist told me during one of our sessions that she needed to report my wife to CPS for some of her behaviors toward our son. I was really nervous and didn't want her to because I knew my wife would assume I was behind it. It would've caused a major s**t-storm in our house. After talking to another one of her colleagues, she decided not to report my wife. Fast-forward to this past June and somebody else did report her to CPS for some of her parenting tactics! The anonymous reporter had very specific (and accurate) accusations toward my wife and none of the accusations were directed toward me. Of course the wife I assumed I was behind it and it's caused some major fights since then. She then went on to accuse my mom and then on to my sister in law. A couple of weeks ago she once again directed her accusation toward somebody else and sent that person a very ominous and threatening message through Facebook.

I also know that my wife and MIL will use my son as a pawn throughout our divorce. They will do any and everything they can do to make my life difficult. Nothing that could be smooth will be. I do know what my rights are and have sought legal advice, but I know they would still put up a huge fight every step of the way.

So basically, fear is the only thing really holding me back at this point. I'm worried about how nasty things could become between us and I'm also worried about the financial uncertainty. I think the reason my wife is choosing to stay because she has an unhealthy co-dependence and reliance on me for security. Plus, she's somebody who can't handle change. When I think about moving on with my life, I see my life getting much better but I can't imagine her ever being happy. I've actually told her that if she continues to act the same way in her next relationship, she'll implode that one too.

[ColdKnight]

You said you noticed red flags early on but lying really wasn’t one of them. What did you see?

When did things start to get bad? Was there a certain point you can remember or was it a slow drift?

Did she exhibit the classic bpd behaviors in the beginning? Love bombing, pushing the relationship forward quickly ect?

[SadtimesAZ]

Mstn I don't even know where to start. I was convinced to move from CA to AZ in 2010 to her mom's, having no idea of how dysfunctional she and mom were. Within a month we were being chased out of the house, heard screaming one day and walk in to her mother screaming that she knew she was never going to be a good mother while my wife was holding our 18 month old son and her sister was threatening to punch her in the face to defend mom over her sister. I left for my first day of work and her mom threatened to call the sheriff and take our son from her 3 hours after I left, I came back to find my wife locked in the bedroom crying uncontrollably. But by 2017 my wife decided she fell in love with a married man within a week of meeting him. Decided our marriage and S8 would just comply with whatever circumstances happened when she filed for divorce. Guess who was fully involved during the whole process, that same MIL. Same exact thing I don't know who is pulling the strings. The stories I could tell would blow people's minds. MIL is overt malignant narc, hell she's dark triad. Wife is covert narc but so malicious people have started to catch on. It's been 14 months now on our final divorce, and our S just turned 11. I dread the next 7 years of having to deal with these two. My ex has lied, cheated and bs'd her way through every step of the divorce process. You have the benefit of the CPS investigations being in your favor. I would make your move, document everything and find a lawyer who understands mental health issues.

[DragoN]

Confrontation doesn't have the wake-up call with a pwBPD traits that it might with a non, the high sensitivity almost allergy to guilt and shame results in attempts to suppress guilt and shame, deflect and lie rather than sit with the pain, acknowledge guilt and make a mends.

pwBPD are the snowblowers of bs. Perfectly aware of it.

[Cat Familiar]

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