Anyone experience this time of lying or deception?

[Suassíos]

Hi,

I find that I am always trying to figure out what’s going on with my husbands behaviour, even though I appreciate that some BPD behaviours are hard to rationalise.

My husband and his mother have a common behaviour pattern which goes like this:

They come up with a story, which can range from an outright fabrication to a manipulative spin on something that really happened or is happening.

Then there are the consequences or impact of that story.

And apart from the direct impact on the person involved eg me, or my kids, or another sibling, they dont seem to have any concept of the knock on impacts.

As if the real world is completely separate from the fictional world they have created with the lie or the spin on the truth.

My husband is really working on his BPD and so when we discuss this, he will say “but I wasn’t thinking about you or anyone else at all”.

But how does that come about? Is it a form of splitting? Splitting their mini world apart from the real world?

An example would be: my husband making up a bizarre story about not getting paid at work because the managers delayed everyone’s pay by a few weeks, , so that I would pay a bill he was due to pay. But he knows I know lots of people he works with, as do my folks and my colleagues at work. So how would it go when I say to my Mom Jeez did you hear about what happened where my husband works….. and when I bump in to his colleagues, gosh that must have been hard for you guys this month when not getting paid it must have been hard to get the mortgage paid et. etc

How can someone make up a story without considering how it was going to pan out? It’s like as if he thinks there is a TV show on and he controls the characters and their story lines and no one speaks to anyone outside of the script. And then when it’s over you just turn off the show and carry on as if this never happened.

Anyone any experience of this? It’s like splitting life or realities or something?

Would be interested to hear if you recognise this.

Thanks!

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[thankful person]

I believe my wife told me many lies when we first “met”, however we were in an online relationship (started as a friendship), so I guess she never thought she was going to meet me and/or get found out.

She has suffered horrific sexual abuse and I know this from witnessing her ptsd nightmares which she could not possibly fake.

However, she told me early on that her uncle raped her and she became pregnant and her family made her have the baby and then give it up for adoption. She told me her uncle was in prison and was writing letters to her about wanting to rape the baby. All of this she has since admitted was false. She was never pregnant by him. I believe he raped her because in her nightmares it was like she spoke to me directly and spoke of him and many other named men, who I believe some were his friends. She’s said they had get togethers to rape her. This sounds unlikely but from seeing her nightmares I can totally believe it. She told me she was also a paid prostitute which I am somewhat doubtful of.

I don’t believe her uncle went to prison either. He continues to see his own three kids who are in their late teens now. She told me he got out of prison and that her parents kept having him round the house and she was terrified. She apparently attempted suicide and then in family therapy her parents were agreeing to reward her for not cutting by not inviting him round. From what I understand he has never lived anywhere near them. These days he visits once a year at Christmas.

My wife told me she had surgery on a stomach ulcer caused by her bulimia. I saw her on video call before and soon after this apparent surgery. I could see she was in pain but I don’t believe this story now. She has spoken many times of other hospital stays but not this. She also has no aversion to anti-inflammatory meds or triggering foods or drink.

My wife also told me she had to sleep at the hospital with heart rate monitors on etc again as they were worried about her bulimia. I also don’t believe this.

The second time ever we were due to video call she was in hospital following self harm. Her self harm scars are severe but I don’t believe this story because she apparently got a taxi home, crept into the house then upstairs to video call me. She could not have crept in without her parents knowing. She didn’t even ever use her own house key.

My wife told me a story about the last day of primary school when she was climbing over a railway bridge and then a boy did the same thing and fell and died. I have tried to investigate this in the news as I think it would have been news. I can’t find anything about it. She can’t tell me where it happened even though they apparently walked there from school. I only know his first name but he was a real boy as I’ve also seen pictures of him. But he could be alive for all I know.

At one point when we knew each other online, my wife apparently attended the funeral of a girl who she knew in a mental institution who died from an eating disorder. There has been no mention of her at all since we’ve been physically together. Her name even changed from Julie to Julia which my wife justified by Julie being short for Julia. Again, don’t believe it.

I don’t think my wife has much cause or opportunity to lie to me these days. The last time I think was a few years ago when we were really struggling for money and she told me she spent £15 on an MLM business but then I saw on our joint statement it was well over £100. She never would tell me where she got the money from but I suspect it was some money my mother had gifted us. She at one point said she had a cleaning job for a little old lady. Again, don’t believe.

I know these extreme stories aren’t exactly what you asked about but in my wife’s case then compulsive lying seems to be linked to her bpd. Reading back over this there are more things I’ve remembered. According to her, lying is very normal in her generation (she’s 29) and amongst peers especially as she went to special needs school. But the frustrating thing is that apart from the non-existent adopted baby, she has never admitted to lying about any of this. Most of it I haven’t exactly challenged her but I’m sure she knows I’ve figured it out and that I don’t respect her because of all this. And ironically I feel I could love her more if she admitted it. But I expect she doesn’t because she feels too vulnerable from my disgust.

I just wanted to share all this deeply disturbing stuff that I don’t think too much about these days but when I do I feel very upset.

I know she was raped. I know she self harmed. I don’t know if she attempted suicide. I just wish she would tell me the truth. Thanks for reading, I just wanted to share here because obviously I’ve never discussed it with anyone else. The way her Mum talks about the uncle is certainly as though he’s done nothing wrong. She says her mother is in denial. But I can’t work out how he could be regularly abusing her without her parents knowing. She says she thinks they did know. He used to rape her in bed though it’s hard to believe he even stayed over. He used to regularly take her swimming as a child, even though he lived a couple of hours away. It just all makes no sense.

But please don’t question the reality of these nightmares. It is something I’ve never looked into, but she spoke to me more and more whilst in her nightmares over the first few months we were physically together whilst writhing in agony and terror. She would keep repeating, “don’t let him in” and “I’ll be good.” And spoke many men’s names. And eventually she kept saying, “Dan” and “he can’t be here, it can’t be… he wouldn’t be here…”  And then I realised she was saying, “Dad”. She had spoken in the past (when awake) of her Dad abusing her, but not alongside uncle and the other men. It was like the nightmares culminated that night. The next day I sat her down and told her that she had told me Dad was there. Since then the nightmares have all but disappeared. It was like she needed to “tell” me and for me to tell her. I have no idea if this kind of thing is common. I feel terrible sharing all this but I felt I needed to.

[Suassíos]

Thank you for sharing your story, and I can see from your message that this has been difficult for you, both your experiences themselves and re-examining it now.

I am sorry that you have had such a difficult time.

It is very clear that your partner is carrying a lot of pain. It is really great that much of the lying and deception is no longer in your lives, and I’m sure this is most likely due to the strength and stability and consistency that you bring to the relationship.

One thing you could look into which might be relevant to your understanding of your wife is something I read about in a book on memory by Veronica O’Kane, that when someone is mentally unwell and experiences a thought that something is happening or did happen, that the experience of this creates a real memory for them, that they really remember the feelings eg of fear when they think about this, even if they have full insight and are aware that it didn’t happen.

Not that I’m suggesting something did or did not happen, just that real profound fear can result from situations that did happen, or from a fear that something might happen.

In my husbands case he went to a school where there were (convictions Have occurred) staff members who abused children. He recalls being in the room with one and feeling scared. He doesn’t recall anything serious happening, but recalls being Aware that the guy was creepy, and being afraid , and he reports now that the whole experience was terrifying because he felt if something did happen he would have no one to help him, that his parents would not want to hear about it. And this fear is what terrified him profoundly.

Early childhood Fear seems to be behind a lot of this maladaptions.

Whether the fear was of an actual experience or an anticipation of what might have happened.

I’m very glad for you and your partner that most days are good now, and I hope that continues for you both.

[thankful person]

Suassios, thank you for your supportive comments. Yes my relationship is much improved since I joined bpd family early last year. I am still frustrated not to know the truth about these things and I do feel it’s a barrier to feeling close to my wife. But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that the bpd is barrier enough so it couldn’t be much worse. I just thought that after 8 years together and married for nearly 5 then I would know more of the truth.

I do find my wife’s parents suspicious though. They seem like good people. But one thing for sure they would have known she was having continuous nightmares as she was quite loud at times and they were every night. I was on the other side of the planet and we used to video call and watch over each other while each other were sleeping. I would see her having these nightmares and phone her to wake her but she wouldn’t wake. Then when I was with her I also found it near impossible to wake her though as I said, she would talk to me. Sometimes afterwards she told me the nightmare was of her being raped and me laughing at her. She was getting carpal tunnel symptoms in her hands and I believe it was from the contorted positions her hands were in during the nightmare.

I will look up the memory book. I think I need to learn more about these ptsd nightmares and particularly the direct communication with me. I’ve spent so much time trying to work out what’s true and what’s not. But those nightmares certainly convinced me that she was raped. Another strange thing which seemed potentially imaginary rather than a lie, we were on holiday in another country and on a boat trip. And my wife was convinced a man on the boat was one of her rapists. And a couple of months later she spoke about this in the nightmare, it was always loud whispers, I thought she was saying, “he’s on the phone” but she was saying, “he’s on the boat”. And “don’t tell his wife” (as she was on the boat with him). Again it’s very unlikely but not impossible, but anyone’s guess whether he reminded her of someone who raped her or did it not even happen.

If her uncle did rape her, I don’t believe it was ever reported. And I can’t consider that he did not because as I said, the nightmares convinced me completely.

But my biggest question is, why would she be so severely traumatised, if something severely traumatic hadn’t happened to her? She has learning difficulties which I put down entirely to the trauma. Her self harm mostly cutting was extremely severe too.