Lying again (or maybe has been the whole time) - Long

[dawnjd]

I don’t know where to start, but uBPDso is a compulsive liar and exaggerator. SO lied to me a lot at the beginning of our relationship and I found out he had lied about finances, trips he took and life experiences when I was 7 months pregnant with our son.

Of course, confronting his lies leads to me being “evil” and pointing out that I have lied too (which I haven’t, though in his mind if I ‘grow’ or change how I feel about something, then I have lied about who I am in his mind). I have often been blamed for his lying because in his mind, “How was he supposed to get me if he didn’t lie?”

Recently, I have brought up that I am not happy, which led to SO’s response of, “What? We have been perfectly happy for the past 3 months, so you have been lying to me this whole time?” But basically, even with my reading “Stop Walking on Eggshells”, I was still walking on eggshells and being unhappy by trying to “keep the peace”.  And this hasn’t been just with him, I have been more or less on a Zen exploration of trying to be more ‘go with the flow’ and ‘let it roll off your back’ with society in general.

As a way to try and work on our relationship, I found the Gottman book on “7 Principles of Marriage” and I like Gottman’s discussion of developing a love map. A lot of the ‘love map’ is finding what it was you loved about your partner in the beginning (your first love map) and learn about your partner now.

I mentioned to SO that I feel one of MY issues is that I don’t feel we ever really had a ‘love map’ because I found out a lot of what he shared with me was untrue. SO’s response was, “That is your fault only and I am still the same person despite the lies. You only care about the lies because you are only into material things. You don’t know about me because you don’t care.”

Part of his lying comes from his fear of being disliked and rejected. It is an unspoken knowledge between family and friends to take his stories with a grain of salt and double check what could be out-right lies. (SO won a very big award in his field a few years back, but none of us believed him until we saw the announcement online.)

Lying is unacceptable to me. I am not sure how to make it a boundary. And part of my understanding is that he lies because he fears the overreaction from others if they don’t like what they hear. For example, I ask SO if he did the dishes, SO says, “Yes, I did the dishes.” I walk into the kitchen and see he outright lied. If I get mad and say, “Why did you lie to me, that is not right!”, SO fears the rejection and my ‘overreaction’ just proves to him that he needs to lie to protect himself.  Basically I try not the sweat the small stuff, if I need to bring up the lie, I stay calm and say, “I would just like honesty.” But during the past two days, I came across two lies that are so small and outright….and it is starting to get humiliating.

Lie #1) We have started watching a tv show on Netflix together. SO jumps ahead and watches episodes without me. I catch it (because Netflix never lies about what was watched!). I am not mad, I find it funny. (I recently heard that this is the new form of “Cheating” between couples, makes it even funnier to me). If I ask SO if he watched them, he replies: “NO NO! I may have turned them on, but I got distracted and never watched them. “  He even plays the whole, “I never saw this part….what happened?”

The reason I know he is lying is because if I can’t watch the show anymore and have to leave, he will jump ahead the episodes, “He never watched”. When I caught that, I wasn’t mad. Just puzzled that he had to make this big dog and pony show over a stupid show. When I finally caught on that it was a real lie, I was more upset that he kept dragging it on. I just wanted honesty.

Lie #2) SO is an artist and he sells pieces on a website. Often, when he has a piece unfinished, yet wants to sell it, he photoshops it. I hate this. I feel it is dishonest to the customer. He is, “I will make it look exactly like the photo. They will never know.” I run his website and sales, so I hate being in the middle of this ‘fraud’. We have only had one customer complain once….and gave a full refund.

Yesterday, before I posted a new piece (that I hadn’t seen him work on yet) I asked, “Did you photoshop the missing part in?”

So replied, “NO! It is right there in the workshop! I swear. Go see it!”

I shrugged it off, posted the piece. Well, I had to go into the shop today for an unrelated matter. Sure enough, the piece wasn’t finished. He lied, outright, even when he knew I could get up and prove he was lying.

Anyway,

I am getting lost on how to handle this. It seems that the more “mild I am” about handling the lies or the more I confront him, the more the lies seem to come. Will the lying ever get better? How can I make this a better boundary? If I put my foot down, he some how convinces me that I am blowing the lying out of proportion. When do I roll with it and when do I put my foot down?

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[briefcase]

It sounds like he just has a habit of lying.  I think the best thing you can do right now is postively reinforce honesty, and express disappointment or anger over lies. 

So, if he's upfront and admits he didn't do the dishes, or whatever, acknoweldge his honesty and don't react much to the underlying issue he was honest about (the dishes).  This assumes you are talking about day to day stuff and not something big, like faithfulness, etc.  And, be consistent. 

It's about all you can do on your end of this.  He'll have the be the one to decide that lying is not a good way to deal with issues. 

   

[dawnjd]

Thanks briefcase. I am just wondering if the habit can ever be broken. He recently said he lies because he is constantly in "survival mode" and would/has lie, cheat and steal to survive. Sounds exhausting.

[Grey Kitty]

Thought #1: Perhaps with enough validation and patience you will convince him that you can accept him as  he is and he doesn't have to lie. This is gonna be a long road though.

Lie #2) SO is an artist and he sells pieces on a website. Often, when he has a piece unfinished, yet wants to sell it, he photoshops it. I hate this. I feel it is dishonest to the customer. He is, “I will make it look exactly like the photo. They will never know.” I run his website and sales, so I hate being in the middle of this ‘fraud’. We have only had one customer complain once….and gave a full refund.

That sucks. If you are going to choose to make an issue out of it (you do have to choose your battles!), you could just refuse to post photos of artwork you haven't seen finished. Or refuse to deal with a customer when the piece isn't finished, letting him deal with it.

I'd try to avoid giving him opportunities to lie--don't ask about the dishes; just see if they are done.

I don't know how I'd cope with that--I'm a very honest person and just don't have much patience for this kind of stuff.