BPD Lying. What's It All About?

[aristan2000]

I've been involved with a 48 year old female BPD for the past three months and it looks as if the relationship is ending. I have not physically seen her in nearly three weeks and she hasn't contacted me in nearly five days. Before this (last week) she left me a message saying that she heard I was "talking trash on Facebook. Since I had her blocked on Facebook, I knew that one of our mutual friends had told her. When I asked her if it was a specific guy she responded "No. I'm not Facebook friends with him" and I responded that they had just friended each other days earlier. She responded "Well, I unfriended him." I looked at her profile through another account I had and discovered that she was still friends with him. I texted her and told her I knew that she was still friends with him and her response was that I was "being petty" and that "she thought" she had unfriended him. She could never give me a direct answer, nor did she even explain WHY she might have unfriended him or what he may have done. It was baffling. I know this guy is only 18 and was attracted to her (we used  to all work together, but I no longer work there.) Why was she lying? To cover up a tryst with him? (she has mentioned being very sexually active and how young guys want her, but she always told me that she'd never go for that, but I don't trust what she says), to get me jealous?, or just for the hell of it? I can't make heads or tails out of this. Please share your thoughts! Thanks!

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[ponywise62]

I'm new here and still sorting out my experiences, so I'd wonder, too.  If you've blocked her on FB, isn't that detaching?  Sounds to me like she's one to be ignored, I think.

[aristan2000]

I'm sorry to hear you are having to deal with these issues as well. It is a horrible, dehumanizing position to be in. Her actions from the start have confounded me. Nearly three weeks ago, we spent almost half the day making out between getting errands done. That evening we were all supposed to get to together (She, me, my kids, her kids) and instead she ended up having an old friend and his young son over and so it never happened. Afterwards, I got increasingly weird text messages from her stating that she wasn't ready to be a "mom" to my four kids (I never asked her for this) and that she was "holding me back" from getting another woman (I don't believe she's being altruistic here). When I did contact her she said this man "declared his love" and that she "had feelings for him." She told me she felt like I was "smothering" her. We agreed that she would come to me and I would take it slow. I took this to mean that I do not initiate contact with her. After that she contacted me sporadically for the next week, but contact was less than usual. Then a week ago last Saturday (without warning) , she unfriended me on Facebook and then I did contact her. She later told her daughter that I was talking trash about her (the daughter's) husband and she unfriended and blocked me as well. She told me that she did this so I could "concentrate on my life" and that I am "too distracted" by her. The morning after she claimed that this guy wasn't her friend, she did call me, but I had the ringer off. I texted her, we had a very brief interaction and she hasn't called or texted since then. I'm guessing we are totally done, but given her pathology, I'm not sure. Any thoughts?

[ponywise62]

I'm guessing we are totally done, but given her pathology, I'm not sure. Any thoughts?

I'm sorry you're in this situation, too.  I'm a little over a year out of a 1-year relationship, so I've had time to process it.  Sounds like you have a rational handle on what's going on, very matter-of-fact.  She wants to go.  Can you release her and walk away?  Would you want to pick back up if it didn't work out with the other guy?

[aristan2000]

I'm guessing we are totally done, but given her pathology, I'm not sure. Any thoughts?

I'm sorry you're in this situation, too.  I'm a little over a year out of a 1-year relationship, so I've had time to process it.  Sounds like you have a rational handle on what's going on, very matter-of-fact.  She wants to go.  Can you release her and walk away?  Would you want to pick back up if it didn't work out with the other guy?

Well, I hope that she isn't sleeping with a guy 30 years younger, but I can't put it past her. Yes, I probably would want that in one way, but not in another, if that makes sense. It's been now over five days since she contacted me in any manner and I still hope she'll call. I'm guessing she's already decided it's over, but things where (seemingly) great the last day I saw her. This mystifies me.

[aristan2000]

I just still can't make sense out of the fact that she denied being Facebook friends with this 18 year old guy. I don't know why she'd want me to believe that!

[Notwendy]

I will give you my own explanation- I think the only way to make sense of this is that the lying is a decision in the moment, based on whatever the pwBPD is feeling or thinking. Trying to make any more sense of this isn't likely to lead to something logical or understandable. .

Trying to make some reasoning out of this isn't likely to be successful. I had to come to terms with this as an adult with my mother with BPD. As a child, we trust and believe our parents, and as an adult, I was shocked to catch my mother in several bold faced lies. When I asked her why she said them, she denied them. She has even said earnestly " I have never lied to you".

I can understand your feelings of hurt, betrayal, confusion, and wanting to know why your SO lied to you, just as I wanted to know how my own mother could lie to her daughter like that, and appear to have no remorse over it. To further confuse things, my mother is a basically good person. She obeys the law, pays taxes, is a good friend to her friends, gives to charity. So what is this?

My main conclusion is that we can't fully understand it.

But here are some of my own assumptions: shame, ( so as not to want to tell the truth about something), impulsivity- when feeling confronted, shame is triggered- get the person off your back by telling them something else. The drama triangle- feeling like a victim and believing that, in the moment, saying something to get back at the perceived persecutor is considered OK- not a lie if it is self defense. Feeling= fact- if in that moment, she feels it is true, then it is true- not a lie. And lastly- control.

That is the hardest one to not assign an evil plotting motive to, but it is more self seeking and self preservation than a decision to hurt you. My mother will tell lies to keep some sense of control over others. Being able to pull the wool over their eyes makes her feel safe as if she has some control over what people think of her. The underlying feeling behind this is possibly that if people really knew the truth, then they might leave her? Abandonment.

The bottom line is that none of these reasons likely have anything to do with you, but are survival/coping mechanisms for the pwBPD. They do what they have to do in the moment.

Our "job" with this is to take care of our end of the situation. If our feelings are hurt, we can take some solace in that it isn't about us, and choose not to take it personally. The consequence of lying is on the person who lies. People stop believing what they say. You can choose to do this as well.

Then, we have to also decide what is our business and what is theirs. Who she friends on FB is her decision. She can friend anyone she wants. If you ask her, she can say anything she wants. You she has a relationship with is her business and unless it is against the law, it is her business, and 18 is legal, even if you feel it isn't appropriate. She is who she is. Your task is to understand that this is the whole package- you can not change her. Yes, she has her good points, as many people do, but if you choose to be in a relationship with her, this is who she is.

[aristan2000]

I understand what you are saying NotWendy, but I still don't understand why she engaged in that particular lie where she denies being FB friends with him when that was something that could be checked so quickly. When most people lie, there is a clear reason or motive. Do BPDs tend to lie about pointless things for absolutely no reason at all? What was the point or motivation to this lie?

[Notwendy]

The emotion at the moment is the reason. But emotions come and go. In the moment, they feel real to them, but once passed the feeling is gone.

I know it is hard to wrap a logical mind around this, but emotions are not logical.

One example is that my mother called up some of my family members to tell a whopper about me. Well one of them was my husband, who got off the phone and said " guess what your mother said to me" ?

When I confronted her, she had no explanation for it. The moment was over. Yes, she told a whopper that was completely able to be verified.

When most people lie, there is a clear reason or motive.

If for people with BPD  Feelings = Facts, then to them, the feeling in the moment is the fact of the moment and that is the clear reason or motive.

However, feelings can be brief. In the moment, your GF said what she said. She may have had her own reason for it, but since we can't read minds, we can not know for certain what another person is thinking or feeling in the moment, (unless they choose to tell us. ). It could be that she herself doesn't recall or know exactly what she was thinking or feeling at the time she said that.

IMHO, you will only make yourself crazy trying to make logic out of something that is only logical to someone else.

It is possible that she's even forgotten it, it is likely not a big deal to her, but your wondering is what is making this more than it is. The answer to why is that, we can't really know.

[aristan2000]

Just so much of this "relationship" makes little sense. After her declaring that she had feelings for another guy, she stopped seeing me as she said I was "smothering her" but basically said the relationship may work if we went slow and let her come to me, so I then initiated ZERO contact and a little over a week later she unfriended me on FB thus creating a situation where I was almost programmed to call her! I don't understand most of this except it hurts and I'm hurting more than a normal break-up!

[Fr4nz]

Just so much of this "relationship" makes little sense. After her declaring that she had feelings for another guy, she stopped seeing me as she said I was "smothering her" but basically said the relationship may work if we went slow and let her come to me, so I then initiated ZERO contact and a little over a week later she unfriended me on FB thus creating a situation where I was almost programmed to call her! I don't understand most of this except it hurts and I'm hurting more than a normal break-up!

I agree, a normal person does not behave like this, i.e., she would have kept you as a friend in facebook and "demoted" you from romantic to a simple friend in real-life; indeed, it may happen that a person doesn't want to continue with a new potential romantic relationship, but an emotionally sane person usually does not need (or want) to play these games.

Instead, she probably played some kind of game on you, where she wanted to be chased or she just needed some man as emotional support; since you didn't contact her, maybe she perceived that you were going to abandon her, thus making her do a pre-emptive strike by unfriending you in FB.

All in all, this behaviour is incredibly self-centered, selfish and childish; frankly I don't need such kind of women, and neither you do.

So, my advice is to keep no contact and forget her, you don't need her as your girlfriend.

[C.Stein]

But here are some of my own assumptions: shame, ( so as not to want to tell the truth about something), impulsivity- when feeling confronted, shame is triggered- get the person off your back by telling them something else. The drama triangle- feeling like a victim and believing that, in the moment, saying something to get back at the perceived persecutor is considered OK- not a lie if it is self defense. Feeling= fact- if in that moment, she feels it is true, then it is true- not a lie. And lastly- control.

I'll add a couple to this list based on my experience with my ex.  

1) Lies/deception to avoid confrontation.  This is weakly tied to shame base lying.

2) Lies/deception to get something they want where they think the person being lied too might stand in their way of getting that something.  This is weakly tied to control.

I might add that lying is not necessarily BPD, but the disorder certainly generates circumstances where lying is a "natural" result.

[Turkish]

This is a common discussion on the boards, and it's hard to wrap our heads around what we see from out point-of-view as someone denying what is easily fact-checked.

Christine Ann Lawson PhD, in Understanding The Borderline Mother, comments:



Distortion is an unconscious way of processing information that reflects the individual's reality.

This falls into the category of perceptual distortions, such as false accusations of abuse.

Lawson goes on:

Some borderlines consciously distort the truth in order to prevent abandonment, maintain self-esteem, or avoid conflict. Others may lie to evoke sympathy, attention and concern.

From the borderline's perspective, however, lying feels essential to survival (emphasis mine)

... .(Although not all borderlines consciously lie, all borderlines experience perceptional distortions.) When desperation drives behavior such as lying or stealing, they feel innocent of wrongdoing and do not feel guilt or remorse, Aplogies are rare, therefore, and borderlines may be confused about why others expect them to feel remorse. They believe that others would do what they did in order to survive. Their explanation is succinct, "But I had to!" Thus the borderline is unconcerned with the consequences of lying... .

[C.Stein]

Lawson goes on:

Their explanation is succinct, "But I had to!" Thus the borderline is unconcerned with the consequences of lying... .

My ex's explanation was simply ... .I didn't do anything wrong.  

She had literally convinced herself that deceiving and lying to me was ok.  The lies she was telling herself and the resulting avoidant and nonempathic behavior which followed did far more damage than the actual lie.  That statement also suggests to me she was telling my replacement the same thing in order to cast herself as the victim.  In her eyes she did "nothing wrong" and the consequences of her actions (i.e. my withdrawal and distancing) was undeserved and perhaps she even portrayed it as malicious.

She also never accepted responsibility for what she did and she attempted to blame me for it.  When she did tell me that she had deceived me she claimed it was because she knew it was wrong.  She issued an insincere apology (insincere given she didn't feel she had done anything wrong) and then quite literally acted like nothing had ever happened.  The real reason she told me however was because she wanted to do something that would have exposed her deception.  The "admission of guilt" wasn't an admission at all and it was just as selfishly motivated as the deception/lies were.  It had nothing to do with what was best for me and our relationship.  Fact of the matter is she would have never told me if it weren't for that, and she made that abundantly clear with her confidently stated declaration "you would have never found out if I hadn't told you.  I don't have to point out what this statement implies.

Sadly she didn't understand, and never will, just how profoundly this hurt and damaged me and our relationship.  She never once showed any guilt or remorse for how she had hurt me or the damage she had done, nor do I recall her apologizing for hurting me.  I think the closest she got was I'm sorry, I screwed up in that tone of voice that she didn't believe what she was saying.  The end result of this is she swept it all under the carpet pretending like it never happened and expected me to just get over it.  Her belief she didn't do anything wrong justified her complete avoidance of what she had done and therefore never once tried to fix the damage she had caused.  

At the end she claimed she was "giving me space" yet I never asked for space.  Seems the only person she was giving space to was herself.  I now realize it also marked the beginning of my devaluation as a partner and she started to distance herself from the consequences of her actions ... .i.e. away from me.