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Disgusting lie from my past has caught up with me

278 replies

NameChango · 25/01/2020 15:52

To start with I'm not making any excuses, when I was younger I was a pathological liar. I'm not even sure why, I think a lot of it was attention seeking, trying to make my life sound more interesting and it got out of hand. It got to a point the lies would come out before I'd even realised. Over the years I got caught out on many a white lie, even the most pointless little details, I simply couldn't keep up with my own lies and I lost many friends and relationships due to it. Totally deserved. Around 20 I hit rock bottom and realised I had a problem, I seeked counselling, got help with my anxiety and made a vow to not say anything that isn't both truthful and kind. That thought process is so engrained in my mind I still think of it almost daily, and I've not told a single lie, even the tiniest harmless one in a decade. I'm a different person, I'm engaged, I have a gorgeous baby. I'm truly happy.

However, as bad as the many white lies were. I told some massive, horrific ones that still haunt me to remember. The main one was that I claimed to a friend that I was sexually assaulted. I was 13 and the story I made up was horrific. I won't go into details but it was a disgusting thing to lie about and I'm truly ashamed. I didn't frame anyone, it was a made up situation with a made up person. I told the lie once and realised I'd ducked up and when I was ever asked about it again I just said I didn't want to talk about it. I never had the decency to admit it was a lie.

The old friend I told this to 17 years ago and I had totally lost touch for over a decade. I cut off pretty much everyone from my childhood, who hadn't already done so to me, to escape from the shame I guess. However my fiancé works with her now husband, I didn't know until he said to me this morning that he wishes I had told him. I asked him what he wished I'd told him and he said that his work friends wife's sent her well wishes to me, would love to catch up, and had apparently said she's glad to here I overcame the brutal assault and have a lovely family, said that it's always haunted her what I went through and she finds it hard to forget. He's asked to speak tonight after I said to him that I didn't want to talk about it.

I'm fucked. I wish I could go back in time and apologise. I wish I could. Back then I deserved everything I got, and I got a lot. I lost everything and everyone and isolated myself entirely for years until I slowly built a new life, as a new person. How can I tell my fiancé that I told such a vile lie. I could lose my entire family. But I promised I would never tell another lie, and I can't get away with repeatedly saying I don't want to talk about it.

Please no judgement, I'm as disgusted as you will be reading this, but I am a totally different person now and I just don't know what to do. 17 years is a long time and I just don't know how to fix it. Any advice would be brilliant.

I've changed my name, out of sheer shame. I'm sorry to any survivors of any sexual assaults reading this for belittling what you went through. I was a stupid young girl.

OP posts:
Rationalcat · 26/01/2020 15:54

The example I gave referred to 'That incident ' which technically is correct, meaning the occasion where the OP lied. She has moved on and made progress, which is correct.
She is telling the truth. Its a way not to lie but still keep her privacy, if she doesn't want to tell the whole story to her DP.

I was trying to find a way that helped the OP to keep her honesty, but still avoid spilling all.

I personally don't think she should be forced into confessing her past muck up to anyone.

Whatever you decide, OP, good luck.

OlaEliza · 26/01/2020 16:28

I don’t agree that the friend should not have told her husband. It was obviously something she was deeply effected by

I think she's just a big fucking bitch looking to stir up trouble.

Don't get dragged into foursome drinks/friendship etc with them. At all.

Feelingabitashamed · 26/01/2020 16:32

Ok, so 'technically' OP may not have lied but the whole foundation for her adult life is honesty.

I think by implying she has been assaulted and just wants to move on (by not telling the truth) is going against the principles she now lives by and will not help her. And what about the DP's concern and feelings of worry?

If OP genuinely had been abused I would agree that she did not owe him any details but in this case it is simply not true. I know it is very hard for her but in line with her commitment to honesty, unfortunately I think she needs to come up with a concise account of the truth.

Feelingabitashamed · 26/01/2020 16:34

And yes to OlaEliza do not get involved in these people. They are either wildly tone deaf or they have zero compassion for a troubled child and are 'calling out' OP now as an adult via her partner.

Oblomov20 · 26/01/2020 16:55

Children lying is not uncommon. Many children lie. About all sorts of things from very minor, to very major.

One of the children in ds1's class said they're dad worked for the Queen. He doesn't. He's a brick layer!

I know 3 local very young primary children, from 3 different families who said they'd been hit. They hadn't. I was asked to assist in supporting the families. After a long SS investigation they admitted they hadn't been hit at all. Ever.

These things do happen.

SanFranBear · 26/01/2020 17:03

I think those saying your old friend has done this on purpose are not necessarily being fair. In my mind, if OP really did go into very extreme details as she claims, it may have impacted the friend hugely (as she has said it did). This could then have cropped up in conversation with her DH in a 'I knew someone this happened to' kind of way without ever knowing she would meet or know you again given you hadn't spoken in years. When her DH then told her about his new role, the friend could have been quite shocked to realise you were who you were and blurted it out.

I obviously have no idea how they made the link to you now but I think some are being pretty harsh - bearing in mind the friend was only a young girl at the time too.

I hope it went ok, OP. Massive well done for turning it all around - I doubt there are many people alive who don't hugely regret something they've said or done in their past.. I know I do Flowers

BlackeyedSusan · 26/01/2020 19:43

Yes it was a daft thing to do, but you know, 13 year olds are not known for their sense! or thinking through consequences, what with not yet being adults. Don't be too hard on yourself. Many of us did daft things.

MarshaBradyo · 26/01/2020 19:47

You were so young, tell him the truth. Try not to let it eat you up.

I don’t think it was her place to bring it up.

Forcryingoutloudwtf · 26/01/2020 23:04

Tell him you were not abused. Explain you lied or just tell him he doesn't have to worry about it because you were not abused.

I have no idea why she took it upon herself to tell him that. They seems like a strange thing to do and she certainly was not trying to help you when she did it.

Dontbeatyourselfup · 27/01/2020 10:05

Sorry this is long, it resonates hugely here too. You're not alone.
I also told/created a stupid lie. It was life changing making a rotten situation far worse.

I wasn’t encouraged to have friends at school and was supposed to keep myself to myself. At junior school I was alternately either supposed to sit on a wall away from the school and wait to be picked up two to three hours after finishing, or if she was going to be later, make a long journey back and let myself into a grubby damp basement to wait, as I wasn’t allowed inside the flat alone.

In that unsupervised time, I’d secretly made a friend and been to her house. She was nice and her parents where kind to me and their basic home and life seemed like a fantasy dolls house to me.
But then she expected to come to mine, which I hadn’t known was normal.

Problem was my mother was a) working in a school so her reputation trumped everything, and b) an extreme hoarder who’d lost control of a monumental hoard and everything had turned to squalor. She also wasn’t coping and there was a lot of physical and emotional abuse going on.

Friend started making it clear not getting a return invite was a snub.
Desperate to keep her, I cleared up the cat crap from our basement, (cat lived there) swept out as best I could and lined up some chairs, (there because they had no seats and woodworm) put some material over them as a bed, a box for a table, and invited my friend round to play. Blush

She told her mother who apparently cried over the conditions in ‘my room’ before telling school. All hell let loose and I was a nasty little attention seeking liar who’d upset and hurt the only people who’d ever been nice to me, they where to good for me, and decades on typing that still makes me cry. I was told they couldn’t sleep, trust others, all sorts.
School told everyone to stay even clearer of me.
What was done to me for at home for it all, is beyond explaining.

The truth was the conditions I’d invented where a big step up.
I actually had no bed, sibling had one but I wasn't allowed on or in it. I had a very tiny space that I could barely turn in to exist in, ‘play’ in, and wasn’t allowed to touch almost anything in our home, and the damp, leaks and rotting material and dead creatures upstairs made my cleaned dressed up cellar seem a presentable ‘home’ to my young mind. I wasn't attention seeking or intentionally setting out to lie.

The 'lying’ to my friend and damaging her and her mother, and the need to protect my mother at all costs, altered the course of my life for the worse. Investigation over it lead to CSA and in turn a need to make sure that didn’t wreck the perpetrators life, and it all slid further down and down from there on.
We make childhood mistakes, sometimes big, and sometimes they alter our whole lives.

I was brought up as liar to protect adults’ behaviors, and it never occurred to me that my own free will lie could be so much worse.

I was accused of being a liar so much, while still being expected to constantly lie to protect, and ended up a ‘proper’ compulsive liar and a thief. (again, started with stealing to cover up what was going on)

You got help, and I’m so glad for you. Yes, children making up CSA causes issues for those going through it, but it’s not the real big issue around CSA - which is adults abusing children and jumping on anything they can find to cover it up. Please hear that you aren’t responsible for that, OK?

Tell fiance the simple truth. Lies, including by omission, often require more and more omissions or lies, especially when someone who knows your ‘secret’ uses it, as I suspect just happened to you.

At best she's tone deaf and dangerous, at worse seeking power and control over you.

If he’s decent he'll recognise that a silly little girl did something stupid and paid a high price and he needs to 'disapprovingly' say 'it's a taboo subject here' if workmate/wife ever raises it again.

If he doesn’t, then how ever painful, you actually don’t want to be marrying him.

Don't let your past be too big a deal in your future. I too would give you the biggest hug if I could.

Yoksha Flowers

In the unlikely event Denise B (as would have been back then) reads this and recognizes it: I’m SO sorry, Ironically, I just wanted to hang on to your friendship, nothing else.

NumbersStation · 27/01/2020 11:28

@Dontbeatyourselfup

Your post made me cry. If I ever met you, I’d give you the biggest hug that I could.

I hope on all hope that life is better for you now and that the future brings you joy and peace. Your courage and resilience astounds me.

I wish you well Flowers x

SouthernFreeez · 27/01/2020 12:48

I would just tell husband she must have got you mixed up with someone else and leave it at that. i wouldn't enter a discussion over it. it was 20 years ago and you were a child

Barbararara · 27/01/2020 13:38

I can empathise with the friend telling her dh. She heard this as a child, and presumably suffered severe secondary trauma. Why would she not confide in her own dh?

he, on the other hand is entirely out of line both in betraying his wife’s private confidences and being an insensitive, socially inappropriate gossiping jackass.

OP, I think you need to tell your fiancé the truth, and be prepared to give him time to figure this out. You’ve gained the respect of a lot of posters here. I think you’ll be able to work past this.

Would you think about reaching out to your ex-friend? It sounds like you’ve, inadvertently, hurt her very deeply. Secondary trauma wasn’t something that was well recognised years ago, and if she kept this a secret she probably had nowhere to turn for support. I think you owe her an apology tbh.

You also owe yourself a great deal of kindness, and respect for how you’ve changed your life. Flowers

callmeadoctor · 27/01/2020 22:41

Severe secondary trauma?...................... mmmmm

Bluntness100 · 27/01/2020 22:50

Op, be honest, you don't need to rake up the past. Just say it didn't happen, you were thirteen, there was a set of circumstances round it and you don't want to discuss it further, just shrug it off.

Bluntness100 · 27/01/2020 22:52

I also can empathise with the friend and her husband. The op describes it as a "brutal sexual assault" so for a thirteen year old this would stay with uou if it happened to a friend, and yes it is the sort of thing you'd tell your husband.

I can also see how some drunken insensitive twat of husband might mention it,

Bluntness100 · 27/01/2020 22:56

Don't beat yourself up, that's so sad and I really Hope life as an adult has treated you well. 💐

BasilOfBakerStreet · 27/01/2020 22:59

@Dontbeatyourselfup sending you so much warmth and strength. I have a feeling Denise B forgave you a long long time ago.
So sorry to read your story. Flowers

2018SoFarSoGreat · 27/01/2020 23:04

@Durgasarrow beautiful post. Thank you. It really struck a chord in me Flowers

@NameChango you were 13. You can rightfully tell your DF that you were caught up in all that teenage angst and regret the story. That's true. Please stop beating yourself up - you were 13. Be kind. Starting with yourself, and that 13 year old you were.

Halo1234 · 27/01/2020 23:09

Forgive yourself. You were a child. 13. Your brain was still growing. You can hold a 30 year accountable for something a 13 year old did (if that makes sense). You clearly see it for what it is now but at the time it u didnt understand to true serious nature of what u were saying. Kids lie all the time. I hear my ds and his pals tell lies to each other all the time "my bedtime is midnight" "i read 1000 pages of my book every night" "i made up the song ten little monkeys jumping on the bed" and so on......what u did had a more serious content u didnt understand at the time. U deserve to be happy. Agree with a pp who said show u partner this thread. U have explained the situation well.

Halo1234 · 27/01/2020 23:10

You cant hold s 30 year old accountable that should say sorry not can

VenusTiger · 27/01/2020 23:38

@NameChango as I suggested upthread, I think this 'friend' knew it was a lie back then, but doesn't know that you are a changed woman today. She probably thinks you're the same as you were at 13, so thinks she has the right to do this.
She obviously doesn't know about your therapy. I personally would tell her, it'll help you put all of this behind you. Tell her all about your therapy and how you absolutely cannot lie any more - tell your DH too so you're not sinking back into any lying traps again. She may still be angry about it, so you need closure on this, as does she.

GenderfreeJoe · 27/01/2020 23:44

You were a child then. You need to forgive yourself. Tell your husband what you have said here. I think it's pretty appalling that the woman passed that information on and then it got passed to your husband. But all that is behind you now. Best of luck op 🤞

2018SoFarSoGreat · 28/01/2020 00:20

@Dontbeatyourselfup [flowers) and a virtual hug if you'd like one. I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. I do hope life treats you much better now.

NotALurker2 · 28/01/2020 02:24

Tell your fiance you were a notorious liar at the time you knew this "friend," that you are deeply ashamed of your behavior and that she brought up this lie to humiliate you -- which it did. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind discussing a thing like that and to passing her well wishes along through her DH that way. It's bizarre. I'm sure she did it to harm you.

I also think that even though the lie was pretty horrible, it's not unusual for 13 year olds to lie. I wouldn't give up on trying to redeem yourself. Good for you for the progress you've made in life.

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