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Original poster

Compulsive liars - why do they do it and do you know any?

31 replies

Dyingflowers · 09/07/2020 20:19

By the time I ended out ten year relationship I didn’t know who my ex was. Big lies, small pathetic lies. Multiple conversations around the same lie, keeping the lie up even when when he’d been found out.

Why do they do it? Do you think they feel shame? I don’t think my ex did. I think he just got annoyed I’d found him out.

Do you think compulsive liars can ever change?

OP posts:
Original poster
Dyingflowers · 09/07/2020 20:28

Bump?

OP posts:
livinthevidalockdown · 09/07/2020 20:34

My mother is a compulsive liar. I think she believes her own lies. They whole family knows that she is lying. She has done it for so long that know one says anything. I never believe a word she says. Not a word!

She will never change... she has a drinking problem too and that exasperates the situation

livinthevidalockdown · 09/07/2020 20:34

My mother is a compulsive liar. I think she believes her own lies. They whole family knows that she is lying. She has done it for so long that know one says anything. I never believe a word she says. Not a word!

She will never change... she has a drinking problem too and that exasperates the situation

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Tara336 · 09/07/2020 20:34

I would love to know the answer to that one. I had a friend tell absolutely awful lies that became more and more outlandish. It turned out she had a personality disorder (although could be lying about that as well). But the harm those lies caused is awful. I found out (just one) of the lies she told is that my husband was violent and emotionally abusive towards me! I had no idea she was telling anyone who would listen that I was being harmed. It’s been so embarrassing having to explain to people that is not true and I’m fine.

halfmoonbay · 09/07/2020 20:45

My mother is also a compulsive liar, as are at least three of her four sons. My adult daughter now appears to have the 'liar' gene as well as being an alcoholic. I was hoping for a different life but I feel these traits are there and are genetic, I feel lucky as it has missed me but I worry for my daughter.

Lottiebugz22 · 09/07/2020 20:49

I know one and he's admitted that he does it to make himself appear 'better' and he couldn't stop himself doing it like it was an urge to lie.

Homemadearmy · 09/07/2020 20:51

Op my ex was the same as you, never ending lies, sometimes over pointless stuff. I now disbelieve every thing he said until it was verified. He would never admit he was lying even if I could he out, he would still insist it was the truth. I think he believed his own lies.
No I can safely say he didn't feel any sense of shame. Some of the lies truly baffled me. 12 years later I still wonder why

LightUpLetters · 09/07/2020 20:51

It makes them seem more interesting.

I know a fair few liars.

ScottishStottie · 09/07/2020 20:53

My mum has this tendancy but knows where it stems from so when she is aware of it happening she tries to stop.

It comes from her childhood with two alcoholic and abusive parents. When she went to school on a monday and people asked what she had done at the weekend, she didnt want to say 'i hid behind the sofa while my drunk dad beat my drunk mum', so she would lie.

So the lying became normal, and a habit that then became hard to break.

I would think that usually in these situations theres normally a similar back story.

CleverQuacks · 09/07/2020 20:54

I will hold my hands up and say i have been a compulsive liar. I have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and my lies have been part of that. I hate myself for the lies I have told but I just couldn’t stop. Thankfully I am now on the right medication and the need to lie is a lot less. I don’t think it will ever completely go though.

Kljnmw3459 · 09/07/2020 20:57

I know people like that. It's exhausting just listening to them. But even worse is talking to someone who doesn't tell outright lies. Just half-truths, lying by omission etc. You're constantly having to analyse everything and hard to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with it.

Kljnmw3459 · 09/07/2020 20:59

I'll admit though that when I was younger I did lie a lot, I was always trying to give people what they wanted. I never wanted to disappoint anyone so lying was easier. But it got difficult to keep a track of everything and it was exhausting for me and others so I learned away from that behaviour.

wantmorenow · 09/07/2020 21:01

Personality disorder, narcissistic and sociopathic. Pathologically lazy too. exH would enjoy lying about everything. Sometimes just to see if he could, sometimes to manipulate other times to avoid repercussions of not doing what he should have. Made up a degree education, jobs, past relationships, and life limiting illnesses to me and employers.

Complete fruitcake. 😳

ThisAintNoDisco · 09/07/2020 21:11

A close, fairly young relative of mine is a compulsive liar. He lies about stuff he simply doesn't need to lie about, trivial things that don't even matter.

We have called him out a few times - kindly - and it seems to simply be a habit. Sometimes he lies to avoid too many questions, sometimes he lies to appear more interesting, sometimes he lies because he is confused about what people really expect of him or how they'll react to him. It's become so ingrained that he is conditioned to just make shit up the minute he opens his mouth.

It's maddening and frustrating and sad, he can't be trusted to be truthful and he doesn't seem to be in control of it.

SecretWitch · 09/07/2020 21:20

We’ve had a fair few here on MN. One I very much enjoyed as her over the top life made for good reading.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 09/07/2020 21:26

I worked with one in a voluntary position.

It was interesting in that I think she was a genuine person with a deep need to be liked.

Her lies were not always malicious and sometimes very trivial but the malicious ones were dangerous.

I was convinced that she had some actual underlying non neurotypical issue driving it, it was like an inability to distinguish between a fact and something she had imagined.

And it was a massive shame for her because she was ghosted by friends left and right. After quite a long time of this, I spoke to her quite gently about it, and she never contacted me again. I obviously wasn't the first to speak to her about it and she didn't want to face up to it.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 09/07/2020 21:29

Yes the CL I knew was exactly like that @ThisAintNoDisco

They also had what I felt were ASD traits but no diagnosis. Lacked a lot of social graces/understanding of social cues.

xsquared · 09/07/2020 21:29

Yes, a former "friend" and colleague. Lied as easily as he breathed and what's more, I think he believed them as well.

He lied or exaggerated things about other colleagues, to make them look bad and him better. He lies about things I have supposedly said to him, not paraphrasing but actual lies to make me feel guilty so that he gets what he wants.

It is really draining to be around someone like that.

He's a gaslighter and absolutely toxic. When he started saying stuff about my own marriage, that was when I simply didn't give a shit about him anymore and realised far too late he was never a true friend.

He has been depressed in the past (or so he says) but it's still not an excuse to treat your supposed friend and confidante like shit. I do suspect he has a personality order but that is only from stuff that I have read from the internet and some books.

Original poster
Dyingflowers · 09/07/2020 21:36

Really interesting that a couple of people have had personality disorders.

Ex dad is a compulsive liar, ex actually warned me about him when we first met so I wonder if it could be a genetic thing?

wantmorenow my ex is the same right down to the pathologically lazy.

We’ve had massive whoopers over a sale of a house ( why I didn’t leave then I don’t know) to buying a new car and convincing me it was a courtesy car whilst his car was getting fixed, to telling me he was going to a certain take away for years whilst he was going to another one. I only found out because I went to pick it up myself at the take away I thought he was going to and it was totally different. He thought it was funny. But we’d had many many conversations about it. Blew my mind. I told him he needed help after that.

OP posts:
MaidenMotherCrone · 09/07/2020 21:45

I was married to one for a long time. I once overheard him regaling tales of when he lived in another country. He'd actually visited it for 2 weeks with college. Knobhead.

NellieandRufus · 09/07/2020 21:51

I knew one. I think he did it because he’d had quite an unsettled childhood and had feelings of inadequacy. It was frustrating but I always believed it came from a place of great sadness so I never used to challenge it.

ALongHardWinter · 09/07/2020 22:43

My exBF was a compulsive liar. Why? To this day I really don't know. By the time I ended our relationship,I knew that every time he opened his mouth,yet another lie would fall out of it. He'd lie about anything and everything,big things and small things. A couple of examples:
A small lie - telling me that his sister was actually 3 years older than she was.
A big lie - going abroad to visit his family and telling me he was going for 2 weeks. A few days after arriving there,he told me during a phone call that he was actually staying for 6 weeks! He swore that it was a last minute decision that he'd made since getting there,but I beg to differ.

EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 09/07/2020 23:34

I don’t think there is one answer best not waste time trying to understand them

Yes have known a few some not very nice people others are and insecure

One tells very very funny stories she likes the attention and making people laugh

UmberOmbreUma · 10/07/2020 00:00

My mum is a compulsive liar. She is very convincing. I have wondered for a while if she has a personality disorder. I definetly believe she is a narcasist. The worst thing about is she believes her own lies.

My sister is a compulsive liar too. She has been since she was a very small child, I remember my mum having to go into primary school multiple times because shed told appalling lies

As a teenager she was even worse. She had no friends at high school because her class mates knew she was a liar.

As an adult.... I am NC with her and my mum because together they come up with some insane stories & malicious lies. My sister will back my mum up on things that happened before she was even born. Adamant she was there! It's utterly bizzare

I cant speak for my mum but with my sister it was definetly down to neglect from my mum and i assume a need to try and get some attention off my mum. My mum was very distant, never told any of us she loved us and none of us can recall being hugged off her. She wasn't a warm mum.

The older my sister has got the more dangerous she has gotten with her lies.

I kind of feel sorry for her and at the same time i think she's a weirdo. We had the same life and i have my own traumas from it but i don't go around making awful stories up to get attention Confused

TravellingSpoon · 10/07/2020 07:22

My younger brother is a total CL. He is also an alcoholic, so the lies started to cover that, but he will lie a out anything now.

It's got to the point where if I can't prove it, or I didn't see it with my own eyes, I don't believe anything he says. I also have to reign myself in though because I find myself getting caught up in trying to prove what he is saying and its draining for my mental health.