Do you lie every day ? Is it normal to lie about minor things regularly?

[Isitjustathing]

Do people really lie every day ?

I have ASD and I never lie. To me, things are right or wrong , true or false etc . If I’m asked a question I just answer with the truth as that’s the default setting in my mind. I thought this was normal ?

I’ve realised that maybe it’s not ? People seem to lie all the time ? It’s making me feel SO confused and almost questioning my reality. Is lying actually normal ?

A few examples are :
-a school meeting - what was discussed was then totally different to what was put in the meeting notes ? I had to go back and ask for it to be corrected. It wasn’t genuine mistakes which would have been ok it was things that hadn’t been discussed at all or things that had and my response was recorded as different to what actually happened. Then trying to discuss the meeting and being told a different name of someone present.

-DP - really small constant lies which drive me mad. General conversation stuff. ‘How was your day / what did you have for lunch etc’ type things. He will say he had a good day was based at the office and had a sandwich then the next day will mention having been somewhere different and the team meeting over lunch at a restaurant and doesn’t seem to think it’s weird ?

He will tell me he’s taking my car to work but then I’ll get up and see he took his after all.

He will go out and say he’s going with one friend to a certain location then a week or so later will talk about the night out but it’s a different person at a different place . He went on holiday last year and told me a different city name to the one he went to . He says why’s it’s an issue it was in the same country ? But to me it seems strange ?

There are so many other things just little everyday things . Over and over and it makes me feel like I don’t really know where I am mentally. DP says ‘everyone lies ‘ and that the bigger problem is me always telling the truth to the point of brutal honesty and seeing things so black and white and not in fact his white lies each day

Is this normal ?

Being inaccurate or making a mistake isn't lying. Changing your mind after saying something different isn't lying. Holding back your personal opinion because it's socially inappropriate to say something that could be taken as rude, cold, hurtful etc isn't lying. So, no, most people don't lie all the time about minor things.

Having said that, most of what your husband is doing doesn't fall under any of those situations. Especially as he knows that it confuses you and upsets you, and he keeps on doing it when he doesn't have to. I'd be quite clear with him that you don't like it for the reasons you've said, and that it's inconsiderate and unkind of him to keep doing it. So you expect him to stop. If he can't remember what he was doing or where he went, then you'd rather he said that he didn't remember rather than make something up to answer you. If he changed his mind, then he needs to say that and if possible explain why. Etc etc.

If he objects to this and won't at least try to do it, then you'd have to ask yourself why? Your husband is meant to be someone who loves and supports you, not someone who intentionally unnerves and upsets you.

Your husband’s lies aren’t normal. There is no reason to lie about those things- it’s really strange.

I tell social “white lies” sometimes- if someone asks if I like their haircut, say. I lied to my mum the other day- she phoned and I answered when out on a walk with DH, and I said I was driving and would call her back when actually the truth was that I was walking but didn’t want to talk then as it was unfair on DH- how easily I lied when it would have been easy to tell the truth really shocked me. It has made me take a bit more care about telling the truth and not just lying because it’s easier and quicker.

I was married to a man who lied every day about every little inconsequential thing, and massive huge things. The two are definitely linked.

He used to tell lies in front of my that I knew were lies ie ‘the carpet was £2k’ when asked by friends. when it was £1500 and I would pull him up later and he would say what does it matter.

He would lie about so many things to so many people I thought I was losing my mind.

Now looking back I can see it for what it was, he’s just a complete weird person who lies and believes his own lies which is scary to be around really. Our kids also know he’s a pathological liar. It’s so strange.

it wasn’t me. I wasn’t going mad. It’s not you. You’re not going mad. But you do need to get out

I would advise a break from your dp, is that possible? One of you stay with friends or family for a while?

You need some time away from him if he’s making you feel this anxious and insecure and you’re struggling to judge his behaviour objectively.

You definitely don’t grasp the accepted notion of lying as a social construct. That’s an abstract concept to grasp, whereas it’s clear you’re very literal!

As a general rule of thumb try to decide whether a lie (or false information) is:
>a mistake
>inconsequential and not worth confronting
>used kindly to spare uncomfortable feelings
>a deliberate deceit to hide misbehaviours

The rules above can be used in social situations.
However please consider time apart from dp to examine your feelings. He is making you insecure and unhappy.

,He will go out and say he’s going with one friend to a certain location then a week or so later will talk about the night out but it’s a different person at a different place . He went on holiday last year and told me a different city name to the one he went to . He says why’s it’s an issue it was in the same country ?*

This is the weirdest bit.

Going on holiday is an out of the ordinary event and no one would forget where they were going to. He will have had to book travel to that city, accommodation etc, so he wil have known full well where he was going. Same with a night out. There is no way someone could accidentally tell you they were with someone different or in a different place.

These are definitely both deliberate lies, but it's unclear what he stood to gain from them, except for messing with your head. It's nasty behaviour.

The lunch thing - I normally have soup for lunch, so if someone asked I might automatically say soup, forgetting that I'd popped to a cafe with a friend. It wouldn't be a 'lie' as such, just an autopilot answer coupled with misremembering.

Re: the car - it's plausible that he was on autopilot and forgot he needed to take your car when he went to drive in the morning, and just did what he usually does. (Out of interest - I assume when he announces he's taking your car it's because he needs to for some reason? Is it bigger or something?)

OP, I’d let the minutes thing go, because that might just be that they’re rubbish at taking minutes or have poor routines for it. I do a lot of that sort of stuff for my work and it’s common to get into the lazy habit of basing them off the previous minutes which means if you don’t proofread them and check that, for example, you’ve filled in the attendees correctly for this meeting you end up with masses of mistakes. It’s great when people take the time to properly read them and check that there are no glaring errors. They might not be lying, they might be sloppy or over-worked - anything really.

I agree with previous posters that your husband’s lies sound pointless and worrying. Without knowing you and your relationship IRL it could be hard to say though. I’ve known some autistic people who in their interactions with others can be perceived as argumentative and aggressive, to the point that I noticed that the people around them started making small lies to get out of being bogged down in an argument. Obviously the autistic person noticed this without understanding it and got more upset and distressed. So for example they’d say no thank you I don’t want coffee I already had some, because if they said no I fancy going out and getting a coffee today they’d be questioned and had to go through a long process of justifying themselves because it didn’t seem rational to the autistic person who then couldn’t let it go. But when they then go out and get coffee it seems like they’re lying outright.

From what you’ve written I don’t think this is the case with your husband, but I wanted to put it out there.

^ bold fail

He will go out and say he’s going with one friend to a certain location then a week or so later will talk about the night out but it’s a different person at a different place . He went on holiday last year and told me a different city name to the one he went to . He says why’s it’s an issue it was in the same country ?

But where is the line?

If someone is deliberately lying that is one thing but if someone just thinks that the other person is lying and looks deeply into eventhing that person does or says then I am sure they can always one up with things they can label as lying

'I am just off to go to the library'

Gets back, the second person finds out they went to waterstones

'You said you were going to ghe library'

'I went to waterfronts instead'

'But you said the library'

It can carry on

I would not tolerate being spoken to like that I may have decided to by a book instead ofborrowing one, or many other reasons

I would find this reaction controlling

I'd be worried about his memory, actually. The 'lies' he's telling are so unnecessary I'm wondering if actually he forgets what he's done that day and is embarrassed about it, and just covering memory loss as lies.

I do tell white lies but they were mainly to my mum who was too too intrusive and convinced she needed to know the minutiae of my life. Anything that was at odds with what she'd do would be moaned about extensively. So telling her a jumper cost £20 not the £40 it really did and that I could easily afford saved hours of grief.

The lies your H is telling are typical of someone who is either abusive and/or having an affair.

If he lies about where he is going and who he is with there is a deliberate reason for that.

In the wider scheme of him telling lies about so much then I wonder if the taking the car thing is gas lighting so you can make out you aren't remembering things properly again to cover up his lies about where he is and who he is with.

Your husband is gaslighting which is effectively mentally torturing you. Leave now.

I agree entirely

I went out with a friend this week. There is no way I would have told my DH the wrong location or friend, that's not something you could do accidentally.

However, before we went to our show we had a meal. I previously told DH we were planning to eat at restaurant X. When we got there, we didn't fancy what was on the menu, so went to restaurant Y instead. That was not a lie, just a change of plan as no booking had been made.

So it's possible to tell someone the wrong thing without lying. But what your DH is doing is different to that.

Perhaps view it like this:

regardless of your boyfriend’s motives when he gives you false information, the result is endless confrontations, to-ing and fro-img in your determination to get to the truth, refusing to let small details go (eg using pasta for tea) and you feeling increasingly frustrated and confused.

How long have you been together? This is not working- it’s an unhealthy dynamic you’ve fallen into

I lied to my husband. He noticed an empty jammy dodgers packet in the bin, and asked if I’d eaten them and I said, no, a badger broke in, and stole them. He replied that you have to be careful of badgers. They love jammy dodgers, so I think I fooled him.

OP It sounds like your DH is a compulsive liar.

It can be unbelievably difficult to live with. My mum is a compulsive liar and so I grew up with it. It really messed with my head. She would lie about things that were completely inconsequential and for no benefit.

For example she would pick me up from school and we would go to supermarket A to pick up groceries, and when my dad got home she would tell him we went to Supermarket B. But he hadn’t even asked.

I sprained my ankle running and had to go to minor injuries. She told them I did it falling of a horse the day before.

There was no logic or reason.

I discussed it with her in later life snd she just didn’t seem to understand why it would be a problem. The notion of things being real or made up and people caring which was which. She kept saying that the outcome was the same so what did the detail matter. So in the examples above, the outcomes of “groceries bought” or “ankle sprained” didn’t change.

This sounds quite similar to your DH (“dinner made”, “lunch eaten”, “coffee drunk”, “holiday taken”).

Some people do have a very tenuous grasp of the truth

Some instances of what your hisband does sound strange.
In general, not every untruth is a lie. People make mistakes, they forget, they mis-say things. In addition, people lie deliberately for social reasons so as not to appear unkind.

He sounds like he has a strange relationship with the truth and is possibly using your ASD to gaslight you. So his lying doesn't sound normal.

I have a bad memory and also hate lying, so I lie rarely and the lies I tell are to save peoples feelings only, and then I struggle with that too but will do it to save somebody's feelings. Eg. Does my outfit look nice? Or Mummy does my drawing look lovely? Things like that.

I do think a lot of things, like meeting minutes, might be human errors not intentional lies, but it's always worth revising any major inaccuracies, like the people who were present. Notes aren't always 100% accurate if taken by somebody who is present in a meeting, but if they are varying widely from what actually happened I would consider raising that also, but not smaller variations that don't really matter if they've got the general idea right.

There is a psychological disorder as mentioned above- pathological liar also known as compulsive liar.
It isn’t a stand alone condition- usually goes hand in hand with a personality disorder.

The pathological liar cannot control the compulsion to lie despite it ruining relationships, causing difficulties at work and sometimes causing the liar themselves great psychological distress.

Most people tell ‘ white lies ‘ to save other peoples feelings. Eg: ‘ I can’t go out tonight because I’m busy or have no babysitter’ instead of ‘I’m not going out tonight because I don’t like Muriel who will be there or I just don’t want to’. It just softens the blow sometimes.

What your partner is doing is blatantly lying to you. That’s not normal at all. Then telling you, you’re the issue because you’re truthful, that could be classed as gaslighting.
I wonder why he lies he so much? Is he a compulsive lier? He can’t even cover his tracks …. He’s the problem not you op.

That was quick thinking

I would be suspicious that my partner was hiding something if they lied all the time like that (and then gaslighted me when I pulled them on it). When my ex used to do that to me it was to hide a gambling problem, but I also a common pattern with other addictions, like drugs and alcohol, and affairs. If honesty is an important value for you and something which he doesn't share then I would consider ending the relationship anyway, whether he is hiding something else or not. Because your values are not in line, and he is making you feel bad about your feelings and making you question yourself constantly. And also there is no trust.

Be careful. It's weird and not normal. Is he gaslighting you? Eroding your confidence in reality? Don't stand for it. It's not you. It's him.

@Pinacalola just say that your experience must have been very distressing and confusing for you as a child . Really sorry