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 ?

He's gas lighting you. Is he trying to make you feel like you're loosing your mind or something?! It is all him not you. He is in the wrong.

The term gaslighting is really overused these days but this is pretty much the textbook definition.

He’s trying to mess with your head and make our like it’s your fault/ blame the fact that you have ASD.

Yes people lie, I told my DD we didn’t have the ingredients in for baking when we did because I wasn’t up for it right then, might come up with a polite excuse to refuse an invitation rather than just saying ‘I don’t want to/ can’t be bothered’. DH lies too, but more like ‘oh the supermarket didn’t have X you asked for’ instead of just saying he forgot or wasn’t really listening in the first place.

I’ve never told DH I was in one city when I was in fact in another, never said I was out with one friend when it was another. Why on earth would I? Why would anyone? There’s no benign reason really is there?

I think it’s incredibly difficult to judge your partner’s motives and behaviour here.

On the one hand, he could have bad intentions and sinister intentions,

On the other hand, your perception of “lies” you have encountered outside of your relationship are skewed.
For example feeling incensed about mistakes in a meeting report and assuming underhandedness and your dogged pursuit of the truth in fairly minor details.

Can you talk to someone impartial about this in real life? A family member you can confide in?

Yes. I suppose it's hard to know based on the account of one person what the truth is. As you report it, your husband's behaviour does sound odd, but you've also had problems with the school...and you may well be justified in your opinion there too, but it does raise some questions. What about other family and friends, do you find them to lie or not?
Sometimes people do lie just to simplify things (as well as for the other reasons pp have listed, mistakes, forgetting etc.) I live with someone who has asd and ocd (my teen) and I do lie to keep them calm sometimes as telling the truth would seriously agitate them. It's not ideal and I feel bad, but it makes life easier for us both, so I tell small lies. That said, I can't imagine why naming a different city would make things easier. Maybe he does have a very casual relationship with the truth and you're right. Or maybe he made a mistake and you have a tendency to be less than understanding about it and he gets defensive. Or maybe it's a bit of both, or something else.

Your definition of lying is different from most non ASD people. I would consider a lie to be an intentional thing where someone deliberately tells someone something which is untrue. Your definition of lying is anything anyone says which is untrue. Your definition includes people misremembering things or accidentally saying/ writing the wrong thing, which happens all the time in normal life for everyone (unless you happen to have photographic/ very good memory which I think can be common in ASD).

If someone writes something which is not 100% accurate in meeting minutes is it not important and therefore can be ignored unless it changes the actions from the meeting. I.e. in most people make errors and that is part of life and non ASD people intrinsically know this and have adapted to build this into our reponses to stuff. Like there is a threshold of wrongness and things are ignored unless they hit the threshold.

I think you need to separate what your husband is doing from other people.

There's no rhyme or reason to most of his lies, and yes, they are lies (though I'd probably exclude something like the coffee situation or the car he took to work - that seems more like changing his mind).

Some of the circumstances with other people come down to memory, absent mindedness, changing your mind etc - but you're characterising all of those things as lies. The minutes example - it simply wouldn't occur to most people to call what was done lying.

I produce very accurate minutes - the chair then often chooses to soften or alter what I wrote, but she appreciates the accurate capture. Neither of us feel that this amounts to lying.

There’s a few issues. Your Dp lying about where he is and what he has done is not normal. He is hiding something and then making out that everyone does it and you just don’t get because of your ASD presentation.

But in the flip side, you see something that are lies that are not. Him saying he was taking your car then taking his own, could be just him changing his mind. Him wanting to leave early for a coffee is boarderline. He may have wanted a buy a coffee, turning yours down or saying he had one isn’t necessarily a lie. He may have had one and wants to buy one.

The problem is that he is lying about important things, like where he is and you seem to have started reading people changing their mind as lies. Or people making mistakes as lies.

I honestly think your dp is hiding something or lies on purpose so he can keep you on the back foot and make you think your ASD is the issue. Not everyone is like your dp. What he is doing is abusive.

I do tell small white lies. Usually to save peoples feelings. My friend cut their own hair this week and hates it. It does look awful. I didn’t tell that. I told her it wasn’t as bad as she thought and said ‘but if you hate it let’s try and style it different or see if we can get you in at a hairdresser’ I helped her fix it but telling her ‘shit yeah, that’s horrific and I don’t think it can be fixed as you cut it so short’ wasn’t going to help her.

what your dp is doing is awful and it’s causing you further problems navigating the world. I would be ending the relationship.

I would consider a lie to be an intentional thing where someone deliberately tells someone something which is untrue.

Yes agree with this. I sometimes tell kids we're having pasta for lunch and end up doing rice because we were out of pasta, or I subsequently decided rice went better with other ingredients of the meal, or I was on autopilot and opened the wrong packet.
My earlier statement to kids was a mistake, not a lie. There was no intention to deceive.

Red flag.

I bet when you get through examining it you find out he is playing some weird power and control game. Sorry.

It won't be you, it'll be him that is the problem.

OP It sounds like your DH is a compulsive liar.

Yes. What lies behind this is probably complex, but the reality of what the op is dealing with is simply this. It’s normal for most people to tell white lies or minor untruths that don’t hurt anyone, but that’s not what is going on here. Yes, some of her husband’s ‘lies’ may fall within that normal range and some may just be indecision, but constantly lying about factual things like where you had lunch yesterday is not normal and is what is quite naturally leading op to question everything.

If I were in a relationship with someone who had a low tolerance for lies, I’d try for their sake to cut down on white lies. Like how I (try to) remember not to be sarcastic with a colleague I know takes things very literally as I’ve confused him in the past. I know who I’m talking to, care about their feelings and modify my approach as a result. Not only is op’s husband not doing that, but he is telling an unusual volume and type of lies and trying to make the op think she is the odd one for finding this disconcerting. Anyone would be disconcerted by this (the example of telling her three times he was making pasta and then presenting rice without some sort of explanation stands out to me), let alone someone who is more rigidly truth-telling than most.

I think you’re probably right that there is game-playing going on, op.

You say in your OP that you find 'people' lie all the time. Do you just have this problem with DP/the school? What about other family and friends? Because that could tell you a lot about whether the issue is yours or his.

Does your husband lie to everyone or just you?

Op you have very rigid thinking~ true or false, right or wrong. That undoubtedly gives rise to confusion when navigating social situations.

Would it help you to categorise “Lying” in your mind into the following types. Each type will affect how you react or indeed if you react at all:

Group 1- a white lie
Group 2- a lie to hide misbehaviour
Group 3- an inaccuracy or mistake without bad consequences
Group 4- a lie which intends to trick or deceive you for personal gain

Examples;
Group 1: thanking your partner for cooking a meal and saying it was nice despite thinking it was over cooked and a bit too spicy.
Group 2: denying you have done something that is immoral
Group 3: Writing down the wrong date on an invitation by mistake
Group 4: Giving someone false information in order they invest in you or to invoke a certain reaction, say a scam to obtain your bank details or teasing someone for entertainment

I do lie sometimes, to prevent people feeling bad or occasionally with my children if I really can't be bothered with an argument. It's rare though - I don't like lies but I'm also a massive people pleaser.

I do know of at least two people that lie quite frequently and in what I feel are quite serious ways. One will blame other people for anything that goes wrong and might mean that she gets into hot water, and this includes making some quite serious allegations about others. She also lies for male attention and sympathy. I've been on the tail end of a few of these lies and it has cost me friends and caused huge fall outs. She's done it for years but is very good at making new friends and social groups so just moves on. I do wonder how longer term friends and her partner don't pull her up on it. Maybe they are gas lit by it all.

The other is a colleague, hers are more like your husbands, and she will lie about literally anything. What she had for dinner, where she went last night but also that she heard X talking about Y etc. She has a reputation for doing this which is such a shame because she can be a really fun and caring person.

For me there are different types of lies of different severity and some I can understand but others I can't. I wouldn't like to live with someone that I couldn't trust - it's hard enough working with them or being related. But it is hard, I really like the people I've mentioned above, just wish I could believe what they say and that they didn't say things to get others into trouble.

He's a liar and a gas lighter OP, I'm just wondering why you're with him when your morals are very different from his? Or is this something you have only just realised/noticed?

I had an ex who was a compulsive liar and I think it was about a power dynamic and also bigging himself up/ making himself look a certain way. He'd lie about the stupidest things.

An example is he once went into a shop and bought some liquorice all sorts and told the person behind the counter a whole story about them being for his pregnant daughter who was having strange cravings.

He didn't have a pregnant daughter, he just fancied some liquorice all sorts. It was so weird.

I think he wanted a) something to talk to/ flirt with the (female) shop assistant about, and b) didn't want to admit he was buying sweets for himself as he saw it as being a bit childish.

I really don't know. It was just so weird. I can't relate to it either, OP, and I hate compulsive lying. There's always a reason for it but sometimes the reason makes little sense, even to people who don't have ASD.

It's hard to tell from online posts, but your husband sounds like he might be similar to this.

What you describe is not normal. Yes people lie, or fail to mention things (a kind of lying by omission) but not on the scale you describe, except for the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson who lied on an industrial scale.

Yeah, I was going to say it’s like he’s playing mind games.

The two that stand out: telling you he will use your car, you get all your stuff out, he doesn’t use your car.

Hes cooking pasta, pasta, pasta, until it’s rice. Only excuse would be he’s suddenly realised he’s run out of pasta.

People generally don’t tell these sorts of lies.

Can you work out his game plan?

Does he always want to feel superior to you? Is he hoping you’ll stop asking where he is, what he does? And why? Does he want to do things you wouldn’t approve of?

My ex would would often bridle at being asked certain questions. But it was usually things like asking him what time he would be back from the pub. Although he was a man with a wife and child he felt he he shouldn’t have to curtail his fun time for anyone else except him. He had feelings of superiority, I guess. He didn’t outright lie, but lies of omission didn’t bother him.

I would say that lying has become the 'norm' unfortunately but there are still some people who don't lie. I find lying abhorrent and I will not even tell a small lie to anyone.

So if someone was literally on their way to a wedding and asked if their outfit was okay, but you didn't like it at all, what would you say?
Or, on a more serious note, say someone's loved one had just died and you were asked if you thought they'd suffered? You think they must have suffered terribly - do you say that?
Because I do not think refusing to ever lie is quite the straightforward morally superior position you think it is.

I will not even tell a small white lie to anyone

I find this an odd stance and quite hard to believe. The truth at any cost can be extremely unkind as illustrated above.

Even just being asked How Are You? by an acquaintance doesn’t necessitate a tedious run down of your urinary tract infection or your impending sense of doom over a credit card bill.

Telling the truth can be equally abhorrent or inconsiderate,that’s the nuance of conversation and the grease that oils a civilised society.

I lie in social ways, e g if I am not feeling well and someone asks me how I am I'll say "fine". Or feign interest in something in which I have no interest, for the sake of being polite.

I'm autistic but am learning The Ways of the Neurotypical.

It’s not always easy eh? @Florissant 🙂
A lot of people find social situations difficult to navigate and make mistakes, that’s not just you x

I hope you can embrace your neuroduversity too and don’t always feel you have to mask it .

Have been trying to think of a reason someone might do this, other than to fuck with your head. The best I can come up with is that actually he was doing something else that he doesn't want you to know about, lied to you and then forgot what lie he had told.

Only about little things... I told my son the sweet I ate earlier was really spicy so that he wouldn't want them. That's about the extent of it.