People who constantly tell white lies - why?

[saminamina]

My sister constantly lies, about the smallest most insignificant things, and I really struggle to understand why.

She always talks about how her son, at 18 months, when seeing his little sibling come home from the hospital, said Take him back and slammed the door on her face. Her son didn't speak until the age of 2 1/2. When I finally reminded her, she just stuttered and said: "Well, he said "go" but his actions spoke louder than his words.

She will also use, it seems to me anyways, to make herself appear better than others.
She made up a story about how her niece came to the house, wearing white socks, ran around, before looking at her socks and yelling at her mom "wow mom, look, my socks are white!" before her mum said "do you mean our house is dirty?" "Well, in comparison to aunty's house, yes!"
or how her floor is so clean, guests always ask her how she hoovers.

She will also make up lies about her husband, how he threatened her with a divorce if she dared take her driving license (he encouraged to take her driving license), or why, the reason why she removed her hijab scarf (we are muslim), was because her husband forced her to. She then forgot about the lie and said that she removed it out of her own while because she didn't feel like it anymore.

She will make up nonsensical stories. One example: as a teen, she lightly pushed her bully with her hand and sent her fleeing against the wall, on the other side of the classroom and reduced her to tears and blood.

I don't understand why people do this?

I would imagine it stems from a mix of insecurity and a need for attention/ wanting to control the narrative other people have of them.

Is she the sort to care about other peoples opinions? This is what I've seen with people who constantly tell fibs/ exaggerate. Also always wanting to be the first to tell you anything.

It's very annoying as you never really know if you're being told the truth and they're such minor things, why bother lying about them.

I think you nailed it.

She also changes her stories in an attempt to manipulate people into doing something (I did this, so it's perfectly fine if you do it too!) that accommodates her.

I just always assume she is telling a lie, which is, sadly, the case the vast majority of the time.

My mum can be a bit like this. She doesn't even realize she's doing it half the time. Drives me up the wall. We call her jackanory. But I love her so we've learned to live with it as she's amazing in other ways.

I don't have the energy to lie as you always get found out unless you remember exactly who you've said what to, and ugh too much effort for me!