Compulsive liar....call out or ignore?

[Redlorryyellowduck]

Nc as she knows I'm on here.
A female relative is the most horrific liar I have ever met.
She lies about anything and everything, from small things to big things. Some of these lies are of no consequence (apart from being stupid and weird) but some are more significant.
Luckily I only have to see her a few times a year, but I'm torn between smiling and nodding, and pulling her up on every single lie. Mostly because I'm annoyed that thinks we are all stupid enough to believe her Walter Mitty version of life.
How do those of you unfortunate enough to have a Tom Pepp in your life cope with it?

I'm guessing this is op's brother's wife or dp? It may be an anxiety thing if she isn't really part of the family and it may be that she doesn't do it in everyday life.

Still no reason to have her round anymore though. But you don't know that she's affecting her dc. No harm in letting the dc know though that lying is clearly not a good thing and it's OK to not believe people when they're making things up.

I think it depends on their motives for doing it.
I used to work with a woman that was a total fantasist, everyone knew she was lying, so she was harmless in that sense.
Another one was a borderline sociapathic and a very convincing liar, you'd be doubting your own name if you spent time with her, she was dangerous and had the regard of management.
The former I would just humour, I honestly think she had a personality disorder, or was chronically insecure. I would have minimal contact with the latter and don't tell them anything, that can be used against you at a later date.

I have little problem with someone exaggerating slightly to make a funny story, after all we all see it all the time here on MN.

However blatant lies annoy me a great deal. I have a relative who will swear black is white and throw tantrums if corrected. I find smiling sweetly and a comment about rewriting history shuts the conversation down well.

My SIL is like this, but I’m not sure she actually knows when she’s lying. It’s like she says things without considering consequences or reality. It’s scary, it makes no sense, and she will lie about the littlest thing. I’m not sure confronting will do any good but depends on whether you value your relationship with this person

I work with someone like this. So far she has
Solved a murder
Saved herself by telling a doctor what to do mid operation
Died twice but been brought back
Been a lawyer
Been a nurse
Cared for a famous actor
Ran a pub
Been a nanny/tutor for a Russian Oligarch

I find it fascinating

Some posters have talked about gently letting her child know that you see she is lying. As the child of a fantasist this would have been really helpful to me. It would have to be done really sensitively though, because the child will of course have massive loyalty to her mother and will be conflicted.

My DH has a friend like this.
The lies are absolute stonkers which are so easily disproved (like pretending to have an identical twin even though DH has known his from birth, their families are close friends and DH is good mates with his sister🤥🤥)

Our whole friend group knows about him being a bit of a Walter Mitty so we usually just smile and nod when he's bullshitting.
Occasionally when DH has had a drink, he'll call him out on it. But Walter will just stare into space for a few seconds, stand up and leave without saying a word. We'll not hear from him for a few weeks then he'll reappear like nothings happened!! It's really bizarre.

I used to have a friend like this. I’m not sure how much of it was lies either - some of the things she said were so awful I really didn’t think people would lie about them but maybe she did.

I had to end the friendship in the end.

An ex of mine was a compulsive liar and - bluntly - affected me badly for many years afterwards. I will no longer accept it/ them, but I'm mortified if someone I think is a friend turns out to be a bullshitter.