Brother’s GF can’t stop lying

[Flymetothezoom]

I have recently moved nearer to my family after being away for 20 years. I am getting to know my brothers GF of 6 years. She never stops lying. Examples:

1. She is Catholic/Roma/Jewish/Protestant depending on the topic of conversation.

1. She earns £10k a month, even though she gets housing support and constantly borrows money

1. She was a top DJ/lawyer/chef -she actually worked in a call centre.

1. She runs two employment unions, works 20 hours a day on her business and has a day job.

I don’t care so much about these inconsequential lies, although they stop the flow of conversation because no matter the topic she is an expert and has done everything. These lies don’t really impact me but her nonsensical promises stop any of us in the family having a conversation.

For example:

1. We are having a Christening and were discussing cakes and she stops the conversation by saying that she was a professional baker and the cake will be a gift to us. She wasn’t, she didn’t. Luckily I suspected she wouldn’t so I got a back up cake.

1. We needed a builder, she stops the conversation by saying that she runs the office for a team of builders and they will come to see me the next day, never happens.

1. We are having a party, I discuss catering with my parents, she interrupts that she was a professional caterer and will do all the catering as a present to me.

1. She has volunteered to paint our house, redo our decking, relay the patio, buy me a designer bag, give legal advice, cut hair.. the list is endless and it is all nonsense. I don’t want or need her to do anything for me but I literally cannot have a conversation with my family because of her, she is always around them.

I have discussed it with my brother and he said that she believes what she says when she says it. What can I do?

Hi OP, while the effect on family conversations is frustrating, I think there are bigger problems here, above all your db, and by extension his children, getting sucked into her made-up universe.

To those who say call her out every time - that would likely make her extremely defensive and create an unsolvable conflict of loyalties for the brother. She may try to isolate him from his family, which would put an end to the fantasy conversations, but replace them with conversations on what may be going on with db.

It sounds like she has a personality disorder, and the person to talk to about it is you brother. How much bs is he willing to put up with? Would he like to be less endlessly accommodating, and how could that be achieved? Is it possible to sideline her grandiose claims quietly?

Whatever the answers, achieving any kind of lasting change will take some doing. Maybe gently encouraging him to split is the kinder solution. But like you I'd worry about her reaction.

It sounds like she might have a genuine mental health issue. People who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder will lie pathologically. Your brother might be aware but still love her anyway. Just go along with it and don’t believe any of it.

Namechanged to comment. Reading this thread with great interest because I have a relative like this.

She has epilepsy and has been blue-lighted to hospital several times when she wasn't coming out of a seizure. We wonder if she has some degree of brain damage from the seizures.

Whenever we have a family get-together she dominates the conversation with dramatic accounts of things we know aren't true. If we change the subject, she just introduces another high-drama topic.

It is very wearing, and I'd love to know how to deal with it. It's not possible to exclude her, but there are some relatives I only see at family get-togethers, and I don't get a chance to chat with them, due to this relative and her high-drama implausible tales which are always all about her.

It's as though the rest of us exist only in our role of audience. Like the OP she will make grandiose announcements of things she is going to do, which we know she is not going to do.

She had to give up work over twenty years ago, due to the epilepsy, and so she doesn't have to cope with a working environment, or colleagues who might call her out. I think she genuinely believes what she's saying, while she's saying it.

I'd love to know how to have a pleasant family get-together that isn't dominated by her and her drama.

It sounds like she might have a genuine mental health issue. People who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder will lie pathologically. Your brother might be aware but still love her anyway. Just go along with it and don’t believe any of it.

It must be such permanent hard work, though. I could see how you might cope with it if she gave some kind of signal every time she was about to tell a lie, so you could just ignore it; but when everything is or might be a lie - even the most stupid boring stuff of little consequence - how can you possibly go through your life like that? Plus, as we've already covered, what if it suddenly escalates?

Pathological liars do it for attention or a reaction, so they frequently wouldn't think to limit the scope of their lies - probably just say the first thing that comes into their head without thinking twice:

"Oh, I've got a degree in construction, so I can help you with building quotes; I'm an amazing baker, so if you want a cake, just leave it to me; I was on PopMaster yesterday and got 39 points in record time; I've filled the car up with petrol; the man at the corner shop dragged me around the back of the shop and raped me last month...."

Doesn't she have mental health issues? What does your brother think of it? He must have noticed that she's a constant liar...

@catscatscatseverywhere she says she has BPD and anxiety but who knows.

OP, do you feel as though your brother's GF thinks of you as real people? I feel as though my relative is living in some sort of fantasy in which she is the main character and the rest of us are just there in a supporting role. It doesn't matter what the rest of us think of her dominating all conversations with her various dramas, or whether or not we believe them, because our only role is to be her audience.

@Flymetothezoom wow it’s quite scary, isn’t it. I think everybody has a person around them who is a bit too much with talking about their life, plans or how superior they are, but she’s like Jeckyll and Hyde.

I used to work with a woman like this. She was always thinly veiled bragging about how successful her family was, how much her house cost, how she'd had fantastic jobs in the past and was so well educated. None of her stories added up though and her DH also worked for the company, so I knew most of it was nonsense.
She grew up in a very poverty stricken local area and although she'd dug herself out a bit, I think she was still deeply insecure and her lies were a way of making her feel like a "somebody".

It backfired for her in the end because she lied about how successful her DD was and she ended up getting hired by the company ... and fired 5 months later when they realised she had absolutely no qualifications, skills or ability to do the job she was hired for.

My parent's once lived with a flat mate who used to do this

His lies are so legendary they still come up in conversation occasionally over 35 years later

Most notably he apparently once cut the Pope's hair despite being neither a hairdresser, catholic or seemingly ever having been to Italy

He was also an expert musician on any instrument someone cared to mention but for some reason absolutely couldn't demonstrate it right now

He would just get angry and start an argument about something else if ever challenged so people just ignored him

I went to school with someone like this, but her parents were just awful. Her mother was very much the same, living life from one failed business venture to the next, hardly noticed her children. I think the girl I knew acted like this in a bid to get some kind of attention- if you had a headache, then she had a brain tumour- but as far as I know she is still the same way as an adult.

I honestly think the kind thing to do is gently pull her up on it. You're all just enabling this behavior to continue.

The fact that everyone is too afraid to call her on her behaviour is really telling. Are you all non-confrontational people? Do you all sit around awkwardly staring at each other when more fiction dribbles forth? How old are your parents? Are they worried? Vulnerable?
What happens when she is provoked? (*Serious question - she has lost custody of her own kids, and your DNs live with her. Are they vulnerable? How do they feel about her? Do they need someone to advocate for them?)

What if you were to say something like “It’s amazing how you’ve been a Catholic, Jewish, Roma, run Unions, been a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, a cake decorator, etc… With all the qualifications and experience required, you must have been studying and working for longer than you’ve actually been alive!”

I went to a horticultural college with a guy like this. Whatever anyone was talking about he had done it to a professional\expert level. One time when we were discussing meditation he told me he meditated. He was actually able to levitate during meditation. I think he was very lonely. He told me once he had moved around a lot growing up. His Dad was in the army. I do think that much was true. He just had a hard time making friends. I always tried to be friendly and I did have a bit of a soft spot for him. It is a shame because he if didnt tell such stupid lies or keep bigging himself up. There was a very lovely person under there. But the lies were off putting. He just was to insecure to be himself. We had to design and build a garden for our course. There was a plant growing in his plot he was about to dig it up but I wanted to see it bloom. I asked him not to move it yet. Meaning until he had to, once it had bloomed because moving it would kill it. He redesigned his whole garden around that plant for me. His garden was like a garden you would see on the Chelsea flower show. But he was too insecure to boast about his real skills. But seemed to think we would believe or be impressed by an outrageous lie.

There is a family member on my husbands side who is exactly the same. Similar lies as well - jobs, knowledge, that she will do things for people etc

In her case I am very sure it is pseudologia fantastica and is an actual mental health condition. What your brother says about her believing it when she says it could very well be true, I know that is the case for the person I know. Generally she does not deliberately deceive, it is more of a drive to interest others and gain approval or attention.

It used to frustrate me greatly, I tried calling her out a few times but it didn't stop it happening and since looking more into it and talking with some colleagues with mental health training I have come to understand it really is an illness and there is no malice meant by it. I just try and let it wash over me now. It is annoying I know, but I feel it is different to people who lie for personal gains or to trick someone and I just remind myself she is unwell with a psychological condition.

BATSHIT CRAZY
DESPERATE TO BE ADMIRED

Oh I feel for you. It's so tedious isn't it. There's someone on another forum I use (begins with R, rhymes with Edit) and no matter what the subject she's been there, seen it, done it. Every single subject.

Converted to Judaism, ex Catholic, numerous disabilities (she always has the disability or ailment being discussed from personality disorders, nasal polyps to cancer), one day she's gay the next Bi, has so many jobs I've lost count yet somehow manages to constantly be active on the forum.

She's utterly tedious.

Luckily I can hide her posts and ignore. Can't really do that with a real life person. Would be the equivalent of shoving your brother's girlfriend in a cupboard and continuing your family chats 😂

TBH, I'm getting rather sceptical about all unreasonable behaviour being blamed on menal health issues. Playing the mental health card is such a cheap trick.

@anxiouswaiting it is so hard isn’t it. It is difficult to let it wash over you but challenging it can lead to such a shitstorm.

I agree with you, one of my best friends has BPD and would never act like this (or put up with anyone else claiming their BPD caused it!)

@ Windbeneathmybingowings, what form does your 'troll hunting' take? Do you target other people who have MH issues? Or people with autism etc?

@kagerou, do you tell people that they aren't autistic etc because they aren't like other autistic people you know? What about other health conditions, do they have to follow the same pattern as someone you once knew, or they are lying?

OP, she is mentally unwell. As said you need to make sure that the children are protected and do some research. Don't laugh at her, unless you are the type to laugh at people limping, slurred speech because of a stroke etc. This isn't any different. Some people who have BPDs become very isolated because of issues like lying. I'd worry about your brother and how he seems to have schooled your parents to just go along with it. He should be asking what help is available to her, if any When I worked in psychiatry services, we wouldn't feed the lies, especially not for entertainment. It was a rule that visitors mustn't.

Re the mental health card. There are different degrees of every MH/cognitive issue and some mean that people need to be in secure units (not prisons), some need intense support 1-1 etc, residential housing, some people are well managed in the community and others self manage. Unfortunately women can get partners easily, get pregnant and then are judged when they can't keep residency. It's another burden on top of their illness because it adds trauma.

Generally asking the liar to make good on their lie. If the person involved (in my instance) is going to start raising money for a cause that doesn’t exist, people are allowed to question that. I’m sure there are plenty of people who have MH issues and have also hurt others, that doesn’t mean the hurt party has to let it go - just asking them to follow through on their actions is fairly gentle I feel. Compared to you know, prison, for the lies she’s made up,

She has admitted to being diagnosed with BPD, her admitting she has MH issues is the only truth she has told, plus people can have multiple disorders.

You describing your brother though briefly is the reason he is putting up with it. He has ended up in two serious relationships where both Mothers have lost children, it’s rare for that to happen. I have met a few women through a charity I helped with fundraising who lost their children. All of them had serious MH issues and were being treated. All of them accepted their children were better off with the relatives or foster parents that now cared for them. They acknowledged their illness and they were good Mothers though in a different way because they knew they were sadly incapable of caring for their children. All of them had been horribly abused as children and young women. I mean truly horrific, one had fallen in to the hands of a paedophile gang when she was a child. The trauma meant their brains hadn’t developed in a regular way. They were actually very childlike in their behaviours. Little children often tell fantastical lies for attention, what she does sounds similar.

You cannot confront this woman. All you can do is speak to your brother and parents and attempt to shelter his children from her lies.

The other useful thing you could find out is what treatment or service she is potentially under and also read up on BPD using a reliable source such as MIND.

I think maybe she is attention seeking, it may be good to find other ways of giving her attention that make her feel important

@Ponoka7 of course not but I also wouldn't blame everything a person did on their ASD as though that was the be all and end all of who they were.

Human's are complex and an MH diagnosis is just one part of who they are. It could be related to her compulsive lying, it could not be. The majority of people with BPD are not compulsive liars just as there are compulsive liars who do not have BPD.