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?

Pathological liar. It's a thing, weird as anything but I think some people genuinely can't help it.

Or just plain ignore her when she starts. Change the subject. She may get the hint

I wonder does she just do it with your family or with other friends/ everyone she meets. Does she have other friends? Does she work?
Maybe she doesn't do it with your brother on a day to day basis so that's why he manages. Maybe it's just people she is trying to impress

You have a DB problem. Why is he with someone who lies constantly?

I used to do this to an extent as a teen. I was deeply unhappy and the fantasy life was so much better than mine. Once you start it's very very hard to extract from the web of lies and they get bigger and bigger.

Thankfully I moved from the situation I was in and was able to draw a line and move in. Haven't lied about anything since. I doubt she's doing it for fun.

@Drinkingallthewine

Worked with someone like this, all of it was self-aggrandising or to manipulate things in her favour.

I think she was deeply insecure and her lies would escalate to the point where she would need to kill off a character in her narrative. Sad really.

I had a school friend who did this. She killed off two boyfriends - one in a motorbike accident, the other in a plane crash (that didn’t make the news for some reason). She got confused in the end and reunited with motorbike man (having forgotten how permanently she’d made their break-up), and also claimed she was leaving school to be the live-in housekeeper of the other one…

This is actually really sad - she has some kind of mental illness possible personality disorder and is desperately trying to please you.

You need to have a conversation with your brother about her mental health and getting her help.

Can you/your family not include her in the plans with things you know she can do before she comes up with random things? She's been with your brother 6 years and I bet has little family otherwise, help her rather than castrate.

Could you not have googled her name and law or solicitor or barrister?
Cant you say ok whats your DJ name and Google that, right in front of her?
A lot of professions require you to be registered, Google for what body that would be and her name.

I had this with one person, I forget what she told me, but like shes a black belt and was in the Olympics or something. I googled her name right there and then and said no you weren't.

She tried to say it was her maiden name til I pointed out her first name wasnt there either.

Once she is stopped she will think twice about doing it again.

Not sure why YOU seem to feel embarrassed about it, OP? Why aren't you all laughing in her face every time she tells these ridiculous lies? Why on earth isn't your brother embarrassed to be with such a halfwit? She's clearly short of a sandwich and that you are tiptoeing around her "to avoid awkwardness" is possibly the craziest aspect to the entire bonkers scenario. She wouldn't last 2 minutes with most families.

Jobs she’s similar she’s been a teacher (she ran some volunteer art classes) etc. it use to annoy me, but when I went on her hen do all her friends from home were a bit like this. I don’t think it’s seen as lying, more “selling yourself”.

That’s no different from what they do on The Apprentice every year – still outrageous, but at least they eventually get found out and their public come-uppance from Claude or Linda. The sheer number of people who’ve been running their own roadside lemonade stalls multiple top-flight companies for 17 years, even though they’re only 23!

I’m yet another who can’t understand why your DB would want to be with her. If she’s like the boy who cries wolf and lies about everything, it must be so difficult to function at everyday life, when your partner tells such ridiculous little lies that they’ve got the pie out of the freezer for your evening meal, put the bins out, checked that there’s plenty of petrol in the car etc. How do you live with that?

I agree that challenging the stupid lies will likely only make her up the ante and start turning them on you – as a defence mechanism, if nothing else. If she claims to run a business and you gainsay her, the obvious proof of her lying will make her look clearly stupid and embarrass her; but if the lie is that you have attacked her and you dispute this, well of course you are going to deny it, aren’t you - and maybe we need to get the authorities involved.

She must have MH problems and/or a nadir of self-esteem; but I really can’t see this ending well for your DB if he doesn’t end it sharpish – although even then, she may well not go quietly.

I had this with someone at work, as soon as he was confronted on his lies they got much nastier and more personal, it was really scary. I'd be seeing what you can do to log that she's consistently lying in case your brother wants to break up with her as you want a paper trail to show it's a pattern of behaviour if she goes mean.

It’s very difficult (impossible) to treat liars psychiatrically cos they’re in control of what they’re doing.

They don’t stop doing it, either, and it can turn nasty. Challenging the GF probably won’t work (it won’t) so ignore or avoid, and tell everyone what she’s like.

@Cocolapew

I work with someone like this, she was never challenged due to nobody wanting to embarrass her/ cause an atmosphere. Then she told a lie about me that could have got me in major trouble. After that if she said she had done something I just said no you didn't and carried on talking over her, others started too and she stopped, at least around us

We’ve had similar and did this.

It also got to the point where we would say ‘well last time you said you could/would do X Y Z and it never happened so no thank you’ and continue the conversation as we had.

She will do all the catering. Great, here’s what I want, don’t hold your breath. Just call her out on it

It’s hard to deal with. Op is noticing as she’s back spending more time with family. By point we met ‘M’ she’d already been discovered lying about her job, salary and where she lived yet he’d not left her.
It’s obviously a mental health issue. We dealt with it by having virtually nothing to do with her eg their wedding we went to ceremony only, didn’t drink, left before meal as we could anticipate things kicking off and didn’t want to be involved. But result was we barely saw BIL. He did know we were there for him and turned to us when in crisis but it’s not easy.

It's really sad, she's constantly trying to impress people because she must feel she won't be liked for herself.

‘M’ also had a trait where she’d do subtle things to those who publicly called her out eg putting mug with tea dregs back in kitchen cupboard, pinching their toddler. They stopped having her around so it didn’t escalate further but it left you on edge what she might do.

How utterly bizarre. It sounds very narcissistic and as pp have said, like a mental illness - like munchausens but not health-related.

I can imagine Kevin Bridge's response "Did ye, aye?"

I like Will's response to Jay's outlandish fantasies on The Inbetweeners: "Well, THAT didn't happen!"

Probably not the wisest solution at all, but I'd be so sorely tempted to assume she was doing her little impromptu 'Would I Lie To You' turn and then, once she'd finished her claim, a short pause before "Hmmmmm, I'm going to say.... LIE!"

I had a friend at school like this - she’d say things like her parents abused her. Or she was raped by one of our other friend’s dads. No idea where she is now but we all distanced ourselves. She had younger siblings who were absolutely fine.

I have a sister like this. The lies she has told about me are outrageous. We no longer speak. Definitely some kind of disorder, but she would deny that.

This has made me remember one of my Dad's friends from the pub (years ago). If he didn't come to the pub for a week, he'd spin some yarn that he'd been on an undercover operation in some far flung country. The guy was built like a twig and didn't even have a job. Pure fantasist. If you'd been to Tenerife, he'd been to Elevenerife.

I know someone like this, only her lies aren't blatant whoppers like some in the OP. They are constant smallish white lies, told when she has either done or not done something that will impact on others.

It started by claiming that bills had been paid which led to services being disconnected and debts being driven up, to stealing and completely denying it even when presented with proof.

Rather worryingly, her children are now exhibiting the same behaviour

So dangerous. Not to mention bloody exhausting. Imagine having to remember what you lied about to try and continually keep up the story?!

I'm deeply ashamed to admit that I was like this as a teen and young person. Its different to small lies that have some practical gain such as in the PP example. Its just lying for the sake of it. It still keeps me up at night when I think about it.

How old is she? She needs talking to and referring to therapy. I got a diagnosis of ASD, not sure if that had something to do with it.