DH telling pointless lies

[doolallysally1]

I really need some outside perspective because I feel like I’m losing my mind. I don’t think IBU but DHs reaction is making me feel like I’m crazy.

Here’s a little context before the AIBU (all names mentioned have been changed)

About five months ago DH and I took a walk through a local beauty spot near where we’d recently moved. He points over an area of woodland and says ‘XX from work said he saw an adders nest there’. ‘Oh’ I say, not knowledgable on local wildlife but thought it odd and retained that as an interesting tidbit.

Next contextual detail (bear with me): a few months later, DH comes back from the school run saying he walked back with one of our neighbours who live opposite us who’ve got kids the same age as ours. Said his name is Antonio and he’s from Malta— really cool guy. I log this info away as I see Antonio on the school run and often his wife too.

Then, a few months after that, we’re all in the car and I tell DH that I’ve posted Christmas cards for our families and written them out for the neighbours too— I’ve done XX and XX next door etc etc and Antonio and Belinda (I’ve since found out his wife’s name). DH laughs at me and says ‘Antonio isn’t his name lol I made that up’.

??!?!

‘What do you mean you made it up?’
‘Yeah it went on longer than I meant it to but I made that up. He’s from Malta but his name isn’t Antonio, I dunno what he’s called’

I was genuinely speechless. Thankfully I’d not addressed the card to Antonio and Belinda (I put ‘all at number XX’) but I SO easily could have. It was such a pointless, mean spirited lie that would only serve to seriously embarrass me. He literally saw me writing out the neighbours Christmas cards and didn’t think to mention it then?! I pressed DH on it further (ie why on earth would you do that?!) but he seemed to find it weird that I wouldn’t let it drop (‘it was just a joke chill out’) and I could feel that it was about to become an argument. So in the interest of not ruining the day I let it go but have seethed quietly over it since.

NOW the AIBU. Today we went to that same beauty spot as above for a walk with DC and DH wanted to go slightly off piste. I noticed the area he was heading in the direction of and casually said ‘isn’t that where so and so saw the adder’s nest?’ He furrowed his brow at me and went ‘what?’

I repeated myself and he shook his head and said no he never said that and ofc there aren’t adders here? I pressed the matter, saying yes you said so and so saw an adders nest here. It was about five months ago. He then shrugged and said he made it up.

I then made some gestures over DCs head to see if this weird behaviour was in the interest of not scaring the kids with the thought of snakes (although theyre definitely too young to know what an adder is) but he grew more and more irate saying no, he didn’t know what I was talking about and he probably just made it up.

I then told him I was really annoyed with him because I KNOW he said it and that would be the second pointless lie he’s told me (I reminded him of Antonio) and I’m fed up with it. He told me ‘if you’re going to be like that then go home’ and I, aghast at the total lack of repentance (and freezing bollock cold) said fine but I need the keys and he then threw them at me!!

I stormed off and DC followed, upset, and DH soon after appeared but instead of apologising told me how he didn’t want to even spend the weekend with me and he’s absolutely furious with me for ruining the day?

Did I get worked up over nothing?

That would drive me nuts too. I would have asked him why the fuck he made it up for. I mean what was the purpose of that?

It would leave me feeling that I just wouldn’t know what to trust if he lies about ridiculous things.

No you didn't get worked up over nothing.
Shameless lying is quite common with narcissists. The fact that he's unembarrassed and unrepentant - actually not just unrepentant, but furious - is not a good sign. Look into other narcissistic traits?
Sorry, he sounds like a prick either way. And the kids will likely experience this behaviour from him as they grow up, so I'd get out.

Does he have a cruel streak? Is this his sense of humour? Winding people up?

Some people are pranksters and are always winding you up. I've got relatives who do it. One time my uncle told me to be careful of this friend of his as he had wandering hands.

So of course, I moved whenever he came anywhere near me. My uncle thought this was absolutely hilarious and watched me trying to escape this man's clutches all night, even refusing to sit near him in the car.

I should have known better because he's always coming out with things like that. He tells you all sorts of rubbish about people, none of which is true.

What a twat. Wonder what else he lies about?

He's a weirdo. What's the point of his lies? They achieve nothing.

Perhaps he thinks he needs to know stuff to impress you. Then gets caught out. Does he have issues with feeling stupid or ignorant or something?

I couldn't be doing with that at all. I'd be telling him that and saying if you're going to make up stories and tell me lies like a child I will be off as I don't want to be married to a kid.

The lying is odd- especially if it’s started recently.

The fury is worrying. Have a think, are there other things he does which if you join them all together make a bigger picture?

Dh is like this, not so much making things up, but telling lies by denying little things that any adult would just own up to. Things like taking things from the fridge that I'd put aside for later, eating the kids sweets, just realised childish stuff. You're right to be angry, and to say the least it's not very attractive is it.

His behaviour is bizarre. I am assuming it’s new otherwise you wouldn’t have married the twerp. Are the DC his?

Mine tells pointless lies too, I hate it. He also talks bollocks a lot and gets upset when I call him out on it or look it up online to prove he is wrong. Bloody exasperating.

When I was 17 I had a boyfriend like this. I remember once referring to his cousin and his wife and my BF replied ' Oh they are not married'. Found out a year later they were, and when I asked him why he had said they were not he just laughed and said that he had lied. When I asked him why he had lied he laughed again and shrugged and said he didn't know.

I guess some people are like this. It must be some weird power/ control thing in their head, because they know they have fooled whilst you don't even know you have been fooled.

I would not like to be married to a man like this. You'll literally never know what is true and what is not.

I've encountered this with a few people. A girl at school who would tell odd lies then make a big thing of telling everyone that others who believed her / didn't call her out on lying were thick and gullible...!

Ex partner who found it amusing to tell others lies about me, just for the sheer hell of it.

It’s definitely bizarre. Is he a bit stupid? Or rather, are you much more intelligent than he is?

I had a similar issue with a boyfriend that was insecure about my intelligence. He really wanted to be able to tell me things or share with me, so he’d make up random shit like telling me an entire backstory about James that lived at that house and where he was from and whatever. Later I’d find out that the only person living there was Gertrude and her cats. It was him needing to also be able to share knowledge with me. I understood the reasoning but found it utterly batshit and dumped him.

There are people whose sense of humour is very warped and quite cruel. When I got home from school one day, my grandmother once pretended that our dog had escaped and run off. As we (at that time) lived only a few minutes walk from the A4 I was terrified and set off out to look for him - only then did she come clean that he was in the garden and she had thought it would be a good joke to play on me.

People who have a sense of humour like this are not to be trusted. They play these jokes full of their own sense of importance and not a little malice. You end up wondering if you can believe anything they say or is it another of their little 'jokes' or, to be more accurate, if they're serial liars.

Is this new behaviour or has he always done it do you think?
It seems a really odd thing to do, make up silly lies that aren’t even funny when you do find the truth out. And to then get angry because he’s found out is bizarre.
He sounds rather immature and no, you didn’t get worked up over nothing. The silly lies are annoying, but on top of his reaction and the key throwing, he sounds like a bit of a twat tbh.

Was with a narcissist he do stupid things like this ...Total mind fuck

Early onset dementia?

Even if you don;t think it is, ask him, because there seems to be no rational explanation.

So are these the only 2 examples? I'm not minimising but just wondered if he has a history of this. In the case of "Antonio", I'd probably shrug that off as lazy stereotyping. As in, he's from Malta so I'll just call him a Mediterranean sounding name - sort of thing. Maybe he was then embarrassed to admit it when he realised you were sending Christmas cards in earnest to neighbours? As for the adders, that's harder to explain. Could he have genuinely forgotten that he said such a thing?

This was my first thought too.

A close family member had early onset dementia and they’d rather be seen as an a*sehole than admit they were confused or forgetting things.

I'm reminded of Paul McCartney once saying about Heather Mills, "It got to the point that if she said it was raining, I'd have to go outside to check."

I've known a surprising number of people who are like this. It becomes wearing. Whether it stems from insecurity, wanting to seem more intelligent or exciting than they really are, some kind of mental health problem, a personality disorder or something else, I don't know, I can't pretend to be any kind of expert.

A quick response, the next time he comes out with something daft is, "I can always tell, you know?"

It may just be extreme immaturity. Children lie like this.

These are the only two examples that I can think of lies that make absolutely no sense. Dont get me wrong, he’s lied plenty other times but I could always get to the bottom of them.

Tbh I think this theory is likely it. He’s a bit of a bellend sometimes and who doesn’t have the odd narcissistic tendency but I don’t think he’s malicious.

He’s since said he didn’t remember saying the adder thing and maybe someone from work did say it but largely his attitude was because he didn’t want the DC to be afraid and wanted me to ‘shut up’ which led to round two of the fight.

Now my issue is how to resolve the issue with this in mind. If the Antonio thing was a lazy lie that stuck him in trouble when he realised I was sending cards and the adder thing was genuinely a forgotten anecdote how would you handle de-escalating this argument that has now derailed the day and had us both in separate rooms with clenched jaws all afternoon? 😅

OP it's your relationship and it's entirely up to you what you put up with. I couldn't be bothered being in a relationship with someone who tells ridiculous lies all the time.

My way of resolving the situation would be an ultimatum. If I catch you lying again, I'm out.

You married a Walter Mitty. It's incurable and will get worse.

My Dad called a bloke down the road "Stan" for years. One day I bumped into "Stan" on my way to school and called him just that. Cue a rather embarrassing conversation (especially for a 13 year old) because his name was apparently Bob. I challenged my Dad who simply said "well, he looks like a Stan" - so this could explain the Antonio situation. Again, the adder thing could be just a lapse of memory or him being defensive about the kids, as he told you. However, you say he's lied plenty of times? About what? I think that might be more important.

However, you say he's lied plenty of times? About what? I think that might be more important.

He doesn’t lie pathologically or anything but we’ve had the ‘leaving the office now’ when I can see on Find My Friends that he’s actually finished work early on a Friday and has been at the pub with his colleagues for the past hour and a half.

One that made me very cross was when we’d just moved house. I was heavily pregnant and suffering with SPD and could barely walk. He announced he was going for a 40 min run, which I reluctantly agreed to. I was running around after our eldest in the half-unboxed chaos when DH swanned through the door nearly three hours later. Turns out he’d actually gone to take part in the local park run with colleagues but lied because he knew I’d say no. He still doesn’t understand why I was so upset about that one.

Does he ever say that he had to lie because he was scared of your reaction if he told the truth? That’s a classic deflection technique