Petty issue now a big issue, because he swore on my deathbed

[ILoveHolidaysAbroad]

We had an anniversary recently. I bought my gift for him well in advance. He went to Asda on the day and clobbered together a gift bag of stuff. All nice enough, but I did mention it was a bit late in the day. One of the gifts was pyjamas. He swore they'd been in his boot for a week. I raised and eyebrow and he swore on my deathbed. Well, today I have found the receipt in the bottom of a bag and he was lying, he did buy them on the day. I now care more about the lying than the fact he bought stuff on the day. Would this bother anyone else?

Making sure no one has the time to find out your lie.

I don't swear on anyone's life anyway, no matter what, but yeah, I don't think you're wrong, OP. Who the fuck does that, aren't you supposed to swear on your own life or the grave of someone else?

I remember a comedy scene once where a woman told her husband to swear on his life if he was telling the truth and he said, "No, tell you what, I'll swear on your life." Laughter ensued, people understood the problem!

I'd leave anyone that swore on anyone's life whether or not it was true. 🤮

Depends if you backed him into a corner.

No prob with that here. It's just a ridiculous form of words. Means nothing.

I get it, if he can lie so easily, what else is he lying about. You’ll never trust him again.

None the wiser.

...I'm joking because if someone is swearing on your deathbed you are about to die so you're not going to find out if they'd lied.

The way I see it, your husbands a liar. Regardless how big the lie is.

I'd be annoyed with the 'swear on my life' bit too. We have a rule that you don't lie if you 'swear on it'.

However, I feel like there might be bigger issues at play here.

Okay. I've never heard this. It's all very, very silly.

No... I... that's what I was taking the piss out of it... it's not a thing and I was just making a joke about what it would be.

@ILoveHolidaysAbroad I am 100% with you.

It is not about the presents, or the thoughtlessness. He lied. And he deepened that lie by swearing on your life.

Trust and lying cannot sit comfortably together. So therefore how can you trust him on anything?

Where do you want to go with this?

If it were me, I'd have a calm sit down with him (and with the receipt) and ask why he did it, why he felt the need to lie, why he couldn't be honest. Of course he will hop around his answers: "I didn't want to disappoint you"; "I thought you'd be angry"; "You're always like this about presents"...

The only reasonable response is: "I felt ashamed that I'd forgotten/not made the effort". This is him owning HIS feelings.

Either way, I think this IS one of the situations when couples counselling can be really effective. Take this situation to counselling. Is it a symptom of something bigger [heck, maybe you are always like this about presents]? It might be scary because you don't know what you'll unearth, but that's got to be better than you living with the feeling that you can't trust him, or him feeling that whatever he says is not going to be right.

…but you would pick and pick, and go grubbing through his receipts to check up on it. Which is actually so much worse to live with.

Fo you think it is possible that he knows you make a Mountain out of a Molehill and just wanted to have a nice time, and you wouldn’t be satisfied until you had completely spoiled it? Both of you know that if he had said he bought them on the day there would have been words about him not putting the effort in.

Swearing on imaginary deathbeds is pathetic . You both need to grow up. 🙄

I wouldn't have got in the situation where he lied, because I wouldn't have asked when he bought them, because I wouldn't care. I would have just said thank you for the present.

I hate people swearing on anyone's life with a passion. I think every single time I've heard someone swearing on their/someone else's life it's been a lie. It immediately makes that person untrustworthy to me. Like the only way they think they'll convince someone of something is by invoking wild hyperbole, because it's so unbelievable that they, in this case, bought some pajamas. ] that's only unbelievable if they know it's a lie.

I'd be upset he lied. I'd be upset he thought he needed to lie. I'd be upset he thought my reaction would be so out of proportion that he couldn't tell the truth, and I'd be upset if on reflection I realised I would have had an unreasonable reaction.

I'd want to look at how we both communicate in that case, and have a proper talk about it without anyone pointing fingers or getting angry. If we couldn't do that, I'd think that was a symptom of something far bigger.

🤣

If you were grilling me about exactly when I’d bought your sodding pyjamas I’d probably lie too, to shut you up. I can’t imagine having the time or energy to root around looking for receipts to try and trip someone up.

Not past the age of six, usually.

The second anyone swears on someone's life, I know they are lying.

In all my life, the only people who have ever sworn on anyone's life have been habitual liars, who are lying again.

Swearing on your life? Are you seven years old? 😅

The second anyone swears on someone’s life, I know they’re a twat 😂

He's a liar and he's not going to stop lying.

In my experience, people who swear on their life/deathbed/children's life etc are liars AMD use the swear to persuade the person they're lying to that they're telling the truth, making them even more dishonest. See Harry Kane as an example.

People lie all the time for lots of insignificant reasons. It's not great, but it happens.

But people who emphatically swear they are not lying are usually flagging up that this swear is actually a really big lie.

Now you know. An you can live with it, knowing he is going to lie to you and disappoint you, or try not to be disappointed when it happens, or leave.

If I were in your shoes, I would be leaving because he is swearing blind he's not a liar and then lying, which is utterly disrespectful of you. He's lost your trust and once that's gone, you should go too.

We dont do anniversary gifts or cards but go out and spend the day together. What does a gift mean? It's almost like ticking a box. I don't think it means much to him either and he felt pressured into getting something and saying he'd put thought in to it by buying it in advance. My advice is ditch the gifts and the associated crap that goes with them and have a lovely day out, hold hands, chat over lunch, bit of shopping, cuddle etc..

You can't trust him. He's not a man of his word.

Imagine if it was a receipt for a hooker...

And he swore on your deathbed.

He sounds a bit red flaggish with buying presents last minute and nipping round asda. that's not much thought or emotional connection is it?

He's more scared of your reaction to his crap present buying than telling the truth.

Because either way, he's caught out.

We don't buy each other presents anymore. Just a card and dinner out somewhere.

I'm not sure presents are needed.

If it's just around presents, have a conversation about it. I don't need presents, nor do I like receiving them unless they're diamonds or gold LOL.

I can buy my own pyjamas etc.