If your husband lied to you, could you trust him again?

[catandgloves]

A couple of months ago my husband lied to me,
it wasn’t the lie itself that bothered me but that I always trusted his word.
At work they work in pairs and have a permanent partner who he always told me was an old man, but apparently it’s not an man as I discovered it is actually a young woman, when I asked why the lie he still lied and said he had never seen that woman before saying she only worked in the office but I know this woman is his partner because I’ve seen them out working.
Eventually he did accept that this woman was “John” and that he had lied.
I kind of get why he lied but there was no need to and to have lied for so long and fabricated a whole other person just because he didn’t want to say the truth.
I now wonder what else he lies about and why, he’s openly been paired with lots of woman at work but has never concealed their identity so why would he keep this one such a secret?
In the months since this lie I am not sure what’s true and what’s not anymore where before I believed everything he said.
His reasoning for the lie is that he hates this woman because she’s a brown nose goody two shoes and he just couldn’t bring himself to say her name. So went with John.

He is still lying imo. If he hasn't slept with her yet he thinks about it.

The reason for the lie is usually in the context, such as lying to protect your feelings, or to avoid strife. Both of these I would chalk it up to clumsy cowardice diplomacy .
Lying because he can't bear to mention her name sounds suss AF, sorry OP.

Do you have form for being jealous when he works with younger/attractive women?

I ask this only because I used to lie to my abusive ex about things like this. If I mentioned I was working with a man, I'd get endless questioning, accusations and arguments from him and he'd start going through my phone. So I just started lying to him to avoid that stress. I'd never lie to my current DP because it wouldn't even occur to him to be jealous or suspicious in the first place.

I'm not saying this is the case with you of course - maybe your husband is indeed lying to you for some nefarious reason. And of course it depends on your back story and relationship in general. Only you know what sort of man your husband is.

If he thinks I’d be jealous then why not lie about all the other woman he worked with? it’s just this one he lied about.

Does he work in the emergency services? The mode of work you describe sounds a bit like that. I have to agree with @Whereismyfleeceblanket on this, I'm afraid.

He's told you a right load of rubbish, OP. The question is, why?

I'm having the same issue with my husband. He has lots of female colleagues who he mentions all the time. Sarah said ... Had coffee with Anna... Spoke to Clare ... etc. But every now and again there's 'was talking to a colleague ...' and as soon as he says it, I know the colleague is a female whose name he's avoiding. He'll keep it up and I'll push back and eventually he'll say. But he can't explain why he does it.

I think it's because there's an attraction there and he can't admit it, even to himself. So for some reason he feels guilty about it and tries to hide it.

They’ve been working together for the last 6 years that’s a lot of effort to be keeping a fake man alive. And to outright say he doesn’t know who this woman is? His job involves a lot of driving around and I regularly see them so I have known John was bs for a while, it’s just when it came up in conversation he looked so truthful while his lies poured out effortlessly that I now wonder if anything he says is true.
He was actually off work when we saw this woman and another colleague go past and he said the man’s name as in oh there’s Steve and pretended not to know the woman he was with which is how the conversation started because I knew that was who he is usually working with.

I mean if you remain married, you’re going to have to trust him or else the marriage doesn’t make sense and you may as well split up.

Because this one is different?
Id be on high alert here, ngl.

Yep that’s shady as fuck. He feels
differently about this one, hence the lies. No telling whether it’s all in his head or has gone further than that. I’d be questioning everything.

😂

None of it makes sense that’s the problem and I can’t speak to him because I’ll get more lies.
Part of me thinks he’s just telling me what I want to hear and it’s nothing but he must think she is attractive to think I’d feel uncomfortable with them together because his last colleague was a woman too who retired.
He knows his lies have caused me suspicion so he’s been bending over backwards trying to put things right and the last few weeks he’s been nicer than he’s ever been sending loving messages and constantly saying I love you and treating me. Is that guilt or has he just seen his lies have caused mistrust and he regrets making me feel that way?

Presumably it's because he knew you would react like this. I'm guessing if he told you at the start you would have accused him of having an affair. He wasn't lying to you to cover up his actions or intentions, he lied because he didn't want to deal with your reaction.

Arw you generally a jealous person OP?

As I’ve said before he has only lied about this one particular partner, having openly worked with woman before and never felt the need to pretend they were men.

How old are you both?
And how old is she (John)?

we are late 30s she looks mid 20s

It’s the lie itself rather than the context, I have always taken him at face value until I saw how easily and convincingly he can tell a web of lies.

His reasoning for the lie is that he hates this woman because she’s a brown nose goody two shoes and he just couldn’t bring himself to say her name.

OP. Come on.

I know. That’s a shocker.

Sorry that’s BS. OP already said he’s told her about other women and she’s never had an issue but this one in particular he felt the need to lie about and even pretend not to know when he sees her out in public - that’s weird behaviour on the DH so nit sure why you’re trying to deflect to OP as though she got issues!

Also, imagine your partner did this to you, are you seriously telling me it wouldn’t affect you and you’d just accept it?

This isn’t good.
He’s thinking about it, even if he hasn’t cheated already. The time they’ve been working together makes me think it’s already happening, sorry. 😔

You say he hasnt' iled about women partners before... but did you get jealous? You've ignored that part of the question/

If he has mentioned them before and you got jealous, then he's probably just been trying to avoid that. which is not okay, but is part of a bigger problem, caused at least in part by you.

If you have not been jealous, then you have a man who has been lying becuase he wants more from this women. Which is also not okay.

So either way, you've got a bit of a shit situation here.

I don't think it's fair to say that he lied because he knew that the OP would react 'like this'. If 'like this' is hurt and confusion because you've found out that your spouse has been lying to you repeatedly for years about something that would have been a non issue, to the point of completely inventing another person's persona, then I think that's a completely normal reaction!

Your husband's behaviour is really odd and I'd be highly suspicious.

You say you "get why he lied". I don't.

That's absurd. I work mainly with men and the idea of pretending to DH that some of them are women wouldnt even cross my mind!