DH tells ridiculous white lies

[CookingCabbage]

My DH tells lies about ridiculously small things. Should I be worried about this? He tells me what sounds good or what will make me happy/keep the peace. There are no big lies, only little ones. It has affected my trust because I now question and look for evidence of lies. I worry that he is telling me lies a lot, even though there is no evidence of that. I think he gets it off his mother, who does the same, and who recently encouraged our DD to lie (e.g. don't tell your Mum you had those sweets).

BTW I am not a scary person who he can't tell the truth to. I hate lies and he knows lying is always worse than just being honest with me.

This is how ridiculous it is:
One evening when our DS had the sickness bug, he washed his hands after changing a nappy and I noticed he did not use and soap and only swilled his hands quickly. I said: "please can you make sure you are washing your hands properly and with soap as the bug is very contagious"...etc. He replied: "I did use soap".
We then had a massive debate about whether or not he used soap (because I KNEW he didn't). I even smelled his hands, because the soap has a distinctive smell, to prove it. It took him A WHOLE YEAR to admit to me that he did not use the soap that day.

Another time whilst out in town, I saw his car approaching from a direction it would not have come from that day had he been working in the location he told me. So I asked "What time did you get back from x today?". He replied he'd come straight home from that location. I told him I saw him an hour ago driving from the opposite direction. He said he'd taken a wrong turn at an island and had then got a phone call from his manager, so drove to ASDA car park to take the call, where he sat on the car park for an hour. So I checked his phone and he hadn't been talking to his manager, but to a girl in the marketing department. He then admitted he was talking to her and explained what about (work-related).

I believe there is nothing between him and this girl. I believe he told me the easiest story he could think of. But it still involved several lies.

When I first met him we had a conversation where I told him the idea of having debts scared me and I would not want to get serious with someone who had debts. He told me he had no debts, even though he did. He later explained he felt embarrassed about the debt. I know this is a bigger lie. I understood his reasoning and he paid the debt off anyway a year or so later.

Frustrated with this and sometimes I worry whether I actually know this man. There is nothing else about him that I have issues with though. He is lovely, kind and considerate in general.

I think your first example is a bit weird. Reads a bit like you spoke to him like a child ("sniffed his hands" - really? You do that to a 3yr old!) so I guess he got defensive about that. He admitted it a year later? A year? Why was it even mentioned a year later?

The second example does sound bad in isolation, but it may just be that he feels you over react more often than not and is trying to "keep the peace"?

I have experience of this in my extended family and it comes from their parents. Instead of going against her parents in any circumstances she just lied. Now it's such a habit she lies when there is no reason. Sometimes she says to me..l will just say this happened. And l think why not just tell there truth. It's never a serious situation. The whole family seems perfect but in actual fact they are constantly lying to each other in little ways instead of confronting a situation. For example instead of telling dm he is going to gf for Christmas he tells her he is working as she would be upset. It's mad.
The way out for your dh is to become aware of his own family and how lies work there. How that will happen l don't know. Maybe couple counselling?

He should get therapy to help with this. Like you have said OP and other posters he's trying to present an image of himself that underneath he is not. No one is perfect at the end if the day. It's s copy mechanism but an ineffective one at the least. He really needs therapy to sort this out. I speak from personal experience having been in the receiving end of this and therapy really does work. Really hope he sorts it for your families sake!

He's 36.
Aridane - We didn't talk about it all the time, but occasionally the issue came up in arguments. I'd say "Like that time you lied to me about the soap. You did lie didn't you?". Sometimes he'd just not answer. Then one day, a year later he said "Yes, I lied".

He's 36 , so he's been lying all day every day for 30 years. And he doesn't see it as a problem and doesn't want to stop because it suits him just fine.

It's not going to happen is it?

Therapy only works if you organise it, go anddo the work . He doesn't want to.

at bringing up "soapgate" in arguments for 12 months!

Be honest OP. How would you have reacted if he had been honest?

"Can you use soap please?"
"No - I've rinsed my hands and that's fine."

Same for the phone call really. How would you have reacted if he'd been honest? If he's been conditioned for most of his life to tell little lies to keep the peace then you losing your shit at him isn't going to help.

I agree with others who've mentioned couples counselling.

MilkTwoSugars - I actually hope you are right and that it's partly my faut, so that I'm not married to a big lying deceivist (if there's such a word). I know the smelling hands thing sounds odd. It deveoped into a big row because I SAW he did not wash his hands. It made me really mad that he was just lying over and over to my face, refusing to admit it, even though I told him I saw it. He came up with ridiculous explanaitons like "I touched the soap handle really gently and thought some came out but it obviously didn't".
So the smelling hands thing was not my instant reaction, but near the end. I was trying anything at that point to just get him to tell the truth. I thought it may make him admit it. After the argument I felt - so now I know you will just keep going and going, lying to my face, no matter what evidence I have or things I say.

*Did not wash his hands with soap.

This type of lie killed my marriage too.

He thought the way to a happy marriage was to ensure I was happy and that it didn't really matter what the truth was, as long as I was hearing what would make me happy.

He learnt that from his parents.

It meant that our marriage was the house that was built upon sand. I couldn't trust a word he said, and if you can't trust someone on the little every day stuff, you can't trust them on anything.

It's had a knock on effect because the only thing I really value in a relationship is honesty, except that, having seen how easily he lied, I find it difficult to trust and not assume everyone is doing the same.

I think your first example is a bit weird. Reads a bit like you spoke to him like a child ("sniffed his hands" - really? You do that to a 3yr old!) so I guess he got defensive about that.

This is the problem with constant lying though. You can't even trust the simplest of things and it does make you behave in bizarre ways because you cannot take anything at face value. You have to verify everything for yourself. (And, as it turned out, he had lied to her.)

I don't think you can really understand the weight of this and damage it causes unless you have lived it.

You feel the need to constantly establish the truth.

OP, it won't get any better.

The people who are blaming you for smelling his hands haveno idea what it's like to be gaslighted. You begin to think that you are crazy that you can't trust the evidence of your own eyes.

Cooking - ah, I don't think it's your fault, iyswim. I think it's his upbringing's fault. But by reacting the way you do kind of reinforces the importance of lying to keep the peace. I don't think you're wrong at all, but maybe if you can see it from another (possible - obviously I don't know him) perspective you might be able to work together to deal with it.

I don't think lies like that are always coming from a bad place. Misguided yes, but not bad.

You want to keep trying for your family, but your kids might learn to do this from him. It has to stop.
Are you considering therapy as a PP has said?

I can't bear this.
I had a boyfriend once who would always, ALWAYS tell a lie rather than the truth, regardless of how easy it would be to catch him out in it - he was what I called a pathological liar.
I just couldn't deal with it, or him. Thankfully he fucked off and left me for someone else, because I was in a fair way to being heavily gaslighted by him.

Constant lying is a drip drip drip that wears away the cornerstone of a relationship, in my opinion. It's one of the worst things anyone can do because it destroys trust - you simply can't believe anything they say. :(

I feel this isa common attitude in men, it involves seeing the female partner as irrational or impossible to please, someone who needs to be managed so that the man's life can be as peaceful or easy as possible.

He doesn't see her as an equal partner, her function is to serve his needs and so he evolves a strategy to manipulate her
He is 'gaming' the relationship

Shining I think there's a lot of truth in what you say.

I was not an equal partner in my marriage. My exhusband was willing to do and say whatever he thought he needed to 'keep the peace' regardless of the implications.

The most ridiculous thing is that the tension and arguments were about the act of lying and never the facts of what he was covering up. Whenever the truth came out, whether it was about where he wanted to go on holiday; who was on the phone; debt; redundancy; whether he was tired or not... the facts and the truth were always dealt with calmly and sensibly. Largely because I was so relieved to have removed the obvious incongruity and to finally know what was going on and also because I was hoping to create new associations that it was the lying that was the problem rather than the truth.

Unfortunately, his upbringing had ingrained it in him so well that there was nothing I could do to undo it.

He is with someone else now. I do sometimes wonder if she sees this side of him, or whether it works because she is happy to be lied to and she is one of those women who doesn't care what the reality is underneath as long as the surface is calm. Which is exactly what his mum is like.

It's a big ole head fuck isn't it
When you're being 'real' /genuine and the other person see's it as an opportunity to have and eat his cake

of course he will think he is being totally reasonable, because everyone knows women are just mental and you can't reason with them

We have a 1 year old and a 4 year old child, and I believe in working things through for the sake of our family, so leaving is not an option

What do you get out of this relationship, what needs of yours is he still meeting here?.

Well you may not want to leave (yet) but this will continue to build up particularly if he does not seek therapy or want to seek help for the lying behaviours. Liars do not change; they continue to lie and lie to get out of trouble. This sort of dysfunction within marriage kills marriage stone dead.

You have a choice re this man but they do not. They will grow up absorbing similar lessons as to what your H learnt from his mother. Is this really the model of a relationship you also want to be modelling to them?

MilkTwoSugars
If he'd been honest then I wouldn't have had a problem at all. Hence that I've titled this thread Ridiculous white lies. Soap wasn't really the issue. We had a sick child and I think hands shoud be washed properly. I don't have OCD but I can see the difference between a quick swill and putting hand properly under water. That's what NHS guidelines tell you to do if someone in the house has a sickness bug. If he'd told the truth I would have asked that he please try to wash his hands thoroughly, soap or no soap. It THE LIE that's the issue here. Not what happened.

Attilia - I don't really see relationships in terms of what I'm getting, but he shows a lot of love and kindness in a lot of ways. We enjoy spending time together, he is very good with the children. He works really hard in his job and also does chores in the house (with some prompting, although he's getting better at this). I ove and think of a lot of him as a person. Other than perhaps thinking for himself a bit more when we need to plan/organise stuff and taking on more around the house without having to be asked, this lying thing is really the only other issue. I don't feel the lying comes from a bad place (yet, and hopefully I won't be proved wrong).

Ultimately, this is your choice. Is this something you have always known about? Something that has only recently come to light? Or something that is more of an issue for you now you have children as you have more than just yourself and your husband to think about?

I wouldn't put up with white lies in a relationship at all anymore and have ended fledgling relationships for very minor 'white lies' that have come about.

I might not like the truth that I hear, but I would rather that than be lied to. It's an absolute deal breaker for me now.

I ended my engagement and split from my partner because of this.

It drove me potty, as why lie when there is no reason to, it got to end point, after i spoke to him repeatedly, to explain it had totally eroded the trust and bond.

I was never sure if he believed his own lies as even when caught out he would blatantly continue to lie, and of course I was crazy and causing problems according to him, I saw it as ea, some one who lies to you has no respect for you as it denies you the basic human right to the truth of what is your life together.

Carolofthebells - couldn't if said it better myself 🌸

I once had a boyfriend who AWAYS told the truth. Sometimes I wouldn't ike what he had to say, but it was bliss. I always knew where I stood. I think its actualy quite rare in men though, from my experience.

He told the debt lie in the early stages of our relationship. I rang warning bells for me. I spoke to my family about it and they convinced me that it was understandable he may lie about that because there can be a bit of stigma around debt. He also didn't carry the lie on for ages and told me the truth himself after a few weeks.

I've always hated lying.

I didn't notice this pattern of silly lies until after we were married. We've been married for 5 years and over time you start to see trends. I suppose to begin with he would explain away little lies, so I didn't notice them. I've noticed that he will lie to hide lies. Or say 'I didn't mean this, I meant it like that' to cover it up. Its all over trivial nonsense most of the time. Seriously, ridiculous things I always think 'why on earth lie about THAT?'.

I get it completely, Cabbage. It's difficult in the early days because, "yeah I dumped him because he lied about which film he saw at the cinema last night" would seem like a ridiculous over reaction.

But then why lie about the film you saw at the cinema last night.

And the fact that, when you've been lied to, to you continue to have conversations about it as though it's the truth and they have to lie to continue these conversations. So it's not just the initial lie, it's the fact that most of your conversations are, essentially, a complete waste of time and about things that don't exist.

And yes, the lying to hide lies. Absolutely.

What I will say is that I recognise everything you are saying and it destroyed our marriage and my ability to trust anyone else with anything important. It has seriously impacted on my ability to have another relationship because I simply cannot trust that what I am being told is the truth. I constantly feel like I have to verify everything I am being told.

My exh also hid spending and debt and that had a very detrimental effect on me and our children.

I know it seems extreme to you, but I very rarely say leave, but I would very seriously consider ending this relationship. It won't get any better. He does this because it suits him and is right for him.

The anxiety he would feel at having to be honest and tell the truth would be too physically difficult for him to manage. He will continue to lie to you.

I really don't want to break up a marriage because of my kids. Also, I need to give him the opportunity to put it right. Since he recenty told me the lying has stopped, I've not caught him out on any lies (yet). If I felt the lies were coming from a place of disrespect or lack of feeling for me, rather than issues he has about himself, then that would change things. I'd also try counselling first.

This thread has convinced me that I need to start thinking differently though. At the moment I have a job that I could not support myself on if the shit hits the fan. I think I need to get myself into a stronger position, so that if this situation gets worse or I cant deal with it anymore, I have a route out. Over the next few years I think I need to get back into my old career and also make sure we are tucking money away as a family.