Strange - - best friend lied about her mother's death

[Sockypuppet]

I've been close friends with her for nearly three years.

At first when I met her she said her mum was dead, had died in 2012.

Her family live in another country so I don't know them. On a few occasions I have waved to her sisters when she's been face-timing them, and on one occasion I sent some small gifts to her newborn niece. But I've never met them.

Last night she told me that actually her mum was alive. She said that they fell out pretty badly and had no relationship at all. I thought, yeah, makes sense, probably easier to tell people she's died.

I asked when she last talked to her mum and she said, "We talk occasionally, about two or three times a month. I send her money".

This is someone I hang out with nearly every weekend. People joke about us being sisters.

Has anyone ever told a sustained lie like this? Or been on the receiving end? I'm not sure how I feel about it yet but it is very weird.

The whole point is that she could just have avoided talking about her mum. There's stuff in my past that I don't want to talk about except to my closest friends so I just don't bring it up. Most people don't talk a lot about their parents unless it comes up that they're visiting etc so you can easily avoid talking about it. I get not wanting to discuss painful stuff (one of my siblings feel out with my parents and I only talked about it with my closest friends - it was easy to avoid talking about it especially because they all live in another country).

Yeah exactly.

When I was very low contact with my mum, I braced myself for a lot of awkward conversations but to be honest they mostly went like this:

Friend or co-worker: "... and your mum?"

Me: "She's doing great. She lives in x city."

"You get to visit often?"

"As much as I can. How about your parents?"

And that was literally it. Why the hell would I need to say she was dead?

You no longer trust her. You thought you were closer and more in each other's confidence than you actually are. It feels hurtful to discover that you had different emotional boundaries and understandings of your friendship.

She is not the person you thought she was, in some ways.

Where do you go from here?

You can confront her about your feelings and her lies. Try to talk it through to reach an understanding about mutual trust and openness.

I suspect, thought, that you will have niggling doubts about things she tells you going forward.

Is the friendship worth it to you? Do you have more positive feelings than negative when you are with her? When you spend time with her, do you leave feeling light and content or heavy and doubtful?

I have a close friend to whom I haven't revealed something she may consider really important when she finds out. I hope she will be understanding and know that it had nothing to do with her, and just my level of discomfort with the subject.

I asked when she last talked to her mum and she said, "We talk occasionally, about two or three times a month. I send her money".

^That isn’t no contact. I wouldn’t even say it is low contact.

She lied and I wouldn’t trust her again.

Thing is, because the friend has form for lying (and we’re not talking a little white lie here,) how can the OP possibly confront her? There’s no way she’ll know if she’s getting an honest answer.

I really think it's none of your business. There is obviously a much bigger story to her issue with her mother and she doesn't want to or can't share. Leave it alone and accept this or you will lose her as a friend. Also you've only been friends for 3 years, you sound a bit full on to be honest. Maybe you feel closer to her than she does to you?

She really didn't have to say her Mum was dead - if asked she could just say that her Mum lives in another country and they have limited contact.

I am surprised that so many posters think it is justified to tell a massive, whopping lie when a 'I don't like to talk about it' would suffice.

I don't lie and I don't like people who lie. It would be the end of the friendship for me.

Also, this friend told op something like 'what about if your mother died...' when op tried to talk about her own bad childhood.

It is hard to believe this sort of guilt tripping would come from someone who genuinely had experienced an abusive parental relationship.

"As much as I can. How about your parents?"

In my experience it rarely goes that way. People will still ask. I imagine she didnt expect to become as close to you as she did.

It funny, because a woman admitted on a thread that she lied about being violently sexually assaulted. She lied as a teen about it and people had nothing but sympathy that she lied, because it must have been a difficult time for her.

Yet this woman has said something for an actual reason, then admitted it and she is being made out to be some sort of con artist.

I've been no contact with my mother for nearly 10 years. As far as most people know, she's dead. It's easier than listening to the 'supportive' comments that encourage me to heal the rift; being told that you only have one mother and the inevitable questions

Yet this woman has said something for an actual reason, then admitted it and she is being made out to be some sort of con artist. How do you know she has an actual reason? It could simply be that she’s a lying, deceitful woman who is an attention seeker into the bargain.

Far too many people are projecting their own circumstances on to this woman here in order to justify her dishonest behaviour.

Besides which she isn’t NC, she has regular contact with her mum, far more than some who even live down the road....

As for the other thread, I only commented on that in a limited way because I’m not sure that such a hideous lie is excuseable either, especially when it turns out someone had been affected by it for years and years. But it is slightly more removed because that poster was a child whereas this woman has been lying in the here and now, getting the OP to build up a relationship with the rest of her extended family via FaceTime but not introduced them when they were over here, has had a go at the OP for mentioning her abusive childhood and brought her grief over her dead mother into the picture to lay on the guilt, while all the while the mother is very much alive and in contact with the friend.

Nope. I can’t see any actual justifiable reason for that.

How do you know she has an actual reason? It could simply be that she’s a lying, deceitful woman who is an attention seeker into the bargain.

That admitted it herself?

If op is 'like her sister', genuinely. She would have known this already.

I've lied about my mother being dead, or insinuated it, because we were no contact for exactly the reasons others have stated. It was just easier than explaining a very painful reality.

You’re not really looking for any insight or support with this other than venting anger and bitching about your friend OP. She’s most likely better off without you.

@AllHeart1 So your nickname is definitely a total misnomer then...

getting the OP to build up a relationship with the rest of her extended family via FaceTime but not introduced them when they were over here

The OP waved at them a couple of times on face time. She didnt get them ti build a relationship. OP said herself, they called and the friend would say 'I am doing x with my friend....say hi to my sisters'

OP did more of the attempting to build a relationship with them by sending people she doesnt know, presents.

You’re not really looking for any insight or support with this other than venting anger and bitching about your friend OP. She’s most likely better off without you.

I think so too. This women who is like a sister and she dorsnt even want to try and understand why she did something like this. Sounds like OP is more pissed off because she realised that her friend isnt as in her pocket as she thought.

Also, it may well have been the case that she was little to no contact when the friend said these things but the relationship has since improved.

I would tend to thin that, if this is the only lue she has told, she had her reasons for doing so at the time.

I'm also intolerant of lies but none of us have the right to know exactly what goes on in our friends personal and family lives.

I'd cut her some slack this time but be mindful of it going forward.

I agree that it seems the OP assumed relationships were being built and attempted to move that along. The other woman had just made a friend.

So your nickname is definitely a total misnomer then... why? Because I’m not comfortable with the idea of downplaying the most awful lies?

While there is no question that the OP on the other thread needs some therapy, lying about a vicious sexual assault flies in the face of the “we believe you” campaign.If the friend of that OP had come on to MN and say she’d been haunted by what happened to her friend but suspected she may have been lying she would have been shot down in flames and told that people don’t make this stuff up. And yet the OP did, and while she needs to move forward now the fact is that every time someone makes something like that up and admits it and people support that, the credibility of “we believe you” is called into question, and women become a bit less likely to be believed.

As for this OP’s friend, people are assuming that there must be reasons why she made up the death of her mum. Why? Why, if the OP of that other thread could simply have made up a sexual assault and rape could the friend on this thread not have made up a story about her mum being dead?

It’s a slippery slope when we start to downplay the lies people tell.

Assuming she has reasons and is a decent person because

She owned up herself
And OP is so close to her they are like sisters. Why would they be so close if the friend is a shit. And if they are close, op would know she is a shit.

So either op is over playing home close they are or she is a decent person that fucked up

No the OP said that people joke about them being like sisters. Which they’re clearly not if the OP didn’t know for three years that the OP had been lying to her about her mum’s death, and downplaying the OP’s own childhood abuse with a guilt trip.

And given the lie “admitting” there were reasons is meaningless, especially when she’s continued to lie by saying they hardly speak and then going on to say that they speak several times a month.

Trust your own instinct, this has clearly made your really wobble about your friendship with her so maybe you need a bit of time to sort through if you can trust her or not.

She sounds mixed up, at the least. I think it means your friendship is going to have areas of mistrust and can only go so deep, but maybe enjoy it for the good bits and don't invest too much in it.

This is someone I hang out with nearly every weekend. People joke about us being sisters.

Op obviously thinks they are that close. And I said they obviously arent. Either she is a shit and OP has imagined this amazing relationship they have, or she is generally a decent person.

She didnt have to admit it. But she did

So many views can be made on this, but Difficult relationships in families often are worse than death. Was it wrong of her to say her mother had died when she had in fact not, yes. However, sometimes we have people living among us that have hurt us or betrayed us in such a way that they are dead to us in that they are no longer a part of our lives. I would honestly not judge her harshly on the dishonesty part, as we don’t know the familial circumstances between her and her mum.

The issue is, when she was finally honest, it doesn’t sound like she followed up with any acknowledgement or explanation. Such as, “I know I lied to you about her being dead but I was <insert explanation> at the time.”

I don’t blame you for being unsettled OP. It’s the casual nature of how it’s been handled. A friendship is built on trust and this shakes it to its foundations without some kind of explanation.

Also there has been a lot of projection on this thread, and #bekind pressurising, when in reality most people would feel as rattled as you do about this kind of lie, without any acknowledgement of how it may have impacted you.

🧟‍♂️ zombie thread