My Partner is a Compulsive Liar

[Mummyto4WM]

Ladies,
Oh ladies, I'm going to keep this short. I feel like banging my head on a brick wall. My partner is a compulsive liar (he doesnt even deny it anymore). He lies all the time, 95% of the time about things that don't matter. Ie. I brushed my teeth (when he didnt). Like most things aren't even a big deal!

I've tolerated it for a while, but it's grating on me now. I've even stopped calling out his lies and just telling myself "he's a liar, don't bother" just to prevent arguing.

Don't really know what advise I want, probably just a moan. It's so exhausting!

Do you have joint children?

At this stage, you are fixated on the injustice of constantly being lied to. It hurts a lot so you can’t think past that stage. Thinking past it would be looking at making changes to ensure a much better for a good future for yourself. Thinking past it would be preparing to set yourself up for disruption and more hurt now ready for peace and contentment afterwards.

At the same time as being fixated on the injustice being done to you, you are planning to marry him (knowing he is a liar)
Knowing he’s a liar kind of negates your own vows to him doesn’t it and turns you into a liar too by accepting his word as truth when you know from years of experince that his word means nothing.

You are right to feel the injustice of being lied to. Injustice is a terrible emotion, one of the worst to have to deal with. It eats away at you. So I’m sorry you are subjected to it on a daily basis. Never being able to orient yourself within the relationship is torture.

But you are very unreasonable to continue to allow him to cause you that injustice….to treat you so appallingly. One lie should have been enough.

You can’t be with him OP because you will never ever be able to trust his word…whether it’s a little thing or a big thing, his lies make it impossible.
He has already ruined the partnership. it’s already done, unless you continue to condone his lies of the past and his as yet, untold lies of the future.

Decide what your own decent standards and values are. And what your expectations of a husband should be. Then set him straight on them and explain you know he will never be able to meet them .. not even half way because everything revolves around truth which he is incapable of giving you. Tell him you are sorry to say that that means cancelling the wedding and never taking him back as a partner.

Or ……you can go ahead with the wedding knowing your life will be even more miserable than it is now and being unable to complain because you knew full well the kind of life you were inviting in for yourself. (and your children if you have any)

One last thing OP, it’s a heck of a job to unravel the causes for compulsive lying. And then to break the habit and then to set new standards and then to stick to them. It will take a life time for him to achieve it even if the will is there to do it.
Your good will can’t do it for him.
His mum isn’t helping him (though she thinks she is) as she is emotionally involved and may even have been part of the problem originally….how sad!

It absolutely should terrify you.

Looking back now I can see my mum started with signs of dementia at around 64 but was horribly anxious with permanent low level depression from at least 25 years earlier. Her whole adult lifetime the victim of lying and gaslighting, with the excuse being “I lie because of your reactions” when in fact her “reactions” were usually when she found out she was being lied to.

Add in a few outside general life stresses that happen to us all, but alongside the lying and gaslighting she couldn’t cope with even the slightest bit of outside stress. She was a shell of herself by her early 60’s, I honestly think she just gave up and now she’s early 70’s, looks about 90 and has full blown dementia.

What a sad life.

@LAMPS1 ❤ thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed, insightful response. I cried my eyes out throughout your whole message. You're right. Absolutely right.

I deserve so much better. I'm allowing this to continue knowing how much harm it's causing me. In many ways, expecting him to change overnight, isn't fair on him, because it's unrealistic when he hasnt yet accepted and dealt with the route cause.

I'm sad, because I've been clinging onto someone, because I didn't want a second failed relationship. I didn't want the embarrassment of saying it hasn't worked but I do deserve more. Something he cannot give to me.

Thank you. ❤

I'm not sure how many more messages I can face today, but thank you all for your responses. I've read them carefully and know the decision I have to make.

Thank you all.

The wedding invite example, my colleague does this - can’t just say oh god yes I forgot about the childcare thing before saying we’d be there. I always assume it’s massive insecurity about having missed something. He‘s also been everywhere done everything, again insecurity.

but also immensely irritating, I only tolerate him because I have to, a chosen relationship is different.

That’s a huge worry that you are only just becoming a bit resentful , you should be absolutely fuming and binning him off. I think you also need some counselling to look at the people pleasing why you do it and what you get out of it.

I notice OP has still not addressed if they have children together. I hope not as ending the relationship will be so much easier.

Please do not marry him. You are worth so much more.....and so are you your children.

Ending a relationship when you’ve invested of yourself, your time, your everything is hard - especially when you’re meant to be planning a future together. Read about sunk cost fallacy if you want to understand it more, we’re wired to not want to jack things in. But it sounds as if you know you have to. Deep breaths & brave pants on. If it was a friend in this position, what would you say to them? You’ve had the light bulb moment, making a plan will give you clarity. Good luck

Sorry if I was too blunt. It’s easy to forget behind a screen that someone else is probably reading things that are striking them brutally. Obviously you don’t have to do anything right now, but take the time to think about it. You don’t need to worry about the shame of a second failed relationship, no one knows, and anyone who does know won’t care.

Shame about failure or being hurt is completely normal- recognise it for what it is, a sign that something has happened that causes you to suffer. Not a reason to cower.

I went out with a guy like this, as soon as it became clear, I lost all respect for him and ended it. Appreciate people stay in relationships for different reasons but not respecting my partner (or him respecting me by being dishonest) is a non-negotiable for me.

He won't change, it's a psychological issue. And if you can't trust your partner to admit eating the last biscuit, how could you trust anything they say?

Just wanted to add OP that the failure of this relationship is not down to you. If you can think of it as a successful escape from a certain failed marriage that may help you. It’s easy for posters like me to give advice without having to bear the consequences. Sometimes though, it’s distance from the problem that gives clarity. Wishing you well.

I went out with someone like this. He would tell completely pointless lies and after we broke up I realised he was lying even on our first date. Pointless and ridiculous lies. You only know about the lies he’s telling you, think about what he might be telling other people! After we broke up I found out that he’d told other people I’d left my husband for him (I didn’t) and that he was on the mortgage for my house (he wasn’t). I felt like I was living in some sort of alternate universe by the end, it was awful!

I read this and thought of you.

I agree with the others. Get out while you can, before he breaks you emotionally, mentally and physically.

My stbx has always "fibbed". It has slowly ramped up over our married until I had a mini breakdown a couple of years ago. Due to the emotional and mental stress he has put me under due to his lies my physical health is now so bad I cannot work. I've been trapped in an alternative universe for many years but I'm finally escaping. Well, I think I am but he's still lying to the estate agents who are selling our home, lying to the divorce solicitors, lying to his children "that it's not his fault (its the ea, the solicitor, no time, he forgets, mum nags, etc etc)", lying to his parents. It's hell. Get out now while you can.

I did wonder re the children. She mentions childcare but no children.

Sorry, I would just get out. I had an ex like that. Started with the small lies, even when something did or didn't happen and you were there etc. it got worse. The lies came bigger, more dangerous,