Fiancée continues to lie about his past

[Leah1988123]

Right here goes!!

Ive been with my partner for 6 years and overall we have a steady happy relationship with lots to look forward to.
having said that we continue to clash and spent most of our time distant and drained over the same thing which keeps seeming to happen where he lies about his past experiences.

I am stuck in two minds constantly 1. Trust is eroded get out. 2. Work on myself and draw a line under the past he is in his right to lie about it it’s none of my business.

to give some content of myself, I have always been a tad jealous in previous relationships but have never had any reasons to mis trust and therefore it’s not become an unhealthy issue.

to give content about my partner he is faithful and typically puts his family before anything else a good guy.

when we first met he was a lot younger and immature but he volunteered lots of information to me which I wouldn’t have typically asked such as he hadn’t slept with anyone for nearly a year, he really loved his ex and she broke his heart, and they had a great relationship done lots together socially healthy sex like ect ect!
he soon after admitted that he played up his experiences and the relationship because he felt inadequate and inexperienced compared to me because he knew I had a few long term relationships before him.
whilst admitting the up play he mentioned that in fact it was the opposite they didn’t do much at all, he said they barely had sex he was actually not that great to her and was never into her.

fast forward two years he mentioned he had mentioned he not even seen any women’s boobs and felt so privileged to have me and that a lot of his firsts were with me. I found it very bizarre that he had been in a 2/3 year relationship before me a few hook ups after her but had never seen a glimpse of a women’s boob in his life. He was 26 when we met! as well as this he volunteered information he hadn’t tried xyz!
despite me trying to rationalise with him for example “really, oh come on did you never accidentally walk in the bathroom and see her “ or during sex when you first met her and it was fresh and new” he convinced me that the relationship was dead never good no attraction and therefore he wasn’t in a situation where he would have seen boobs or tried XYZ.

fast forward another year we are still arguing over things my gut feels he has lied about I have everyone around me saying it doesn’t matter it’s his past but my brain cannot understand why he would lie in the first place our relationship breaks down over trust and we agree a fresh start he comes clean about certain lies he told and we agree to draw a line under past! Anyway months later I barrage him over a contradiction in something he said and he admits the truth and says he wasn’t entirely honest because he is scared and ashamed and doesn’t feel comfortable telling me things he has done with his ex.

I agree he shouldn’t have to relive his past but my point is he was the one who volunteered and fabricated lots of things I could never understand why and he promised going forward he wouldn’t lie anymore. Well he did he made bold statements to me convincing me of things I doubted anyway because they seem unrealistic. And I just feel that every few months he forgets a lie I challenge the contradiction and he breaks down admitting he wasn’t entirely honest the last time he promised he was!

should I be questioning his integrity and if lying is a personality trait he has or should I be marching myself off to therapy to get my insecurities under wrap and accept most people don’t feel comfortable talking about things they’ve done in the past and probably do lie.

outside of his past I havnt caught him lying about relevant stuff which would directly harm us.

I’ve become a little obsessed with the girl he has lied so much about because I can’t understand why he has played her up played her down just to admit that he had a relatively normal relationship with her!

I can't imagine not being honest and expecting the same from a boyfriend, let alone a fiancé! These conversations about prior experiences can be awkward, but pretty necessary and I find it weird he would've brought this stuff up (not seeing boobs!) when it's not even true. Gives me the ick reading it TBH. Definitely don't think it's 'just' your insecurities!

Why do you need to work on yourself when it's him who has the problem? He can't tell the truth. And therefore can't be trusted.
If it's this bad before you are married what on earth is marriage to him going to look like ?

Don't marry a liar, fgs.

Very weird.

Don't marry this guy!

As someone who has just come out of a relationship with a compulsive liar my advice is to walk away. It eats away at you, messes with your head.

This is so bizarre. How have you lasted six years?

Is he only lying about his ex/sex/relationship or is he lying about other things too?

This isn't you, he's piled lie upon lie about something he should never have really brought up with you in the first place.

It would have really poisoned the well for me, I think.

So can this be unpicked? Honestly, what's your inclination?

You say he was 26 when you met so early 30s now. immaturity is maybe a factor in his idiocy in the first instance but a lot happens in your 30s and I think he's old enough to want to put this right now. Any further lies or ongoing lack of trust?

Main trouble is, due to his behaviour, instead of just accepting he had an ex, they had sex of some description, fine. You now want to know the details to try and iron things out. This is because his sex life with his ex , which you would ordinarily want to know nothing about, has been the subject of his lack of integrity and lies. You'd never normally want to know what kind of sex your partner had with an ex!

If you want to continue, I think you need joint therapy to navigate this. He needs to work out his behaviour, why he did it and how you both rebuild trust without going down a rabbit hole of matters you don't really want to be going into and I think a professional will help with that.

But honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to be married to someone who finds lying and easy solution. If this is one immature mistake that's got out of hand that may be fixable but not jf it's any kind of a wider pattern

Give your head a serious wobble. You know ther's a problem, that's why you have come on here....

You've been in a relationship 6 years and 5 years in you're still talking about his ex? Why? And why does it matter?

If you're obsessed with his ex you should probably figure out a solution to that because that's not normal, especially 6 years into a relationship. It sounds like you keep bringing it up to try and find inconsistencies and he's telling you different things to try and figure out what you want to hear.

Dear god. Get away now. There is nothing, literally nothing, right about this.

Do you think this ex girlfriend actually exists, or is she “his girlfriend in Canada, you wouldn’t know her but she’s really hot” fake girlfriend?

Because if she is fictitious and he was actually a virgin when you met him, that would explain the lies, and him never having seen boobs before. I think I would find that so pathetic aged 26 that I’d have the ick, but that’s better than randomly lying about completely random stuff like never having seen a breast before.

edited to say: it’s the lying about being a player that would give me the ick, not being a virgin.

After 6 years why are either of you talking about his ex or prior sexual experiences at all?

@ComingBackHome Just about his ex sex relationship which is why I haven’t walked very consious that it’s irrelevant and non of my business he says he tried to impress me in the early days then got into a pickle and continued to lie because he didn’t want to hurt me. Every time he says he’s not lying anymore we have a convo that contradicts this but yes only about his past before me

What do you want, OP?

He's made enough mess for this to be a deal breaker if you need confirmation that someone else thinks that

@Catlord i want to know that if I leave it’s because of a true lying issue or unresolved feelings on his part and not just me now feeling insecure and jealous over his past!

you are right in your previous post - I wouldn’t typically question the things I am trying to iron out and it’s driving me insane I’m getting answers I wouldn’t usually care or need to know and it hurts. It’s as though I’m torturing myself in the process of trying to build trust and I’m sure had he have lied lots about another particular thing (not an ex) ide be trying to figure that out also.

I keep coming back to a silly question in my mind but has he lied so greatly about this one particular person and for so long despite convincing me the opposite of the truths because he has unresolved issues with that part of his life.

ide like to think that when your planning a wedding your with your one true person who you trust to handle truths. It might be worth me mentioning that he spoke to a therapist who did confirm that his lying most likely stems from childhood trauma and people pleasing she said it could be a coping mechanism. My immature head then kicks in and I start wondering coping over an ex from yearssss ago??? I don’t know pretty confusing

You need therapy for your jealousy and insecurities. .
He is trying to give the right answers to keep you happy and he just can’t win .
Never seen boobs at 26 come on. He just knows you will ask if hers were better than yours.

The guy can’t win. You can’t/ won’t drop it . Put you both out your misery and end things .

Would you not be happier single?

@Imbusytodaysorry hmm I get your stance but I do t think it’s that black and white! When we met I would have presumed he would have seen boobs and not thought a thing of it or asked for clarity lol. He volunteered this information to me after he had already made out he has a relatively normal history which I was fine with. When I asked him why he told me he had a normal history if he didn’t he replied because he felt inferior to me as I had been in many relationships and he though I was experienced so he didn’t want me thinking he was inexperienced! I took this on board to later find out he had had a normal history and when I asked why he played things up then down for things to turn out true anyway he just says I don’t no got myself into a mess my thread is more about the lying not the content of it! But yes you are absolutely right I have gone into a bit of a rabbit hole over irrelevant stuff now because of the amount Ive needed to think about things for the sake of clarity in my mind.

You seem pretty obsessed. You’re never going to resolve this with this guy so why dont you do yourselves a favour and end it

I was with a compulsive liar for years and I spent the entire time being gaslighted and questioning my sanity.
I ended up with severe anxiety which just spiralled and I ended up needing psychiatric care.
Please do not stay with a liar.

It seems clear that your fiancée is trying to tell you whatever you want to hear - this is supported by his therapist who states that people pleasing is a coping mechanism learned from childhood trauma. I don’t really understand what you mean “coping over an ex from years ago” - what does that have to do with childhood trauma?

Initially, the people pleasing was that he’d had a normal and healthy relationship - as per your OP, he felt that you’d had more experience which left him feeling inadequate, inexperienced and ashamed. As you got further into the relationship 2-3 years down the line he has admitted to you he was very inexperienced when you met. This could be because you have a loving relationship and he’s trusted you enough to tell you… or because he’s noted your jealous tendencies and thought you’d prefer to know you’re his first in many ways. Either way, at this point, he’s scared to tell you anything about his ex as you barrage him with questions.

You say he doesn’t lie about anything else, so I don’t see how or why you would question his integrity or feel the trust is eroded. It was a mistake for him to a) volunteer so much information about his past and b) lie about it in the first place - but unless he is a compulsive liar or you suspect he’s unfaithful, then you’ve no reason to question his integrity based on this one incident alone. I would have to respectfully disagree with PPs calling him a compulsive liar… compulsive lying is habitual, not limited to one incident.

I do think constantly interrogating him about a past relationship is probably going to damage your relationship over the long run though. I imagine he feels attacked and that’s why he’s now telling you he’s scared to talk about it.

If you love him I would really try to let this go. You’re fixating on a past relationship from over 6 years ago that was either normal, inexperienced or non existent. Are any of these eventualities worth the amount of headspace you’re giving this? His past relationship has zero relevance… he is getting married to you, not his ex. Regardless of what the truth is, I question if you would accept any explanation he gives you now.

I think it would be unkind to flat out tell you that you need therapy, but this isn’t a healthy dynamic. Maybe you’d benefit from some couples counselling together to help move on from this?

The information you gave about him seeing a therapist and they said he uses it as a form of coping mechanism is very relevant here. A professional is saying that he does it because it's a response to something he's not able to deal with, due to historical trauma. He's not actively trying to lie, with the intention of hurting you.

Regarding telling his story of a normal relationship prior to you, he was feeling vulnerable and wanted to impress you or at least not to lose you. He would have been afraid of you judging him for his lack of experience and probably was feeling very insecure.

Then as he let his guard down and time went on, the real truth pops out. Hence the talk about never having seen boobs and feeling grateful for being in a relationship with you. However this triggers your sense of "hang on a minute, how can that be true?" sense and feeds into your insecurities and jealousy.

You think there must be something in his past that's potentially damaging, or he wouldn't lie about it. Unfortunately the more you try to catch him out, the more uncomfortable he gets, which triggers his coping mechanism of lying and the whole merry-go-round starts again.

If he's fundamentally truthful in your everyday life and it's only his past relationship that's problematic, then you both need to sit down once and for all, discuss it openly, honestly and then draw a line under it. You either have to believe him and let it go or decide you can't. It's not sustainable to be constantly questioning it and then trying to get to the bottom of it. It's just torturing both of you.

You need to think if there is anything in his previous dating history that is going to impact your future together. Things like STDs, cheating or violence are. The quality and quantity of the sex or how adventurous they were, really isn't. Every relationship will be different and evolve differently, but he's not in that relationship now.

He's chosen to be with you, so it's a bit irrelevant what his relationship was or would have been, if he was with her now.

However if he's deceptive in his daily life, then this will need to be addressed before you get married.

I would suggest that the best course of action would be to go to counselling together, so that both of you can learn to understand each other and work on becoming an open honest and trusting team. In every relationship there will be themes or recurring issues of conflict and it's important to learn how to navigate them.

I was married to a liar who turned out to be a narcissist. I trust my gut every time always caught him out saying one thing then something else. Ohh I might have made it sound more than it was ohh no I didn’t say that you misheard. Messes with your head affects your health. 20 years later he is still the same. Liars are incapable of changing don’t marry him you will be forever questioning yourself about things he says changes.