I recently found out my fiancé has been lying to me. He briefly lost his job (they just didn’t have the shifts) around a year and a half ago, and he didn’t tell me. It unraveled after I deep dived into some of our finances. This led to other lies, like purchases that I thought were paid off weren’t, and during the period of job loss he was still pretending to go to work but at the work library. I only found out because I asked, he didn't volunteer the information.
What I found even more unsettling was finding out that not only did he tell a big lie which spiralled, but that lying is a very normal daily occurrence. He’ll lie about inane things I don’t even care about, and tell stupid white lies like saying he’s done something I asked him to but hasn’t. I find it disturbing because given the way he presents, you’d never think lying to me constantly was weighing on him - he’s basically the epitome of a loving golden retriever boyfriend.
This is not the first time, we’ve been through a lot. He’s been sober for 3 years but prior to that he had addiction issues and would spend our savings and lie compulsively. I could see so many improvements when he stopped drinking and genuinely thought we had overcome so much and grown in our 8 years together. I thought this feeling of having the rug pulled out from under me was behind me. He’s never been forthcoming about things either or volunteered information, I’ve always had to find out, and that clearly hasn’t changed.
His issues make him really selfish, I’ve never really felt that he puts my best interest ahead of his own, whereas I do so my needs end up taking a back seat. I’m also so hurt that he didn’t tell me about the job because it makes me question how he values me as a partner. Again, in contrast, I see him as an extension of me where we are totally synonymous. We also genuinely have a really lovely life together. Now I just feel like everything is tainted and it’s all been a lie, as if I was in a totally different relationship with a totally different person to the one in reality. It’s really sad.
He is extremely confrontation-avoidant and carries a lot of shame and guilt. I believe he is genuinely remorseful when he’s caught and can recognise the consequences of his actions, but it doesn’t change what he’s repetitively doing. We’ve lasted this long because we’ve always had a genuine friendship and enjoyment of each other, and I think he’s a really good and kind person to his core. However, I’m no longer sure being a “good person” is enough if your actions are so hurtful. Choosing to stay and support him through it in the past, despite being hurt wasn’t easy either; it entailed cleaving away some innate parts of myself and compromising my own dignity and principles.
Why does it feel like so many men are like this, even the “good” ones? The behaviour just seems routed in systemic forces that conditions them to be repressed without healthy emotional tools, while women carry so much emotional and mental burden. I haven’t had the easiest childhood myself, so all I want is something peaceful, beautiful and true that I’ve actively worked to earn and thought I finally had.
Anyway, I’ve been here enough times with him that it does feel different in the sense that the factors which made me stay in the past aren’t enough anymore. I don’t really see a way to move forward together and it’s really sad. He has started reading, journaling and signed up to therapy to explore his issues, but I just don’t know if it’s redeemable or enough honestly. I feel like I don’t know him, and I don’t know whether I’d really trust him again after getting to a point where I genuinely did. It makes me question everything including his feelings towards me. He has moved to the guest bedroom while I’m just taking one day at a time because thinking beyond that starts to feel overwhelming.
Any advice or even experience is really appreciated.