Little White Lies

[McCurly]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and wanted to get some opinions as I don't often trust my own judgement.

After a disastrous 10 year relationship I met this guy who I have been with for coming up 2 years. He is kind, sensitive, caring and loving which is a million miles from my last relationship but I keep catching him out in let's say "little white lies" and I don't know if I should be bothered about it as much as I am. My ex lied but big lies like where he was and having online affairs and I don't think this guy is like this at all.

We live a few hours from each other and normally spend long weekends together every month or so and we have great communication when we're not together.

The first ones that I know of was a few months ago when he said he had been into town and got me a gift and then 3 weeks later when we got together I waited a few days and asked him about it, he said he forgot to bring it but I since found out he didn't get anything at all but was thinking to get me something.

Next was a local shop to him sell the most amazing cakes and he said he would get some and bring them next time, again he said he had got them but rushed out and forgot to bring them, again I since found out he actually didn't have time to go and get them.

Next was we went away for a weekend with friends and he arrived 6 hours before any of us, as usual I asked him if he'd gotten some food and told me he'd called into mcdonalds and just got a burger, friends for some reason also asked him if he'd eaten and he said yep I've been to mcdonalds and had a meal and a couple of extra burgers as I was so hungry. This is when I started to clock on to his little lies and asked him, he said he didn't want me to think he was being fat by having so much food.

He has recently been given some medication by the doctors and for some reason lied about the dosage to me and then today he went to the gym and I asked if he'd had food and he said I jist had a breakfast bar, I said that's not a lot babe and he says oh and I had a yogurt. I know he didn't have a yogurt at all as there were only 3 in the fridge and there are still 3 so I asked him and he said he told me that to make me feel better so that I didn't worry about him.

It's really small stuff but I really hate lies and he says sorry but then also says cmon babe don't tell me you never lie to me, I was like no actually I don't.

I'm not in a great mood with him right now and he's trying to brush over it with small talk and has since walked out the house and said stuff this I'm going out, I'll get a hotel or something.

He's been suffering from health anxiety for a couple of months but these little things were happening before this now he's saying I'm giving him no room for error and he's been there for me 100% which he for sure has, he's my solid rock and I love him very much. Now I'm the meany!

And rather predictably here comes the DARVO

Of course it’s all your fault - I mean why should he take personal responsibility for his own actions when he can deflect it back on you?

Honestly it’s like a script these men all follow

This combination is very familiar.

Has he become increasingly dependent on you?

Not particularly, he has his own money. I offered him to come and stay at mine whilst he's off work to see if it would help him recover but he's just told me I've been totally useless and not understanding at all and then bought up about me telling him he stacked the dishwasher wrong.

If he’s lying about the little things how do you know if he’s being truthful about the big things! Lies are a dealbreaker for me. He’d be gone. He will not change. This is bothering you also as you’re posting on here. Good luck. It’s hard, but the lies eat away until it’s all rotten and sour. Maybe better to cut ties now rather than go through more pain.

The lies may be 'little white lies 'but its the principle ,he tells lies and you can't ever trust someone who does.
I felt irritated reading what you said about him ,i know i could absolutely not tolerate this.

When I first met my DH, he lied about small, ridiculous, insignificant little things too. All the time! Why, I don't know. Point is; it did not get better.

In my experience, if they lie about small stuff, eventually they lie about big stuff.

I would bin him.

I wish I'd binned my husband after the first white lie, instead of marrying him and 'accepting' he was a pathological liar.

Thank you everyone for your input, I am still in two minds and I do not know which is the right path, he's not being nasty but now I am the unsupportive girlfriend not helping him through his difficult patch by laying I to him over a silly yogurt.

Honestly after so many failed relationships I am staring to belive I was not cut out for it. I know no one is perfect, everyone has their faults including me but I'm just not willing to put up with shit like this, starts to feel like too much to ask or my standards are too high.

I hate speaking about him like this he is the most kind, caring, loving, giving, forgiving person I have ever met and it would leave a big hole with him no longer in my life.

I know it's heartbreaking, but it's only going to be worse 5 years down the line with a mortgage and 2 children, when you can't trust if he really gave the children the meal you prepared or if he gave them crisps, if he really took them to soft play or if they spent the day on the tablet, if he teaches the kids to lie to you "let's not tell mommy about that, it'll make her sad"...

It's hard to find a good man, it doesn't mean you should waste years on a bad man. It's not you who is wrong, it's that you waste so much time dating people who have totally different values to you instead of throwing them back. You have only one life, don't spend it being miserable and gaslit.

I tell white lies like this, about petty stuff. I don’t mean to be dishonest and I don’t start a conversation with an intention to lie, I wouldn’t deliberately hide things or lie about big things. I have autism and ADHD and do struggle sometimes in conversation, I also have low self-esteem, social anxiety and am a people pleaser and I think I often just feel panicked in social interactions and like I have to say the thing the other person will expect me to say or something that won’t make them judge me or won’t upset them. I want to say the right thing that will move conversation on in a comfortable direction more than I want to be truthful sometimes. It’s worse with acquaintances but I can do it with close friends and family too. I used to be a lot worse but I am aware of it now and do try and think before I speak and stop myself from lying, but I still do it quite a lot.

There are all sorts of roots to this behaviour, it isn’t necessarily malicious.
It’s often due to erratic angry parents who shamed you for very little. You learn to say whatever it takes to stay out of trouble. It’s a survival technique and comes as easily as breathing.

It was me, to an extent. I couldn’t admit I’d not done something I was supposed to do, or said I’d do. I couldn’t just be late. Admitting that could have got me in a whole shower of shit at home.

It took concerted effort to break the habit, when I was in a safer place.

He doesn’t sound as though he understands his own behaviour, and is lashing out at you rather than feel shame about it.

So you have held a boundary. And now hes emotionally abusing you with the "no support from his girlfriend" crap? He's turned it onto you?!
No no no no no

It’s absolutely classic textbook DARVO - never their fault

I had a friend like that, couldn’t be bothered so she’s been demoted to an acquaintance.

If they are capable of little lies then there will be bigger ones too.

I remember dating someone who I realised did this over silly little things and they would drop themselves in it all of the time or get mixed up and change what they said down the line. I clocked out very quickly.

To add - Whenever I causally called them out on their lies they would play the victim. All of a sudden they would have X amount of problems and be the most hard done by person to ever exist, sometimes I would be told I make them feel like they have no confidence or their friends brothers long cousins cat had been kidnapped and he needed to go and rescue it.

It was always dramatic and projected back onto me.

I don't know what to think today, I am caught in a tangled web of my own thoughts. I feel like a big meany, the nasty girlfriend who won't put up with any shit and then on the other hand I have my boundaries, I made a promise to myself coming out my last long term relationship to set my boundaries and stick to them something I never did.

He has told me he's really not himself at the moment and I am judging instead of asking why he lied and that's why people with mental health problems get overlooked.

I run a small and successful business and my days are busy, I have tried to be there for him, listen to how he's feeling but this just feels like something entirely different.

We've not spoken today and he's in the bedroom and not coming out, I don't feel like I should be pandering to him but his train is booked for tomorrow.

Oh for god's sake, tell him to grow up. His mental health problems? He's lied about things to make himself seem better - even though you wouldn't care about those things anyway. Some people do have mental health problems but they don't manifest themselves in this way. He's trying to make you feel guilty because he feels guilty. Take him to the station and wave goodbye.

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?. That is a question that deserves serious consideration here. What example of a relationship did your parents show you?.

Re your previous comment, "I hate speaking about him like this he is the most kind, caring, loving, giving, forgiving person I have ever met and it would leave a big hole with him no longer in my life".

Why are you thinking this re him?. Did you think similar of your ex too?. Why have you built this current bloke up so?. And if this person is indeed the most kind, caring etc person then I hate to think what the other men have been like

He is insulting those with actual MH problems. This is another disastrous relationship you find yourself in and now you are with a man who lies repeatedly. Read a lot more about DARVO OP - he is using this technique so beloved of abusers here big time. This is over or it should be and the longer this drags on the worse it will be for you.

Do read Women who love too much by Dr Robin Norwood. And consider therapy to unlearn all the damaging crap you have picked up about relationships along the way.

Love your own self for a change. Women are also not rehab centres for badly raised men. A person too cannot also act as a rescuer and or saviour in a relationship; neither approach works.

So he'll sulk and pout until you forget his lies? That is his plan....
Ltb. His mh issues aren't yours to fix..

Tricky

Thanks so much for everyone taking the time to reply, it helps a lot, I don't feel I can talk to my family I am a bit ashamed after my last disastrous relationship when I leaned on them so much.

My parents relationship wasn't so good they divorced when I was 15, we had a "happy" upbringing but now as an adult I can see we were protected from the cracks underneath. It was a do what I say not what I do parenting style.

My ex was an ass from the start but I tried to see the good in him, healthy, hard worker, good dad but he was arrogant and our personalities did not match but it took me 10 years of various heartaches to leave him.

I'm ready to let him walk tomorrow, I won't be begging him to stay, I offered my home to him for a bit of R&R, yes I have been quite strict on how I like my home to be kept but he sees this as me digging at him, nagging and not being supportive and has apparently made him feel like he's not good enough for me.

He's lost all motivation and I have been trying to have some conversations about goals and things he could be doing to help himself but it all goes in one ear and out the other and like some of you have said I shouldn't be his saviour.

I watched a TV show once where it was argued that "white lies" are often used to shield people from unpleasantness and to oil the wheels of social interaction. One participant was a priest who said she often had difficulty with this. She felt it was necessary to be truthful but always in a way that did not hurt or diminish others. For example a member of the parish council who had volunteered to do a report but had obviously skimped it. Eventually she found a kindly way to express that she needed more information without putting him down in front of other members.

However the kinds of untruths the OP describes would be a red flag to me that the boyfriend was not being honest about his feelings for her. If he is going to tell lies so early in the relationship what will it be like in a year or two?