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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Anyone been in a relationship with a compulsive liar?

64 replies

mymatekate · 07/05/2009 14:09

Have been with my partner for 5 years and throughout that time I have gradually found out more and more lies that he has told me. Each time he has said that he only did it because he didn't want to lose me, or to protect me, blah blah. I now feel as if I cannot believe a word he says, due to a recent incident that could have been potentially very dangerous to our child. When he has lied in the past, he has done it so profusely that he has actually turned on me and said that I "am ridiculous", that I must not know him at all, and has actually stopped speaking to me for an evening over something I accused him of which I now have found out was a lie!! He also swore on his daughter's (with an ex-p) life!!!!!! I just cannot comprehend this! I ended up telling the ex-p - she did not seem shocked and said he had sworn on his mum's life to her when lying and also that he used to lie a lot with her.
He has agreed now to go for counselling, but I am just wondering if anyone else has been in similar situation and if they have ever changed?

OP posts:

RealityIsMyOnlyDelusion · 07/05/2009 14:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Curiousmama · 07/05/2009 14:26

Yes and he ended up stalking me, was a right weirdo. Didn't seem to have any real feelings and I reckon he was a sociopath. He never saw his own kids. I think it's the way they're wired and they never change.

mrsboogie · 07/05/2009 14:29

Me too. This guy lied about big things and small things all the time and would never admit it under any circumstances. In the end I pursued one lie and finished with him over it so he admitted it and said it was just done to get out of an argument. In fact it was sheer arrogance - he thought he was cleverer than me and that I would never cop on to him. He was wrong.

Life with someone like this is impossible as you never ever know whether they are telling the truth. I don't know if it is curable. I wasn't going to hang around to find out.

mrsboogie · 07/05/2009 14:32

God, mine was a sociopath too. Got up to all sorts of oddness and didn't seem to have a conscience at all. After I dumped him he used to hack into his young daughter's email account and email me pretending to be her. I moved house so he wouldn't know where I lived.

Curiousmama · 07/05/2009 14:34

very creepy mrsboogie. Mine went round all my friends crying crocodile tears but that was just the beginning.

RGPargy · 07/05/2009 14:39

Yes and he ended up stalking me and then eventually went into the mental ward at his local hospital ward after i dumped him. He'd lie about stupid things too. Cant for the life of me remember what now (was about 10 years ago) but i am well shot, thank goodness!

bubblagirl · 07/05/2009 14:39

yes i was in relationship with someone who probably even gave me his wrong name

io got to the point i couldn't handle anymore it was so silly some things he just couldn't help it final straw was when i found out no one new we was engaged and had been for 4 yrs as he told them he was single that was it for me its one to lie about small things but they got worse

he'd make me out to be paranoid or weird and then id find out he had in fact lied it was ruining me i became a shell of my former self he had to go

mrsboogie · 07/05/2009 14:40

the worst thing mine did was to his exgf before me. He broke into her house when she wasn't there and flooded the house with boiling water from the hot water tank completely destroying everything. He very conveniently managed to "happen" to be passing by and notice what was going on and pretend to be the person who discovered it all, to be the big hero. Can't remember now what his motive was. He didn't tell me he did it of course but I knew he did - the whole story was full of holes - a bit like the hot water tank when he had finished with it.

welshbyrd · 07/05/2009 14:43

Swearing on peoples life is a very juvenille way of being sure your partner is not lying

If people have to request him to swear on peoples lives, shows you have no trust in him whatsoever

NO TRUST, NO RELATIONSHIP

sleeplessinstretford · 07/05/2009 14:44

my first daughters father- a right lying bastard-nasty with it.
I left him the day daughter was born as i figured he'd carry on lying and we deserved better.
Didn't see him for 12 years, met him for a coffee last year-he's still the same- starting lying to daughter about how he's in contact with the 'top guy at top shop about business' (daughter is 14 and really into fashion so this would have turned her head) i 'drilled him down' saying 'do you mean phillip green?Phillip Green is the top man at top shop' and eventually he admitted that the business he had 'going on with' top shop was actually a meeting to pitch woolly scarves and gloves (or 'knitted accessories') with one of their buyers....
I tell people he's the man that goes round telling others he's signed an exclusive deal with Richard Branson when all he's done is buy a pay as you go virgin phone.
they really don't change-

poshwellies · 07/05/2009 14:45

Gawd,Scary stuff!

Do you think people are born liars? Or is a 'habit' they get into and end up believing their own lies?

Original poster

mymatekate · 07/05/2009 14:52

Welshbyrd - I have never and would never request him to swear on anyone's life - I too think it is juvenile! He did it voluntarily - that is what I find so bizarre!! It is like he was soooo desperate for me to believe him!
I love him dearly and apart from the lying, he is nice, kind, a good dad, financially secure and devoted.
We have been on the verge of splitting up over it and I think that has shocked him into being honest as he admitted something that he had done to me and lied about, when he didn't have to - I would never have found out. He also agreed to the counselling without a drama - which I would have normally expected. Maybe he knows he has a problem?

OP posts:

mrsboogie · 07/05/2009 14:52

No idea whether they are born like that but it is definitely some kind of personality disorder. sleeplessinstreford (you were a wise woman sss) has just reminded me that mine also told me that he had been to London to be interviewed at the bbc to be the next stig on Top Gear. Didn't cross my mind that he might be telling the truth. It was just a ploy to try to win me back.

If the OP was looking for reassurance that these guys can turn out ok I guess she ain't getting it! sorry OP.

Tippychickchickchicken · 07/05/2009 15:03

Yep. My father for one: told me once that he had leased a restaurant in another country and needed me and XP (chef) to help them run it. Had estate agents details, inventory, the lot.
We gave up jobs, house lease etc and moved over to find that the restaurant was sold the year before to be a Chinese, that he had not leased anything and had just wanted us to emigrate with him.

I have hundreds, literally hundreds of those stories.
XP (or on again off again P currently) showed scarily similar tendancies. Like a previous poster said, he would swear he hadn't eaten crisps with crumbs around his mouth, cheese'n'onion breath and sitting on the empty packet. He is slightly better now but it's a habit that seems impossible to break. X/?P used to lie and lie about giving up smoking when I fell pregnant, once I found a packet of fags in a feed bin when doing evening feeds. I confronted him and his excuses ranged from "the bag of oats must have had them in, they fell in at the mill maybe" to "they've been there since last year, I must have dropped them" with all in between.

The most maddening thing about the liars is that they will wear away at your motivation to confront them. If they swear the sky is green and you show them books, websites, esteemed expert's opinions, photos and a lovely song about the sky being blue, they will still continue to deny it. You'll lose the will to live before they do. They're like v small children stuck in that Did/Didn't mindset.

Good luck with that I know I need it.

Original poster

mymatekate · 07/05/2009 15:20

tippychicken you have hit the nail on the head - it's the ridiculous denial that gets me. I found an "illegal substance" in my dh's pocket (about 4 yrs ago), confronted him and he said he knew nothing, that it musn't have been what I thought, etc, etc. I also saw him sneakily take it when he was sitting beside me, as he said "look at those lights over there" and then out of the corner of my eye saw it happen. I mean how juvenile is that!!! He has recently (4 years on) admitted to having the drugs on him and taken it on that occasion in the toilets, but is still denying doing it sitting next to me even though I saw him do it! I expect if I'd had video evidence he would say it was camera trickery!

OP posts:

Tippychickchickchicken · 07/05/2009 15:29

MMKate, no really? Look at the shiny thing sleight of hand? They're amazing (shakes head ruefully emoticon needed)

One other thing I would say to the OP is that it gets passed down so for your children's sake be careful. I have reacted to my mad father by being spooked to the point of hysteria by lying (though not, you'll have spotted, having the wit to avoid shacking up with them) and my two brothers are both lying toads.It's for this reason that my X/?P is on thin ice at the moment.

whoisasking · 07/05/2009 15:32

I was married to a compulsive liar. He would lie about everything. Little lies about nothing...like, for example, I once asked him if why he'd put an empty juice carton back in the fridge. "It wasn't me" (I think he was the inspiration behind that Shaggy song actually) Well, it wasn't me, and at the time my little boy wasn't even walking. Why lie about that? WHY?

Then there were the big huge lies, about the drugs he was taking, the women he was shagging and the amount he was drinking.

It wore me down. It tired me out. I feel for you if you are with such a man, and as much as I would like to be able to comfort you that he is capable of change, in my experience, he's probably not.

Also, interestingly, our biggest rows were always triggered by me calling him on a lie, and actually persuing it. To call my XH a liar was to truly light the blue touchpaper. Weird really, considering that's exactly what he was (and still is)

Tippychickchickchicken · 07/05/2009 15:40

whoisasking surely speaks the truth. That was the flashpoint for us too.

And the "Why?" moments! The ones where you ask yourself why anyone would bother lying about that.

I think I may start classifying them
The WHY BOTHER? lies
Lying by omission
Stupid exaggeration lies
It wasn't me, I was dead at the time
It was the bank's mistake

There must be loads...

IneedacleanerIamalazyslattern · 07/05/2009 15:40

Yes my ex lied constantly. ABout everything from tiny silly things to big important things. It wasn't the only reason I left him but it was a big part of it. He used to get angry when I mistrusted him over something but he had never given me any reason to trust him and he was always found out.

Now he is with his ne girlfriend and I have discovered he is already lying to her they have only been together a month and are moving in together....poor woman has no idea what she is letting herself in for.

Original poster

mymatekate · 07/05/2009 15:42

I have now told my dh (technically dp as not married), that I do not believe a word he says. He is really annoyed about this, and says he feels he has been convicted of a crime he didn't commit (as he is currently denying something that I am 50/50 over whether it happened or not). Luckily for me he is not actually very good at lying, and combined with my suspicious sleuthing, most of the time I have been able to catch him out.
I am truly hoping for the sake of my ds that the knowledge that I can outsmart him, plus the counselling, will make him think the next time he is about to lie.....

OP posts:

whoisasking · 07/05/2009 15:48

Ha Tippy!

I can remember sitting there once while he wove this amazing story out of thin air, in front of a group of friends. I just sat there sort of and then he turned and looked at me, patted my knee and said "Isn't that right darling?" and I bloody nodded.

He still lies to me now, only because I'm so far removed from it, it's lost it's power to sting so much. Only last week he told me he couldn't look after our children because he was working (same old story) anyway, I drove past his regular pub and there he sat. I beeped and waved cheerfully. HIS FACE! haha

Tippychickchickchicken · 07/05/2009 15:50

MMKate, are you me? Or my conscience?
I also tell himself the same and he admits he has no right to trust but continues lying anyway. For example, when we were living apart he forwarded a text to me by mistake talking graphically about another woman. When he next came over I snooped a little on his phone to find the rest of the conversation. So I know that he tried his damndest to sleep with OW when we were apart, even if he didn't manage it. But without letting on that I snooped I cannot call him on it. I'm not apologising for snooping, anyone gormless enough to forward an explicit text to his GF (well, sort of at the time) deserves it IMHO. But even when I confronted him as much as I could he still denied it. Short of finding the wretched woman and dragging her in front of him, he will deny it to his grave I imagine.
It's worn me down so much I don't really care tbh whether he did or not.

It's not looking good OP, have we scared you off?

Tippychickchickchicken · 07/05/2009 15:51

D'oh, you are the OP MMK. I am sadly confused today.
What will you do d'you think?

mrsboogie · 07/05/2009 15:56

"it was the bank's mistake"

Yup, had that one (after I gave him my card to get me some money out because I had tonsillitis and couldn't go out.) He took out my money then separately withdrew the same amount for himself out of my account. Totally denied it when I showed him the statement showing two consecutive withdrawals for the same amount. Even when I told him I had asked the bank to look at the cctv footage (I lied!! )

SOLOisMeredithGrey · 07/05/2009 15:59

I married a compulsive liar and it wrecked our marriage. The debt was hideous.

I have also had Ds's father swear on his daughters life. Low life! utter low life. They don't change. Sorry

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