How do you trust again?
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How do you trust again?
| Wed, 10-25-2006 - 2:05pm |
How can you learn to trust someone again when that person has lied to you over and over and over? Is it even worth the time and effort to try to trust again? How do you know if they are really telling the truth this time? Please help!!

Welcome to the board, Wishuwerehere ~
A couple of questions to better understand your situation:
It would be great if you could explain your situation, specifics are always better to respond to then generalizations; and understanding what specifically is going on may help us help you see things differently than you are from the middle of the situation.
I'll be checking back for your answers!
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown
"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
Wish, you said he's lied for 1.5 years of your 2-year relationship, I suspect that's not true. It's much more likely that he lied all the time, you just didn't catch it for the first six months because you didn't know him and the situations well enough yet. I'd also bet he's always lied to his friends and family, it's just that now you see it where you didn't before. His lying didn't start after you started up with him, I'm betting they've been a part of him for many, many years before you came on the scene.
Quenek's right, a compulsive liar can only change with years of focused therapy - and of course, they need to want to be there, and they need to want to change. The problem is that few compulsive liars go into therapy or successfully complete it because they deny that they have a lying problem or continue to lie in therapy. Interestingly, in a lecture I recently attended, the speaker (who was a therapist who currently specializes in treating sex offenders), said that he found that compulsive liars actually continue to lie under hypnosis; it's that deep and that strong in them.
Here's some information on compulsive lying:
A compulsive liar will resort to telling lies, regardless of the situation. For a compulsive liar telling lies is routine - it becomes a habit and a way of life.
Simply put, for a compulsive liar, lying becomes second nature.
Not only do compulsive liars bend the truth about issues large and small, but they take some comfort in it. Lying feels right to a compulsive liar. Telling the truth, on the other hand, is difficult and uncomfortable for a compulsive liar to do.
And like any other behavior that provides comfort and an escape from discomfort (i.e., alcohol, drugs, sex), lying can become very addictive and hard to stop. For the compulsive liar, lying feels safe and this fuels the desire to lie even more.
He's been lying for at least the last year and a half, and he continues to lie. You can't trust him, plain and simple. All you can do is decide if this is something you can accept and live with or not. You have no reason to believe he will change, nothing that indicates what he'll do except continued lies. That says he's not changing. As long as you're with him he'll be a liar and you won't know what is the truth and what is a lie, from simple things to very important issues. I'm sorry.
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown
"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
Actually, what you said was "...we've been together for a little over 2 years now, and he lied to me for a year and a half of it.
"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
I know it's not easy, but the truth of the matter is the only person you can make choices for is yourself. All you can do is take an honest look at the guy who's before you and ask yourself if you can accept him as he is, no changes. That's the only thing that you have any reason to count on -- no change. The problem is, the actions of guys like this wreak so much destruction on a relationship that even if they do ever change, they've done too much damage for the relationship to continue. It would be pretty hard to ever believe someone who'd lied to you for two years and it would be very hard to hold any respect for them either.
The women who have come to this board who have married liars have just what they married -- liars. To their dismay, their husband's don't change and they find the liar they married continues to be a liar. They almost always also unhappy and resentful because all their friends eventually end their friendships, as they don't like being around a liar. An unhealthy, dysfunctional trait can't be a part of a healthy relationship, as soon as it's added, the relationship is no longer healthy.
I'm sorry. The right decision isn't always the one you want to choose.
~ cl-2nd_life"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."
~ Author unknown
"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"