Little Lies Lead to Big Lies??
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| Mon, 07-25-2005 - 11:20pm |
Hi! I seem to be having a problem w/my fiancee. I'm wondering if I'm over-reacting or if I have a reason to be concerned. We've been dating for 4 months now & got engaged after about 1 1/2 months. I think I know him pretty well considering, but I've been catching him in little lies lately. Nothing that really matters, just petty stuff. He was on a message board once & lied about what he replied to a question. When we first started dating he had just moved into his grandparents house for a couple of months. He said they had added on a mother-in-law plan w/a kitchenette & thats where he was staying. Turns out he was just staying in the guest bedroom. I guess he lied cuz we had just started going out & didn't want me to think he was a loser. Since then he has moved in w/me. I knew he had a couple of guitars & was wondering why he hadn't brought them over. He finally brought them over one night & I asked why he hadn't brought them sooner. He told me that he had loaned them to a friend & just gotten them back. Well, the next day I was looking through some papers & found out that he had just gotten them back out of pawn. I confronted him & he said he was ashamed that he had had to pawn them & didn't want me thinking he was a loser. Said I didn't care if he had pawned them or not. That didn't matter in the least, but that lying is a huge problem & I wont be in a relationship where I'm lied to. I'm not a very trusting person & CANT STAND being lied to. If I'm lied to about something petty & minor, it makes me think that there are big things being lied about too.
So here is the most recent problem....I was feeling down yesterday & when I came back from the grocery store there was a poem for me on the dresser. He said that he wrote it for me a couple of weeks ago, but was kind of embarassed to give it to me cuz it was kind of sappy. He does write poetry, so I thought it was very sweet of him. But today I started thinking about it & it wasn't really his style of poetry. So I did a search on the internet & found the website it came from. Of course I was LIVID. I know its a little lie, but it got me doubting everything he has ever said to me. Maybe he doesn't love me. Maybe he just moved in with me to have someone to mooch off of. Maybe he doesn't have any intentions of marrying me. I know I'm being overly dramatic, he does a very good job of showing me that he loves me & he is constantly saying how he cant wait to get married & wants to get married now. But then the pessimistic side of me is wondering if hes just feeding me a line of crap.
So anyway, I called him at work (its ok for him to have personal calls at work) & mentioned that I had found "his" poem on the internet. He said "Oh yeah, it was on such & such website" & said that every so often he posts poetry on different poetry websites. So hes telling me all about this website & others that he has posted on. I asked him if he was sure he wrote this poem..he said yes. I asked him if he was sure he wrote this poem for me...he said yes. I asked him if he was sure he wrote it 3 weeks ago...he said yes. I still have him on the phone & I'm looking at this website a little more & find a FAQ section & it implicitly states that all poetry on this website was written by the author who owns the website & that people cannot submit their own poetry. So I read this to him & ask him if I'm reading this wrong. He says no. So I say, so you didn't write this. He says no. I say, so you lied to me & he says "well, you caught me". Of course we went on to his yet another conversation about how important honesty is. Blah blah blah. He says he lied about it cuz he wanted to write something romantic for me & couldn't come up w/anything. So he said this was his poem so it would seem more special.
We had a VERY long conversation & he says that he has always had a problem lying to avoid confrontation. That he has gotten a lot better about it & wouldn't lie to me again. He was actually crying (unless hes just really good about making crying noises on the phone!!) & saying that whatever I chose to do I would be justified in doing becaused he f*cked up. But, the thing that really gets me is that I said "do you swear on everything that you believe in that you're telling me the truth about this poem" & he said yes. How can I ever trust him? Does he deserve my trust? I know these are little lies, but I think where there are little lies there are bigger lies. What should I do? Is there any future? Help!!!

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Personally, I don't think there's any such thing as "little" lies. Anything that is primarily intended to deceive the person it's being told to, is a lie, period, regardless of the subject matter (as distinguished from a white lie intended solely to spare someone's feelings like, say, telling your grandmother her wig looks fine when you don't really think it does).
He has established a pattern of lying his whole life that is going to be very hard to break. In your shoes, I would definitely want him to seek counseling for that, because few people are able to change their fundamental values without help.
I'm also very concerned that you got engaged after only knowing each other for 2.5 months (if my math is right). I hope you're planning a LONG engagement so you can really get to know each other?
I would strongly suggest that you read "When Your Lover is a Liar" by Susan Forward. Best of luck to you.
Sheri
First, it sounds like both of you still have a lot of growing up to doa dn a lot of insecurities to learn to deal with. Which is pretty darn normal, especially if this is either or both of your's first serious relationship. So please don't be insulted by that, we've all been there.
Second, I don't believe all lies are cretaed equal. To this day my fiance tells me lies and truthfully, I lie to him too. They are of no consequence. They're minor little things about when exactly I did something or to hide a surprise or to avoid a fight over something minor and silly.
In the beginning some of the lies he told were more serious. He lied about still having a profile posted at the website we met at, and about IMing some girls. I caught him and he had to come clean, but he tried like he[[ to lie his way out of it first. We went through the whole thing you're going through. The long discussions about how important it was to tell the truth and how I wasn't sure I could rebuild trust knowing that he told little lies... how could I be sure he wasn't lying about something bigger.
The fact it was practically physically impossible that he was cheating on me seemed to escape me at the time. The fact that he spent every moment he humanly could with me. The fact all my friends said things to me about how clear it was that he was totally head over heels for me. None of those things seemed to count against the fact he LIED (the horror) about some lousy IMs and a profile he hadn't visited in a month.
I was too busy caught up in my own feelings and insecurities to make the distinction.
I was also too busy to realize that under the circumstances, the reality is, I probably would have tried to lie my way out of it to and avoid the confrontation.
The truth is it is human nature to lie to avoid confrontation with an authority figure or a loved one. This is ESEPCIALLY true of people who have a history in their lives of being emotionally abandoned or rejected becasue they were "bad". Generally it starts in childhood when a parent withdraws affection and praise when a child does something wrong.
It's a perfectly normal and acceptable thing for a parent to do, but if they don't ever go back and offer praise and affection when the child does well it can be very daunting and lead to exactly the type of behavior you're talking about.
No, this doesn't make it right, but perhaps it makes it more understandbale and more forgivable.
So what's the easiest way to help a person who lies to stop lying. Make it safe for them to tell the truth. By freaking out over the lies and threatening to withdraw my affection I was repeating the familiar pattern from his childhood. Once I realized what was going on we sat down and had another talk. I told him that I realized I wasn't the only one having trouble trusting.
He was having trouble trusting me to continue to love him even if he screwed up or was "bad". So when he knew I wouldn't like something he lied becasue he was afraid I'd leave if he told the truth. Even though I had explained previously I'd rather hear the truth he was still afraid I'd leave. I told him I understood and that we would both work on it. I needed to work on trusting him and to do that I needed him to work on his issue too and trust me not to freak out over something minor and leave.
It took time, but slowly he stepped out on the limb and told me things he thought I wouldn't like. Like when a female friend called or that he had started smoking again. And instead of losing my cool or getting mad and upset at him for not telling me sooner we CALMLY discussed things and I never threatened to leave and I always reassured him I loved him.
Over time we have both lied less. The lies (and sins of ommission) that float between us now really are inconsequential. Personally, I don't think 100% honesty and full-disclosure is always the best policy. I don't need to know how many times he's been in love before and if he's proposed before I definitely don't want to know. If he lies and says he vacuumed the carpet and it's obvious he didn't, I just let it go. I just say well it looks like you missed a spot could you run it over there again.
Big deal, so once in a while he reverts to being 8 and thinking Mommy is going to yell at him for not doing his chores right. Big woop. It's a little annoying but then I remind myself of the times I do the same thing.
Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. If you love him and you believe with all your heart he loves you too and isn't lying to hide cheating or being an ax murder, then trust your instincts and try to work on this as a team. After that's what relationships are all about, teamwork.
He needs to learn to trust that you wont leave or stop loving him just becasue he messed up and that it's okay to talk about things we don't like and that doesn't always have to lead to a big fight. And you need to learn to control your responses to encourage that for him and not threaten to withdraw your love becasue he messed up or becasue he did something you don't like.
Good communication really is the key and the key to good communication is to try to set feelings aside temporarily and face the problem itself not the feelings the problem leads to. Working through and dealing witht he feelings is much easier after the issue itself has been addressed.
The problem you have is he believes you're going to abandon him if he's "bad", the lying comes from the fear that causes. Work on making him more secure in your love and the lying will decrease as his fear lessens. The lying isn't the fundamental problem it is a result of the problem.
My two cents. Get him and you into therapy now. Why? Because, I do believe some liars, who do it to avoid confrontation, CAN CHANGE. However, if he's not willing to change, and just feels he's justified in lying, for whatever reasons, then I'd say leave. OR choose to live a life of lies.
I had an xbf. He went to UCLA, lived at a house near the beach, and worked for CHP doing 911 calls. He had a great job offer with Disney. Well, after I fell into the trap, I found out, he was going to a UCLA extension program, which means you were never accepted into the school, his house, was his mom's house, and he lived in the back house with 3 other guys. Total bachelor pad. He didn't work for CHP. He worked, as a dispatcher for a tow yard, that responds to CHP calls regarding cars on the freeway. And his job offer with Disney, wasn't the exec position, but more like a character position.
His small lies, that he embellished to make himself look good, grew to lying to me about his xgf (and the fact that he was seeing her again), lying to me about his whereabouts, his mistress, etc. My entire r'ship with him, was a lie. Cuz the man I knew, wasn't the man he was.
My bf now, would tell white lies that I'd catch him in, because he was trying to avoid conflict. We have been in couples therapy, and he's working on his conflict avoidance issues. He's learning to be more honest and upfront with me, even if it feels uncomfy. And he's come a long ways. I haven't heard any white lies to cover himself, in a long time. But that's because he choose to fix them, and was willing to try to fix them.
I'm willing to stay with bf, because he has made the effort, AND has changed things. If he wasn't, or if nothing changed while he was working on things. I would've walked long ago.
You have to ask yourself. The man you know, do you know him truly? or do you know the man he SAYS he is. So far. He says he wrote poetry, then blatantly lied about it, then showed absolutely no remorse for lying after he was caught. It's like he WANTS to be caught, so he has an excuse to get out of the r'ship (meaning, YOU break up with HIM, cuz he doesn't have the cojones to do it, it could just be self-sabotage too). He lied about his guitars, cuz it was too embarrassing. My bf had that same prob, I told him to get over it, or lose me cuz of his lies.
Hugs. If this doesn't last, know that your lesson learned should be that you shouldn't rush things, cuz as you're beginning to realize, ppl lie about themselves, and it takes a lto more time than a few months, to truly get to know someone. So far, in the few months you've been with your fiance, you're beginning to realize he's a compulsive liar who has no remorse about it.
Good luck.
~pineapple_girl
Then I HIGHLY suggest individual therapy for him, and maybe even couples therapy for the two of you. But DEFINITELY indiv. therapy for himself. If he's willing to work on it, obviously, doing it himself, isn't working, so he needs some professional help.
~pineapple_girl
Wow! You pretty much hit the nail on the head w/this one! He does lie to avoid confrontation because of a bad childhood. He explained all of this to me when we first started dating, about how he lies to keep things flowing smoothly & avoiding conflict. His childhood pretty much sucked...his mother was a huge drug user & pawned him & his 2 younger siblings off on his aunt & uncle for about 5 years. She would say she was coming to visit & would never show up. When he was around 13, the mother took them back & continued to use drugs. She actually personally got him hooked on cocaine when he was 13 & taught him how to break into vending machines to get $$ to buy drugs. Some mother. His grandparents were super Christian & he felt they wouldn't love him anymore unless he went to church & played the game (he's now atheist, so no more pretending there). So he developed this habit of puting on a front, so the people he loved wouldn't abandon him. I guess its kind of his version of a defense mechanism. He doesn't lie about bad things like cheating, stealing etc. He lies about stupid stuff like telling him grandmother his truck is paid off so she doesn't nag him about it.
It also came out last night that the only other poem he had written me was actually lyrics from a song & he owes $1,000 more on his truck than he had told me. Again, I just dont get the concept of lying. I cant lie about a darn thing. If I accidentally stepped on his cats tail, I would have to tell him. I asked him why he would lie about something as stupid as owing $1,000 more on a truck than I thought he did. He said he didn't want me thinking he was a loser & he had built it up in his mind that if he came clean about it, I would kick him out. Again.... I guess fear of abandonment. I guess I see the reasoning behind that, w/his childhood issues & stuff. But on the other hand, I had no problem telling him I have $14k of credit card debt. I owe it & if we're going to be married, its something he should know about. So me willingly offering up the info that I owe $14,000 vs. him being scared to tell me about the extra $1,000 on his truck just doesn't make sense to me.
I guess I made a big mistake last night of saying that if I ever caught him in a lie again, I would be gone. Thats probably the worst thing that I could've done. But I just didn't know how else to let him know how serious this is. I cannot be in a relationship where I'm doubting the other person. He talked to a longtime friend of his last night & the friend mentioned that he has always known he would lie about little things. So this is something he has done since childhood. He says he has gotten MUCH better than he used to be, especially w/me. He did offer to go to counseling too. He says he knows he has MAJOR issues from his childhood & he thought he had them under control. But he wants to get these things taken care of soon, cuz he doesn't want to start the marriage out on shaky ground. So unless hes just feeding me a very good line of bull, I think he realized how much its hurting me & hes willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. Wish me luck!
P.S. I'm 32 & this is the 3rd serious relationship I've been in (last one lasted almost 8 years). He's 21 (in my defense, an EXTREMELY mature 21) & this is his 1st really serious relationship. Guess I kind of know the ground rules about making a relationship work & keeping it running & its all kind of new to him. Guessing he doesn't know what is & what isn't OK, still kind of learning the ropes.
"I think hes a little afraid of the counseling, finding out deep dark things from his childhood that he has supressed."
You hit the nail on the head with this one. This is most men's fear. My bf is now finding out, after 36 years, the way he deals with things, people, etc, 90% stem from his mother and her unhealthy way of raising him. He's trying to undo all that craziness, WHILE still living with her (which doesn't help, cuz he reverts and I can udnerstand why). Like your bf, he's about pleasing, avoiding conflict, and just making sure there is peace in the homestead.
I'm grateful my bf has since learned to separate me from her and to treat me the way a woman/gf/wife deserves to be treated, and to treat his mother as she needs to be handled (as she wont' change, all he can do is change how he reacts to her).
So, good luck. Also, think about what YOUR limits are. Can you live with the white lies for, say, another 2 years? How fast do you expect him to be "truthful" about everything? I expected my bf to clean up his act pretty fast. And so far, he's been pretty good about it. Although, it has been 3 years of craziness. And I'm not sure what has kept me here for those three years. and I'm not sure why I'm giving him 6 more months, but maybe it's because, he is WILLING to work on those things and he has made some really great progress.
Hugs. His lying won't change overnight. And may take years. Just know your own limits and what you're willing to deal with. BTW, facing your own fears/issues is good too. My bf hit every nerve of issues in my soul. And I have learned to deal with them (my insecurities, trust issues, etc), because of him. Good luck.
~pineapple_girl
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