AlwaysHope Posted April 17, 2006 Posted April 17, 2006 i've been dating my current boyfriend for a year and a half. we're serious and have been discussing getting engaged sometime in the next year, and i love him very very much. i have his Email password (which he gave to me to check his mail when he can't), and recently stumbled across a message in his Sent Mail. he had written an apology for not getting back to someone, and his excuse was that MY grandparents were "about to die" and he had to take me home to visit them "one last time." okay, so that is a blatant lie. my grandparents are fine! he had also recently sent several other Emails full of false details about his life, his schedule, and sometimes even me. this isn't the first time i've suspected him of "stretching the truth." he often has to explain himself out of awkward situations because he hasn't been truthful, or has a hard time remembering what he's told me before. i always wrote it off as a minor character flaw. however, now that i have found myself used as one of his excuses, i'm pretty upset. how do i know he isn't lying to me about other more important things? how do i bring this up? can i? should i leave? this isn't a good foundation for a long-term relationship. any advice would be appreciated !!!!!!!
aleatoryd Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 I have to question whether you really know the guy. I was going to say you shouldn't snoop but if he gave you the password he can't really blame you. I suggest you talk to him about it. You love him and I expect he loves you. If you are even considering marriage you need to get this thing resolved. Lying isn't good for the long term. Take care.
riobikini Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 I can see a *couple* making an excuse for not showing up at an event or something similar....but just casually and consistently lying can be a kind of addiction. Suddenly, it causes you to wonder just how much truth you do know about your partner, and how far they would go in regards to lying. Since you already spotted the problem before, and dismissed it, and have now discovered it goes deeper...you really should pause for a discussion on the matter -not that you stand a good chance of getting the absolute truth- but to bring it out into the open and see how he handles it. Stay sharp on observation, mentally log the details, and by all means, do not allow him to skirt the issue, nor you, yourself dismiss it again as an insignificant occurrence, until you have more info. ***Any relationship built on lies cannot survive for long.*** -Rio
TheSwordfish Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 I never had a relationship with someone like this but I had a close friend who lied about almost everything. He made up crazy excuses, not to go out with us (his friends), including him having to take care of two mexican exchange students. (That night we bumped into him with his other white male friend, no mexicans anywhere). He also came up with a strange lie at his job. He didn't show up telling people his ribs were broken. So we heard this (as we were his colleagues) and went down to his place to see how he was doing. He wasn't there. Turned out he went skiyng... with broken ribs? NO WAY! Almost everything he said was a lie. When many things someone tells you are lies, you should run away in my opinion. It will make you feel terrible. Problem is, it might take quite a bit of time to find out soemone is like that (took us more then a year). (White lies are a different issue)
tikigods Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 1. you can't love someone you don't know. If this person is living and telling lies then you don't know who they are My friend dated a liar for ...4 years I Think and it became nothing but a joke to her friends (we would say things like "remember that time he was in Iran and fought off 100 grizzly bears with his bears hands and a rusty spork?!?) while the lies where almost always just him tring to one up her, they eventually took a turn for the worse when he started to cheat on her.
littlekitty Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 First, there's complusive lying and pathological lying. There are differences, apparently. The last form of deception to be discussed here is compulsive lying. In most situations, we lie for one reason or another. It may be to get out of trouble, to gain an unfair advantage over somebody, to earn respect from others. Whatever the reason, good or bad, it can be justified. But what about compulsive lying? There are those who are compulsive liars, who are compelled to tell lies even when it would do them no good, or when the truth would serve them better. These are people who say they'd bought a certain item from Shop X when in fact they'd obtained them from Shop Y; people who would say that they had been to a certain place even when they have not. How does it profit these people to lie? Paul Ekman, a psychiatry professor from the University of California, San Francisco, attributes this to 'duping delight'. People who tell such lies do so not to get out of trouble, but for fun. For them, lying is like a drug that provides an adrenalin surge or a 'kick' sensation, and the feeling of being able to control the person they are lying to. However, there are individuals who seem to lie automatically without the intention to deceive. Jerald Jellison, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, suggests that this may be due to momentum. A person who gets away with his first lie may be carried by the momentum of how easy it is to slip a lie past people. The second time around, it gets easier to repeat the lie with embellishments. The more you get away with it, the more you lie. And before you know it, lying has become second nature. My SO's ex is certainly a compulsive liar. She'll swear 'red is black', even though you're holding the item in front of her, showing her it's clearly 'black'. I personally don't think she does it for gain, or fun. She just doesn't seem capable of telling the truth. She seems to think, if I say this, they'll think that. And then even when you see through it, she'll continue the lie to the end, she never admits the truth even when it's obvious. She lies about everything from what she does, where she goes, who she meets...everything.
ehead Posted April 19, 2006 Posted April 19, 2006 Lying is very complicated subject. Almost everyone lies from time to time, about certain things, even if they are only white lies. On the spectrum of lying, I'd say making "excuses" is pretty low on the list, probably right after telling white lies. I know this from personal experience. Many people feel bad telling someone "I just don't feel like it". For some reason this is usually not an acceptable excuse in our society, and makes the person look anti-social. Possibly they are used to being pressured by others. I had a friend that just wouldn't take "no" for an answer, so I learned very quickly to have a plausible "excuse" (lie) ready for him in case he asked me to do something. He was very pushy and would just keep asking, make me feel bad, pressure me, etc ... It was annoying, and ultimately easier just to tell him an outragous lie than to have to go through his whole routine. And of course, lying about being sick to your boss so you can take the day off is not uncommon at all. I would not just randomly lie about things if it served no purpose (what it sounds like they mean by compulsive lying). So, if he simply lies to avoid having to do things, that doesn't mean he will lie about other things. I'd look at the whole picture, though admittedly I'd be suspicious and cautious. Yet ... As for lying to avoid conflict/consequences, studies show that almost everyone will do this if the stakes are high enough (you are a spy and your life is in danger, your freedom or relationship in jeopardy, etc ...).
hotgurl Posted April 19, 2006 Posted April 19, 2006 If he lies all the time run run run! I dated a compulsive liar It took me a few years to figure it out he was very good and had all these elborate lies but went to the extreme to make them seem real. faking a divers license, pretending to go to work He would "carpool" with a buddy. He would lie about every thing even if it didn't matter. But the worst was by the time I figured it out we had had a kid and we living together. he was in charge of paying rent. I found out he wasn't when we got evicted with a 1 year no less. I left him then and there and never looked back. I say get as far away as can you can from this guy.
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