At a Loss!!

Hi All,

I am writing this with my relationship at whit's end. I am 40yo, have been married for 6 years, have 3 children, but my wife has had enough of my lying.

I grew up with a mother who used to lie all the time, and was verbally abusive towards us if we did something wrong. She still lies now. I despise her lying, yet I do this myself....

I am a compulsive liar, I tend to lie more so to avoid conflicts or to get in trouble. I am not someone who lies for attention. I do probably tend to put myself last, thus sometimes I would not say what I want to appease others.

Over the past 6 years I've had many occasions where I've lied to avoid getting caught or in trouble, so much so that I no longer have access to the internet on my smart phone because of the sneakiness and lies that I used to tell regarding this. The amazing thing was that until my wife started pulling me up on these things I never really knew I had this issue. It had become second nature to me...

Two years ago it was also getting out of hand, and we agreed that I would see a psychologist who would help with hypnotherapy. He was great and I was doing really well in that a lot of the big lies where if I'd done something wrong I was admitting to and not trying to avoid getting in trouble. I've been really good with this. I stopped played Fantasy Sports and stopped using the Internet on my phone at that time, so that my wife could have more trust in me.

Whilst I know she has seen the improvement, she still struggles to get close to me. She believes that I am still telling the very small lies, such as asking where the nappy bag was the other day when we were getting out of the car to go shopping, and I'd locked the door. My response was "I hadn't gotten around to it" when I had merely forgot to get it out of the car. Of course that was it, she could see between the lines. I just merely didn't think before I spoke. Because it is so natural for me to spurt out lies to defend myself, it just happened. If I'd stopped before I answered I would have said the truth. I can handle those situations, there have been many before like that and I've told the truth, but why was it automatic??

She says it's happened so much lately, but she's just let it go.

I always own up to any lies now, if I'm caught out, so I didn't argue this, but my wife has just had enough. I use to argue my lies to keep them safe. I can understand her frustration and feel her pain and want so much to help her. The last few days have been absolutely terrible for her, and she has demanded that I come up with physical evidence that I stop or she is basically a single mother.

I'm really at a loss as to what to do as I want her to enjoy Christmas and I'm getting told that it's ruined unless I come up with this hard evidence which shows that I will stop. I'm not going back to counseling as she now believes it was such a waste, and we cannot afford it anyway. I love my wife and family so much, and I just want to be with them for the remainder of my life, but I don't want to tells lies like that.

I have told her that I will prevent any complacency by involving myself on forums like this to help remind myself of what I need to do every day, but that isn't enough. I do understand her anger, but I don't know what to do.

Thank you in advance for any advice.

I'd definitely take a look at Billi Caine's posts on why we lie, and how we can stop. They've been a tremendous help to me on my road to recovery. I hadn't thought of compulsive lying as an addiction until I read her work...I wish more people would adopt the same perspective because it IS an addiction; a crutch.

Like you, I used to be a lot worse with lying about huge things. I also relate on having a verbally abusive mother. Mine had borderline personality disorder and was physically and verbally abusive; an emotional manipulator to boot. I used to HAVE to lie my ass off just to avoid getting hit physically, or with some absurd punishment. I lied to avoid conflict at home. At school and in social situations, I lied to make myself seem more interesting and impressive. I was at my absolute low with compulsive lying in my early-mid teens.

I got better with that as I got older (I'm 29) but I still catch myself lying to posture, to make things sound more interesting than they really are, to mask pain or contempt, or even just for the hell of it. Inconsequential for the most part but I know it's bad. Lying just seems to be a compulsive crutch and I've been exploring both the roots of why I did it to such a horrible extent in the past and why I keep catching myself doing it. It just seems to happen at random or a reflex-- like if I'm being asked things I don't want to talk about or feel weird about, or I just want to be left alone.

My main issue now is dealing with my guilt and regret. Wondering if I really f****d my life. That I'm a worthless and horrible person who doesn't deserve happiness and success for lying.

Short of your wife attending therapy sessions with you, I'm not sure what to suggest for "hard evidence". Since you hadn't found the right therapist and money is an issue (I hear you on both counts) are there are any free or low-cost resources where you live? I'm in a big city so there's a couple AA type of groups I'm looking into because my insurance is awful and overwhelming and I can't afford to be a cash patient.

Just know that you're not alone! I wish you luck and peace with yourself and family in trying to stop compulsively lying.

guilt_wracked wrote:My main issue now is dealing with my guilt and regret. Wondering if I really f****d my life. That I'm a worthless and horrible person who doesn't deserve happiness and success for lying.

That's how I feel right now after I made something up to my wife last night. I made something up in relation a something she did. Because I couldn't remember something apparently I should have, I tried a calculated guess as to what she might have done, but obviously I was wrong. This was obviously my ego not allowing to just accept that, "oh well, you can't remember, so be it."

I lacked the discipline to just cop it on the chin, and move on. I had try and save face... Now, we have virtually separated, just staying together for the kids. I have tried to get her to understand that I care and love her, and I had been reading and researching many things in the past few days. "It should be fresh in your mind then" was the response I got. "you are just never going to change". "Not after 6 years".

I also struggle with Memory, so my wife now thinks I might have ADD, and I've been reading up on this, this morning, and maybe I do have a bit. What else could go wrong for me?

BTW, I have read Billi Caine's posts, they are great. I just need to focus on each day, each hour, each minute, each second.

Sorry to sound so negative this morning, but I am really struggling today.

Thanks for replying to me post.

(Sorry if I got long-winded...I tend to do that!)

The whole cycle of negativity is really hard to break....I know how it is. For the past month I've just been going through these spells of feeling like a normal human and not beating myself up or lying. Staying committed to telling the truth. Then suddenly I'm slipping either to cover up a past lie or the lock and stock ones I keep telling about my birthplace and heritage (the latter which I think WAS a lie to me to some degree growing up, given that it wasn't talked about much.) Then even if I don't slip I keep beating myself up for past lies big and small. I've been feeling like I'm just living a shell of life at the moment. Know what I mean? Like I can't enjoy anything because I don't deserve to. That I just keep reminding myself over and over again that I'm too screwed up in the head to deserve a normal life, love, and friends...even if I try to live in the now and just start fresh, go out of my way to not bring up the past and thus any triggers to lie around friends and family? I get consumed with guilt and shame and thus depression stemming from it.

I had some pretty heavy things fall in my lap this past month and felt like I deserved them because of years of compulsive lying. I've barely scratched the surface with one of my long-time friends and my father. I know they care about me and don't want me beating myself up, but I feel wracked with guilt for both my impulse and planned lies. In recent years the big lies were/are namely from insecurity, wishful thinking, and masking pain. Then fairly inconsequential things. I feel wracked with guilt and worthlessness no less. In addition to groups, I'm still trying to find a therapist I can afford and who can work with compulsive liars since I don't feel ready to address EVERY lie I ever told to friends and family (and it begs the question...should I?) and my father thinks it's a maturity issue just because the worst of it was in my teens and early twenties. My close friend said I'm not a bad person if I feel like this. She said a lot of people lie about where they're from, how many partners they had, and that it's not as if I'm ruining peoples' lives. But it doesn't stop how I feel.

Have you discussed your memory issues with your wife? I know it could prove difficult for her to believe you on account of compulsive lying. I'm no expert on memory, but if short memory isn't indicative of ADD it could be indicative of something else. As for taking it on the chin...lately the approach I've been trying to take is just to slow my reaction time when asked questions, spend more time listening than talking, and talking about things that I know I truthfully have good stories about/topics where I and the people I'm conversing with are really passionate about or it bears little consequence (like music, movies, the like.) Slowing your reaction time with your wife could maybe help? Stress that you have a hard time remembering things? Speaking just for myself, I have a long-term memory that is scarily detailed (and likely contributing to the constant beating self up...) but my short-term memory can be like a sieve 85% of the time. Little things like work tasks, groceries, etc. lists have helped me with the advent of smartphones and reminders...I remember in the 90s my father would just tell me to write things down and I'd say, "What's the point if I'm going to forget where I wrote it down!"

I hope you can fix that negativity. It's not easy sometimes that's for sure. You should try and not think of the past and clear yourself of that guilt and focus on the present. From time to time things from the past will come back and haunt you, but they need to be focused on as a stepping stone. Face your fears and know that the future is "lie free".

I picked myself up yesterday and spoke to my wife when she got up and told her that this was a lie, which I had no excuses, but a lie of which I didn't realize was a problem I had until Saturday. That is, that I lied due to egotism. I never really realized that I was egotistical, selfish. I told her I needed to learn how to be humble and be a better listener. Not try and be someone I'm not, not to always try and prove others wrong, or to be always right. These things are intertwined into lying.

This didn't mean she forgave me, far from it, but she did allow us to progress for the day, which I am very grateful. I know I can do this and thus far I am going ok with a fair amount, although tense, interaction. Today I have been at work, thus we haven't spoken too much, but I will continue to focus day by day and think about the next thing I say before I say it with anyone, not just her. I will listen more, and try and attend to memory issue by listening to others and getting rid of that selfishness, that ego that says I know better, that ego that always need to prove a point. It can be done but at a slower pace than usual and training the mind to change it's current though patterns and bad habits.

Thanks again for your post. Good luck.

Update - I have been trying very hard in the past week to accept that I don't always know everything, and with Christmas going over two days with my wife's and my family I got to experience moments where I was able to just say I don't know enough about, so I can't comment, or just ask questions about something rather than just pretending that I know by going along.

I'll admit is was a bit difficult to release that ego and admit that I didn't know something, but I know within myself it made me feel honest, and I felt so much better for it.

Also, have been thinking before I speak and sometimes not answering when the question is rhetorical, something I struggled with before. Always needing to answer with a reason when perhaps I did something wrong.

My wife is still very much on my back and will be for a very long time. This is an addiction that I will need to focus on for the rest of my life. I have been reading and listening to some useful material on the net about changing the way you think which can help the way a compulsive liar thinks and reacts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6GyCk8cIJ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qBBKFVxNUI
http://sfhelp.org/gwc/guide1.htm
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relations ... ge-1-of-3/

Haven't listened to them all or read them yet, but what I have has been great.

Good luck all.

I'm glad that you're making some progress and keeping things in check. I know how freakin hard it can be. I'll have to look into some of the resources you posted.

I'm still feeling guilty but also paranoid about people I lied to in the distant and not-so-distant past resurging to ruin my life in some way. I've stayed out of the public eye but I had plans to self-publishing a memoir about things I saw in my old industry interspersed with bits of my life. I haven't written in it in over a month because I not only caught my compulsive lies getting in there even though most of the content was the truth, but even if I use a pseudonym I know my real name could be revealed easily...and should it get any attention, someone is likely to smear me.

I hear you on focusing on this addiction for life. I feel the same way. Even with my father and one of my friends telling me that people lie all the time and people have done far worse things, it doesn't make me feel any better. Posting here has been a help because I felt very alone, as compulsive lying isn't really talked about in mental health discussions. But thanks for sharing these other resources, I'll need to take a look at them.

Well done on your efforts on posting in this site regularly. I know it helps me too, get away from feeling alone in this situation.

The truth is you're not alone.

I don't know what your writing, but is there a way you can leave out the lies in your memoir? Or are those situations to significant. Sometimes it's more important that you just cop it on the chin. You will be more respected for that.

I can think of a sports person who wrote an Autobiography about himself and unveiled his massive gambling addiction. Highly respected now and is someone to listen to as a result.

Maybe instead of feeling paranoia you will feel relief...

Good luck

I seriously felt utterly alone until I found this site. Mental problems in the US are heavily stigmatized as it is, but especially if it's something oft misunderstood or not even known about. I've also been looking at the Munchausen/Factitious Disorder forum a little. I think I had shades of FD when I was younger...I had pretty much made up a whole new LIFE then.
Still, habitual lying isn't really discussed. Society at large just dismisses you as someone who can't be trusted and thus you are to be cast out.
It's not like being addicted to drugs or having depression or bipolar disorder where people are aware of them and while they have their stigmas, there's more sympathy and understanding for those things. There's not much awareness of compulsive liars and sufferers of factitious disorder. Everyone thinks lying is just horrible behavior and that if you're a liar, you're a bad person and need to be cut out of peoples' lives. It's why that "toxic shame" Billi Caine described is such a vicious cycle.

It's easy enough to leave the lies out of the memoir, as they're not integral to the points of it. But it's been hard for me to pick it up again as I struggle to find other work to support myself with (I have my own business which I bootstrapped with another job; still have the former but haven't had a steady job since April), feel paranoid and worthless, and try to sort out this addiction to boot. I totally understand why it takes some people 10+ years to write a book. Heh.

One of the narrative devices is actually a film I discuss heavily; one of the characters is something of a compulsive liar. I've thought about using those parts to address not only my problem but raise awareness. But I guess I'm just not ready yet. There's easily countless people who know different versions of my life story. That bad.

How are things going with your wife? Have you broached your memory issues with her?

Heading out to a New Year's party, hoping it will take my mind off things. Here's to a new year and trying to move forward, for ourselves and our loved ones.

Good luck with your memoir. I can imagine it must be hard to deal with at the moment when you're trying to overcome this so called disease, and with your business etc. You are right, liars are not really understood. We're pretty much taught when we're younger that it is bad, so that sets the frame of mind for a lot of people.

However, we must remember that people who have been lied to have lost trust in us. Trust and honesty are integral to any relationship, be it marriage, or friendship, and to know that someone has been lying to you would only shatter your confidence in them.

As for me, I am going strong. I am being honest, and just accepting the period that I am going through that my wife will not be happy with me. She doesn't trust me, which of course I can understand, so she find things wrong with me for the moment. I am accepting that time will heal the wounds, but these will only be healed if I am honest of course.

Good luck with everything.