Definition of:Compulsive Lying

Dear Tired of Being Lied To,
Thank you for your post. Yesterday was a really bad day for me, I spent most of the day at work trying not to cry but finally just let lose at home. People keep telling me that I should just forget about him and brush it off. It's just not that easy when you care about someone. I found out last night that now he is telling people that he signed a restraining order against me because I would not stop calling him. What a joke!! You have to see a lawyer for a restraining order and it costs $$$. I have never called him since I broke up with him. A judge would never sign a restrainig order without some proof. Also, I would have been served with papers. It is just hard when you break away from them because you can't deal with the lies and then they turn around and lie about you. The worst part is that back in November I found out that I was pregnant and tried to give it one more shot because of that. I had a miscarriage the weekend of Christmas. In hindsight, this was the best outcome, at least I won't have to deal with him forever. Now he is telling people that I was pregnant but the baby was not his. This is a very hurtful lie to me. I would like to defend myself as we have the same social circle, but really what's the point? He would just come up with something else to lie about.
It is sad when you love someone to kow that they will never have a real life because of this problem. This forum has helped me to put this into perspective. His "friends" don't do him any favors by believing him and not questioning what he says. Many people have told me that he lies (his ex girlfriend included, that's why they broke up, of course he told me that she cheated) but they just don't confront him about it.
I feel like he is ruining my good name but I guess that's what I get for having the misfortune of being with a CL. I guess all we can do is try to move on and be strong.

My X did the same thing. Told everyone he was putting a restraining order on me. Except he was saying all this stuff to our friends behind my back, but to my face he was telling me how much he loved and missed me.

We dated off and on for 2 1/2 years. I started dating him while he was getting a divorce. I later learned he left her for me. I bought us a home in the counrty on 10 acrers where we could put our horses. We lived together for 6 months and then one day I told him I thought things were just not right and I felt like he still had unresolved feeling about his X-wife. He left me and ran straight back to her and remarried her in 6 weeks. I had no idea they were back together. I found out 2 weeks before their remarriage and that is when my world crashed. He was telling me all kinds of stories about why he was remarring her because in the beginning he told me hateful stories about her and why he wanted to divorce her. Also in this period of two weeks I found out that our whole relationship was a lie. Just lie after lie after lie.... I talked to his 1st x-wife, his mom and his dad. I could not believe what was happing to me. I asked them why they did not tell me he was a liar. His mom said she thought he had changed. His 1st x wife said she thought I knew or would find out sooner or later. The lies are so numerous and some are so wierd I'm embarrased now to admit that I believed them.

So this is where I should have ran. Oh but no I continue to see him while he is married. I was in such denial that this was happening to me and he was such a good liar, he could lie to cover up lies. It did not seem like he was lying to me. Only when I would dig deeper and follow up on the stories did I find out he was lying. Finally after 4 months of adultry I can not take the guilt any more and I confess to his wife about our affair. She had no idea that he and I were a couple. And that he had dated me during their 1st divorce. He had told her I was a stalker and was fat and ugly. (I'm a size 4.)

Well she divorces him for the second time. Well guess who he comes after? Me! But not in a bad way. He wants me back and is so thankful that I got him out of that marrige from hell. That I'm the one he loves and he will always love. My self esteeme is so low by this point I take him back and we date 7 more months and break up. Guess who he runs back to? The 2nd x wife, but they do not remarry this time. (She knows he is a liar too and I asked her how she could take him back. She said he was her heart and she just let him say what he wanted to say and if it came true then it came true). She shared stories with me as well and she still wanted him back.

So you think it is over. NO! So for the past 9 months. He continues to call me, text me, sends cards, and tries to come see me. All the while he is back with his 2nd x wife. I did good most of the time. I had my moments where I gave in but as of today I am CL free. I changed my number. I have made new friends. And given up our friends. I still hear all over town lies he is telling people not so much about me but about his own family.

This is a struggle for me daily. Today is his birthday! Do you know how bad I want to pick up the phone and wish him a happy birthday, but I won't. I ask myself daily why am I so in love with him and why can't I get over him? Why do I want to be with someone that lies about everything. I know there is a lesson in this whole mess. Maybe God is trying to show me I don't need to be so trusting. What ever the lesson I know God has bigger plans for me!!! And laying around trying to figure out what is the truth and what are lies is not in my plans.

Maybe things will get easier after some more time goes by. It's not fair that they can do this to us and just walk away on to the next unsuspecting soul. Oh well, life is not fair. I just hope that my CL gets his act together one day so that he can have a life before it's too late. Of course, that would probably make me mad too because he couldn't do it for me and save me all this drama.

I have been reading through the posts listed here and I think I may have found a place where I will feel like others know the pain I have been going through. I am amazed a lot of our stories are so similar. The most common I have found was that the length of marriages and relationships have for the most part been relatively a short period of time. I met my husband and married him 6 months later because he completely swept me off of my feet. Now, we have been married for 19 months and I have found out, much like everyone else, he is not the person I thought he was. He lies about everything and cannot stop. He gets upset if I appear to not trust him or if I question what he is doing. I never know when to believe him and I never know what he is planning. He has left me to manipulate getting something he wanted.. He constantly will not discuss things with me and then at the last minute pops things on me and I have no choice but to go along with it because what else can I do? He has written checks to friends and then cancelled them. He has lied about being fired from a job, and then when there was no paycheck made up some elaborate story until he finally made up a story about being laid off. Recently, he was decided to send his daughter to her 6th camp of the summer and we did not have the money to do so, so he just didn't tell me about it. The morning she was supposed to leave, I caught him basically sneaking her out of the house. I later found that he told his daughter not to tell me about it. Not only that, but lied about her mother paying for it....that was until I checked out the bank account about four days later.... he had stolen a check from the middle of the check book and wrote it out for the camp.... I had to borrow money so the checks I had written for bills wouldn't bounce... but of course was too late and a few bounced anyway. Okay.... I know I am rambling. I am just so frustrated. I don't know what to do and if it is even possible for us to be together. I am fearful that one day I will wake up and the lies will have totally taken control and I will find myself this little submissive wife who somehow thinks she can't do any better. I love him so much and that makes it so much harder. Much like everyone else, when he isn't lying he is wonderful to be around, and he treats me like a princess. I could use any words of wisdom or advice.

Hi, I've read most of the messages and I totally identify with you.
I broke up with my bofriend 2 weeks ago, and it's the most difficult thing I've ever done. He was my first boyfriend, we lasted 9 months and they were the best of my life. We wanted to get married and were making plans for it.

Even though he lies, it kills me to know that I will never find anyone who treats me like he did. He was always thinking about me, he was so sweet to me, so funny, so romantic, so special, always surprising me with details, telling me how beautiful I am, how much he likes me and loves me...he was the perfect boyfriend.. perhaps too good to be true.

I have so much anger inside because I can't beleive something so perfect was ruined by his lies. Why does he have to do this; can't he realize that he destroyed our relationship? My family HATES him because they are the ones who discovered his lies; thanks to their help and God's I opened my eyes. I fought against my familiy for these 9 months defending him.. and he KNEW it, and he still kept lying. With tears in my eyes I begged him to tell me all the truth and he said there weren't more lies.

At first I told him that I was going to help him, that i would go to therapy with him. But I've lost confidence in him, I beleived a 100% in everything he told me and now I'm afraid that he will do the same thing and lie all over again. He cries, he tells me that he needs me, that he will change, that I should look at the good things and not only the bad things...I know he truly loves me and I know he is suffering.. he says he will change for us... will he? Should I beleive him?

I feel bad for him because I know his life hasn't been easy and that he feels alone. He has no parents, only his brother cares for him...Even though he has lied to me, I don't think his CL is so out of control... he hasn't lied about everything, it's just some stupid things that he does to be accepted. He lied to me because he thought he wasnt good enough to be with me, so he invented or covered some things up. He has also lied to other people. He doesn't like his past so he lies about it because he thinks that's the only way he will be accepted...I'm confused...I really love him but I'm afraid he will always lie... but I'm also afraid that I'm losing the love of my life...

I secretly wish he will go to therapy (he is going to a psychologist) and come back as an honest person.. and that my family accepts him, and that we could get married...but I think this is just a dream that will never come true... or maybe if we are meant to be we will be eventually... I just don't know anymore... This is so hard! I love him!

and that my family accepts him

This is about you, not your family. It sounds like you have something that is too special to give up.

I know it's not about my family; however, I live with my parents and they have always been there for me. Right now they want what's best for me...they fear that I will marry and be miserable with my husband's lies....I didn't listen to them for 9 months, and now I realize they were right. My x is a liar.

Yes, we had something really special; however, when I see the future I fear that he will lie again, or I picture myself being a detective and questioning everything he says.

Even though he has accepted some of his lies (he did because he had no other way out) there are so many other things that I suspect are lies but I have no way of proving.. and I don't know if I want to ask him again and then play detective... it's exhausting.

I asked him for 7 months the same thing, I told him to tell me the truth, I said that all I cared about was the truth, that I loved him and that nothing would change that.. and he still said that what he was saying was true.. he even got mad at me when I brought the subject up and told him that I wanted proof so that my parents would also beleive him. He always said "ok let's leave it for now, I promise that I will bring you the proof"... and he never did for 7 months. I told him that if it were me I would run and bring proof of everything I was saying, so that people would stop questioning me.. he said he didn't because it was tyring and he didn't owe explanaitons to anyone.. I told him to help me that I couldn't fight this battle alone...and finally, when he realized there was no way out and after 7 months of the same thing, he confesses it was a lie... He said he was going to tell me but was afraid of losing me...why did he wait so long, and if he hadn't been pressured he would have never told me!

I just don't understand how someone can do these kinds of things.. when something bothers me I can't sleep... how can he LIVE like this, knowing that half the things he says are lies. I know this is something they can't control, but it's so hard to understand that something so perfect is messed up by something so stupid as lies which he himself makes up![/quote]

Just wanting a little feed back!! I dated a compulsive liar for 3 years and we are now broken up. Due to his cheating not his lying.

I was just wanting to know if your complusive liar doesn't lie to you but you hear all these lies and crazy stories he or she has told to other people, while you are still dating and once you are broke up????

When my boyfriend and I first started dating he told off the wall stories and I believed all of them only to find out they were lies. When I fould out all the lies I confronted him and he admitted to all the lies. As we continued to date he would not tell these wild stories to me anymore but in conversation with friends I would hear all the stories that he told them and I knew for a fact they were not true!!

Such as: I was talking to a mutual friend that told me my x-boyfriend had said his dad was in a coma and about to die any day. I know for a fact that is not true I just saw the man a month ago. This lie has been circling for over a year and has been told in many different forms, such as his illness changes but he is always about to die, but my boyfriend/x has never told me that story.

Another story being told is that his x-step sister (his dad and her mom are no longer married) died in a car wreck last year 2005. She was a hair dresser. That is what he told me and that is true.

The other day I heard another version to that story. He had told someone that his gay real sister not step sister, in California who is a nurse died in a car wreck and she had a life insurance policy that her girlfriend wanted for herself, but the family wanted to give the money to the aids fondation. And on Christmas Day last year 2005, they flew her body from California to where we live and my borfriend/x had to go identify the body. I asked that friend to STOP right there!!! Do you honestly think they would let an unidentified body leave the state of California, fly it to another state and we identify it here?? What if it wasn't her? Would we say take it back?

When we first started dating he told me he had a gay sister that lived in california that was a nurse and a body builder named LaDonna only to find out this was a lie, but he does have a real step sister (his dad's current wife's daughter) that is an RN, lives out west, is a body builder named Tiffany but is married to a doctor.

My favorite story that a mutual friend just told me was my boyfriends bother used to live like a bum in the streets and was crazy. But he also told this friend a story about him and his brother getting in a fight that his sister in law started. She questioned him and asked if this was the same bum brother that lived in the streets. He said YES can you believe it my brother turned himself around and got married and has two kids!! I fell out laughing and told her he had never told me that story but it was a good one and I liked they way he got himself out of the first lie he told.

It's quite flustrating to be sitting there and have mutual friends ask you how your x/boyfriends dad is doing? And you say great!! Not knowing he has told them he is dying!

Some of his stories are totally made up and some of his stories have bits and pieces of the truth.

But the funny thing is now he doesn't tell me these wild crazy stories anymore. He tells other people. Has anyone else experienced this with their CL?

Maybe he doesn't tell the wild stories to me anymore cause I know so much about him and his family, he knows he can't get away with it. I know when he is lying. But the fact is he still lies whether he is telling them to me or someone else. And i'm sure there are still many lies I have not been able to catch him in!

Hello Leslierdh89

I have to admit, I read your post and began to think a lot about what you were telling about your situation with your ex boyfriend. My situation is very different but still has some similiarities to yours. I believe after reading your post (everybodies for that matter) I have a bit more understanding about my CL.

My situation is different in that my husband who is a CL does not have many friends. In fact, any friends he has, I would consider aquaintances or work buddies. The friends he does have, or had in the past, are either very distant, or he has lost them due to his lying. However, the one time we ran into a friend from his work, it was interesting. Somewhat comparable to what you were saying about bumping into people and hearing the crazy stories.

What happened was we went out to a bar because there was a band playing that we really like. Once there we bumped into a man from my husband's work. A little while later, my husband went to go get us drinks, and the man came over to me and quite seriously leaned over and asked me how my husband was doing? Not thinking much about the question, I responded "he's doing great!" Then the man asked me if they were certain it really was cancer... I was so shocked, I didn't know what to think. This was early on in my relationship with him, and I hadn't yet found out about all of his lying and deceptions. So, I just nodded my head and responded to this man, "they still aren't certain what it is, but we have faith he will be fine."

Recently, I have been wondering about why we don't have friends together and why he doesn't really attempt to make friends. After reading your post I have realized why there are few friends, and why he doesn't really take me to his work functions and why he keeps me distant from the few friends he has had or still does correspond with. It has gotten to the point where I have distanced myself from a lot of my friends because it became so complicated trying to get together with them. My husband wasn't really interested in getting to know their spouses on a personal level, and each time I would try to go with one of my friends, he would get nervous. It makes sense to me that my friends are a threat to him because they would validate my frustrations with his lying. And now after reading your post it is a lot clearer why I don't know many of his friends. It all makes more sense now.

Well, it is clear that you have taken the appropriate steps for you since you mention this is an "ex", but it just goes to show how crazy being involved with a CL really can be... even after the relationship.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

To give you alittle background my x/boyfriend is a hairdresser so he has a captive audience for all his story telling, but some of these clients he has been cutting their hair for 25 years. You would think they would catch on to his story telling, but they never do. They do how ever catch on to some inconsistencies and will call him on it, but he can always lie himself out of it. I used to go to work with him all the time and in many cases a client would bring up a story I had never heard and I could tell it was a lie cause my x/boyfriend would always try to change the subject.

My x/boyfriend is loved by everyone including me!! He is the most kind hearted, fun loving, energetic spirits I have ever met. When you are around him he makes you feel like you are so special. He is truely the sweetest person I know and would never intentionally set out to hurt you.

I don't believe he tells stories to hurt people. He tells stories to make himself feel better. I notice in most of his stories he is the hero or the story he tells he gets sympathy from the person he is telling the story to. He never tells stories to get personal gain such as money. He tells stories to get a boosted ego. How sad that his self esteeme is so low all the time that he has to get our attention by lying. And he has no reason to have such a low self esteeme he is beauty like a model and he is a body builder with the most awesome personality!! He doesn't have to lie he is already loved by everyone without the lies!!! The fact that he tells stories doesn't even bother me that much anymore maybe because he doesn't tell them to me anymore. And I'm not married to him!! Like I said his cheating is where I draw the line. I'm still very much in love with him and it is a struggle to stay away.

My x/boyfriend has tons of friends and brings me around all of them. I notice that with his close friends he doesn't tell the wild stories. Not to say he doesn't still lie to me or his close friends he just tells more believable lies, if there is such a thing?? His x-wife he never brought around his friends or clients. I have actually had conversations with her and he told her wild stories all during their marriage and even after their divorced. I think she believes most of them still to this day.

I dont know maybe these CL's are able to tell who they can fool and who they can't. Most of the time when a friend of my x/boyfriend finds out he is lying to them, their first reaction is why would he lie and tell these stories to me!! I always say don't take it personal he lies and tells these stories to eveyone. I would love to contact alot of his clients and get them in a room and just listen to all the BS he has told in all these years.

The people that are hurt the most are family and I can see why. He can make up some pretty bad stories about them.

I have been forever changed by my CL boyfriend. I don't know if it is for the good or bad. I'm not as trusting anymore!!! And I certainly hope that I won't make the future man in my life pay for my x/botfriends lying!!

I'm think I am finally at peace with him and his lying and I don't take it personal anymore. I hope in the future we can be friends cause he really is a great guy but right now I keep my distanct cause I'm still in love with him and as eveyone knows you can not be friends with someone your in love with.

Good luck to everyone. I hope you all find your peace one day. Find happiness in yourself and not in someone else. Usually that someone else will disappoint you in time. The only person you can trust is yourself. I wonder if a CL can say that about themselves????