Lie a Lot Secrets

I am a compulsive liar with no friends

I am a compulsive liar. For years, I have lied about having lived in Germany, having a friend that died in a climbing accident, and having a little brother with cancer—who has been six for five years now. None of these things can be backed up with evidence. My parents kicked me out and I have no friends left because of my lying, but I can’t stop.

I think I am going to go to my grave with no-one knowing only truth about me. I want to stop, but it’s hard. Sometimes I catch myself half way through the lie, but it’s too late.

Is my lying a problem?

When do you make to jump to becoming an actual compulsive liar?

Over the past year, there have been three situations in which my boyfriend has caught me lying.

The first was some sexy text messages I was sending/receiving from a male acquaintance. We had been flirting a bit, and he started telling the sexiest made up stories that really turned me on. My boyfriend and I do not have sex, we never have, and we have been together for over 5 years. I go through periods where I begin to feel very resentful about our sex life and then most of the time, I am fine. This texting scenario was during one of those times where I was feeling frustrated. Nothing like that has happened since and I know now it was weak of me to go outside the relationship for sexual satisfaction even though nothing physical ever happened.

The second was 3 months ago, when he discovered that I had lied about having some credit debt. We had just packed up our whole lives and moved across the country to pursue our dreams of acting in NYC, and I am also getting ready to go to nursing school. We had been preparing for this move for a long time and my boyfriend has worked really hard to get out of debt and save for the move. I was embarrassed about not keeping my self debt-free because it was what we had decided was the goal in order to move. He asked me several times before we left if I had any debt and I lied to him and told I didn’t. I felt so guilty, but I was more afraid of how disappointed he would be if he found out I had messed up.

Then comes the whopper, yesterday he found out that I had another debt that I had kept from him, this one in the thousands of dollars from unpaid rent to my landlord boss. When he asked me how much it was I couldn’t even be honest about that because I was so ashamed and frightened. I am trying to work out the situation with my boss, to avoid any legal issues.

Now he says that because the mess ups and the lies were not a one time thing, but three times in one year, he doesn’t know how he can trust me. I can’t blame him. The second and third issues are wrapped up in each other and were happening/building at the same time, so they felt very connected. I want to be totally honest with him in the future and find a way to repair our relationship. I am scared though that I will mess up and hide something that I think will make me look bad again. The thought that he would find out something I messed up on and leave me has always frightened me. I think that is why I allowed myself to lie in the first place. I can see now that hiding things and lying only make the mistake bigger and trying to repair a relationship even harder.

Am I a compulsive Liar? I have always tended to keep certain information hidden from people so that they will think better of me. Different groups of friends know different parts of me because I only allow them to see certain ones. I don’t generally blatantly lie to people, more like lying by omission, by keeping things secret. It sounds ridiculous but I can’t help but think of The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf says "keep it secret, keep it safe" I feel like by keeping certain parts of myself hidden that I am safer from ridicule or rejection.

I don’t really know why I am this way. My parents have always told me that they loved me, I have a few really great friends who have seen me at my worst, and are still around after 13 years. Why am I so afraid? What punishment have I ever received that was so bad I never wanted to feel it again? I can’t think of any. The only thing I can think of is that I must feel deep down inside that I do not inherently warrant love and approval from others. I go out of my way to do good and nice things like making delicious meals and pretty wrapping paper, and being a really good listener. I have never consciously thought of any of those things as a means to and end, but I can’t help but wonder now. So if I make a mistake or fail at something I try to minimize the effect on how people view me.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that I am still mad at myself for letting myself be taken advantage of sexually at the age of 14. I was not ready to have sex, I was curious about it and known about sexual feelings for a long time, since I was 5 years old. when I was 5 my neighbor (a girl) and I discovered that we could rub each other and it felt good. We learned about sex a year or so later and I had never stopped wondering about it. So when I was in my first high school relationship, and my boyfriend started to take my shorts off, I was intrigued, excited and scared. I gradually became more frightened and said to wait, that I had never done this before, to stop and wait, and he didn’t. Once he was in, I felt as if I was numb and lost. I don’t remember much of how the rest of the night went, I know he said to me turn over and I’ll do you this way, and that he put me on a city bus with a rose in my hand when it was done. I am not a meek girl, or a weak girl. I have always been tall and strong for my age, I can’t help feeling that I should have fought back more, that if I wasn’t so eager at first, this wouldn’t have happened.

Logically I know that I should be able to forgive myself, and that the moment I told him to wait and he didn’t, he was doing something wrong that it wasn’t my fault, but I doesn’t feel that way.

The lies I tell stem from a few horrible decisions (generally with money) and keep getting bigger the longer I keep them or the bigger the problem. I have to tell lies to cover for the lie that I already told... I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t want to live my life like this, always afraid of what my loved ones might find out. It is so exhausting to be that ashamed and stressed. As far as I know, my boyfriend has always been honest with me. I want to start fresh and show him that even though it’s scary I can be open with him, but I don’t know if I will get the chance. I may have lost him forever.

Told serious lies about my exboyfriend

I lied to the courts and the apartment people and the university about my ex boyfriend. I told them he hit me and tried to kill me when he didn’t. I also told that boyfriend I was pregnant to try and keep him. I faked a pregnancy test.

Lying my way through life

I’ve been using lies and deception to cope with life for so long it seems like its always been like that. Without doing it consciously I surround myself with pliable people I can manipulate. Don’t understand why I can’t just go out, do my work, be successful and do it without lying. Really trying not to lie, but sometimes I sense its a coping mechanism that hurts me and other in the long run.

As the years go on, its been a realization that there really are no people I trust or have a close relationship with. Irony is that the few times I did "open up" to someone, it has come back to bite me, so now there is and will be no real sharing.

I’m not blaming the world or other people for my life or the state of it, all I can say is that I’m quite unhappy, choosing not to ‘feel’ too much. Had I known my life would turn out like this many early decisions would have been very different.

Keep lying to my boyfriend

I have lied to my boyfriend to his face. And I have to keep on doing it until we are better. I hate this I wish I had never opened my big mouth and brought my sins to our relationship. I should have brought it to a priest instead. I am so disappointed in myself. But you can’t unspill milk. Lying is my sin I will continuously have to confess. What a curse for my shameful behavior.

Struggling to fix self destructive behavior

I am self destructive and emotionally abusive... I am a habitual liar. I am not a regular drug user but i do binge on almost anything from time to time. I hate myself for who I present and I am struggling to fix myself.

Losing everything because of my lies

I lie constantly. About little things like the gas light being on in my car when it isn’t to whether or not I have called someone back to having an affair. I don’t realize that I have done it and I don’t even think twice about it until I am caught. Even then, I will tend to lie to get out of trouble for lying.

I have tried just deciding to not lie anymore, but 10 minutes later, I’m right back at it. It’s as natural as breathing to me and I don’t know what to do.

I have been doing some research on compulsive/habitual lying and I am scared. Could I have some other mental disorder that is causing this? Am I just weak? Do I have no moral compass? Do I just not care about the person I am lying to?

I am frustrated, stressed out, and about to lose the love of my life because of my lying.

Habitual lyng is causing me problems

I have recently come to terms with the fact that I am a habitual liar. I have lied about many things, little things that really don’t matter. But lately I have lied about larger things that have been detrimental to my marriage. I had an affair. It was a very short-lived affair, but at the time I felt justified and vindicated. Instead of confront him about getting help, I hid the issue from many people until it festered like a sore and burst into an affair on my part. I have desire to tell the truth, but I cannot resist the temptation to lie. I often feel like a failure in my life, and lying provides a temporary relief from the pain of low-self esteem and fear of disappointing other people. The pain of rejection was so great in my childhood that I have been willing to risk my integrity to prevent those feeling from surfacing, with little remorse or concern about how others may perceive me later on.

I have a serious problem with compulsive lying

I am a recovering compulsive liar. I would lie about everything from where I was born to what I ate for breakfast. In January 2010 I had a major epiphany. I was in an amazing relationship with a guy who I am still in love with. He was the one guy who I was most honest with. I kept a few things secret but I am slowly opening up about those things. Actually me telling the truth about my whole sexual past is what broke us up.. But I know we will hopefully work things out.. Anyways, I realized how fake Ii really was to the point where it made me suicidal. I let people who weren’t real friends shape my personality and influence me to become someone I wasn’t. I look bad on everything I did and just regret it so much realizing I wasn’t me I was just a shell of who I really am. Now I just lie to keep up with my very few memorable old lies. other than that, I’m super honest about everything. I still sugarcoat things to make them seem less harsh than they really are. But my friends are surprised that Im being so direct and not avoiding telling my real opinions about things. I feel better too. I don’t have to worry about covering my lies all the time and feel like im down to earth. But my old lies still do haunt me. I wonder to this very moment why couldn’t I tell the truth from the beginning and that the friends who tormented me for being mixed nationality are not real friends to judge me over something I cant help. I’m ashamed at the fact that I let so many people shape my whole life just out of fear. I was always the kid people would pick on and hate just because I was weird and wore glasses.. To this day I have a very distorted perception of myself. people tell me I’m pretty and exotic but I feel like I look like a hideous monster still. I"m not blaming other people for lying so much, but it was my way of coping with my life. The bigger lies I told were half truths exaggerated a bit. The smaller lies were just.. well white lies. little things I felt people would judge me for. These days I don’t care. My relationships are much better because of it too. I just say whats on my mind not make up lies to cover up things. Occasionally, I’ll concoct lies in my head to tell just to make myself seem more interesting but I just let them stay fantasies and stick to reality.

Compulsive lying is ruining my relationship

I love my boyfriend very much, but lying has been the hardest of all habits to break—even more difficult that managing alcoholism and smoking. Even though I’ve maintained more honesty in this relationship than ever before, he still catches me on small issues routinely (things like grocery purchases and who-ate-the-last-of-the-salsa and such). Every time he catches me in a small (to me insignificant lie) he, understandably, extrapolates the situation to cast a shadow of doubt over the entire relationship including issues of fidelity and genuine love and attraction. Although I haven’t cheated on him it really doesn’t matter; if I can’t be honest with him in the small things it makes the larger truths hard to believe.