Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" (Sir Walter Scott, 1808)

 Sir Walter Scott must have known my ex-husband would arrive 200 years into the future. His statement could not be more true. The lies upon lies upon lies. Sometimes my head would spin. Sometimes he couldn’t keep them all straight and would get tripped up by them.

Early in our relationship, my ex told me he had graduated college with a degree in physics. Not only did that turn out to be false but it completely blew up in my face. We had been married a little over a year when he decided to look for another job. He went through a recruiter and low and behold, she checked his credentials! I arrived home from work one day to my phone ringing. I picked it up to find the recruiter on the line and did she ever ream me out! She asked me how I as a lawyer could allow my husband to lie on his resume about having a degree. I was flabbergasted. I had no idea. Needless to say, he made her look bad to the company with which she had set up the interview. And she was miffed.

So, now I wondered. Did I marry a liar? He was forced to come clean, and I made him go back to school to get his degree. I didn’t care what it was in, I just wanted a college degree. He did and we moved on. But that was just the beginning.

There were probably many lies that I wasn’t even aware of through the course of our twenty-eight-year marriage. Five years before we split up, he started having affairs. At least that’s as far back as I know. My then teenage son found match.com notifications on his phone. My son didn’t tell me until later. Two years later, a woman reached out to me because he had disappeared on her. After some digging, she discovered he was married to me. That was my first insight. I shared it with my son, and he told me about the previous two years. My son told me that all those meetings to go play poker with his work friends was a lie. I then remembered back to when he left in a rage the previous year and didn’t come back for several days. At the time he said he stayed with a friend, and they went to a ball game together. I was skeptical but accepted it. That he didn’t have any real friends made it all the more suspicious. Now I knew that he likely was with another woman.

As we were going through the divorce, his lies increased tenfold. He told the kids that he was not seeing any women when my son and I overheard him talking on the phone and making dates. At that time, he would leave for many overnight weekend stays. He insisted he was spending time with his brother, but social media showed his brother was on the other side of the country. He omitted most of his relevant financial information on the required report for the divorce. When he moved out (under the eyes of the police), he claimed that I had damaged his bookcase and that his “watch collection” was missing. I had never known him to have such a collection. He swore to my son that he would not cancel the internet and then I woke up four days before Christmas without any. The list goes on and on.

Why do they have such a need to lie? This article gave me some insights:

emotional-abuse/narcissists-lie

Lying is a tactic they use to win arguments without having the factual support.  My ex was famous for this. He considered himself a “scientist” even though he was a salesman of technical equipment. He loved to have scientific debates at the dinner table where he would spew his endless knowledge on all things scientific. Often, we didn’t know the topic and simply accepted what he said. But as the kids got older, they began to challenge him. He got into an argument about medicine with my daughter who is a nurse. She knew what he was saying was wrong, but he wouldn’t hear it. He insisted he knew better.

Narcissists lie to massage their egos. They will brag about false accomplishments or exaggerate to make themselves look better. They love to elicit praise and gain approval. I found my ex would often take credit for my ideas. We had an addition put on the house and I suggested a design I thought would be better than what the architect came up with. The next thing I knew he was going around telling everyone about his great idea. I just let him have the credit. I didn’t really care as long as I was getting the design I wanted. But this was all too typical.

“Lying is one of the narcissists’ favorite tools for avoiding accountability or consequences for their behavior and actions.” (see article linked above). There certainly was a lot of lying going on when my ex was having affairs. I guess that’s not all that surprising.  

Finally, the article states that they lie to make themselves appear superior, to make themselves seem like a version of what they wish they were. They are obsessed with how others perceive them. They don’t want anyone to see their imperfections. The lying helps them protect their self-esteem.

According to the article, narcissists know they are lying but they have no problem with it if it serves their purpose. The kids and I often wondered if my ex believed his own lies. He would try so hard to convince us of something we knew was untrue that we couldn’t help but wonder if he bought into his own deception.

I guess it’s helpful to understand what motivates them to lie. The lying isn’t merely dishonesty but a symptom of deeper problems that they have such as insecurity. Dealing with a narcissist’s lies can be challenging. Establishing boundaries and focusing on our own well-being are essential to protect ourselves and maintain our own emotional health.

I’d love to hear your comments below.

My memoir, Don’t Poke the Bear is now available. It’s my story of all that I went through and how I finally found peace. You can find peace too. You can buy it here if you want. Or if you’d like a sneak peak first, you can go here and click on the look inside link under the picture of the book cover to read chapter one for free.

                                                -Maria