Lying to avoid conflict - why?
June 28, 2019 8:43 AM Subscribe
Have you ever dealt with someone who lies to avoid conflict?
Are you the type of person who lies to avoid conflict?
Where does that instinct come from and how can it be changed / managed?
Someone very close to me is the type of person who lies, in fairly serious situations, to avoid conflict. He thinks he can deal with things on his own... then it escalates and his decisions always negatively impact me. I want to know about any issues as soon as they arise, so we can formulate a plan and tackle it together... he hides the issue, lies about it on multiple occasions and only fesses up when things have reached a breaking point.
I don't understand it. We've had multiple conversations along the lines of:
"I can handle the truth. We can deal with the truth. We can work together as a team to overcome whatever the issue is, but if you actively HIDE the situation from me, and directly lie to my face on multiple occasions about said issue, then all that happens is my trust is completely eroded and THAT'S when I get upset and annoyed."
He says he avoids telling me about it because he "is scared of my reaction" but my reaction is only upset because he's been lying to me for weeks, even when I have asked him directly about it. I find that to be a major cop-out, putting the blame back on me when all I've ever asked is him to be honest.
Anyway, I'm at my wits end here. He hides things from me all the time, let's say it is to avoid conflict.... how can I manage this? He doesn't seem to want to change or be able to alter this behaviour (this is not the first time we've had this conversation and last time he promised me that he would keep me in the loop so that we could tackle the issue together).
To be honest I'm feeling pretty defeated about it all, and don't know how to move forward, because I value honesty and truth above pretty much everything else... and he constantly lies directly to my face.
When we have this argument, he tries to see it from my point of view, says he understands and will try to be better, and then it's like enough time passes before the next incident, that he handles it in the exact same way.
I'm not sure if it matters, but his dad is an abusive narcissist and I don't know if this lying behaviour is learned behaviour from growing up as the child of an abusive parent, but even so, it's not fun for me to be on the receiving end of it.
I just don't know if this is something I can work with or if I just need to be more patient.
Have you ever been in a situation like this? How did you handle it?
Why do people lie to avoid conflict? Is it a sign of a bigger red flag in general?
Someone very close to me is the type of person who lies, in fairly serious situations, to avoid conflict. He thinks he can deal with things on his own... then it escalates and his decisions always negatively impact me. I want to know about any issues as soon as they arise, so we can formulate a plan and tackle it together... he hides the issue, lies about it on multiple occasions and only fesses up when things have reached a breaking point.
I don't understand it. We've had multiple conversations along the lines of:
"I can handle the truth. We can deal with the truth. We can work together as a team to overcome whatever the issue is, but if you actively HIDE the situation from me, and directly lie to my face on multiple occasions about said issue, then all that happens is my trust is completely eroded and THAT'S when I get upset and annoyed."
He says he avoids telling me about it because he "is scared of my reaction" but my reaction is only upset because he's been lying to me for weeks, even when I have asked him directly about it. I find that to be a major cop-out, putting the blame back on me when all I've ever asked is him to be honest.
Anyway, I'm at my wits end here. He hides things from me all the time, let's say it is to avoid conflict.... how can I manage this? He doesn't seem to want to change or be able to alter this behaviour (this is not the first time we've had this conversation and last time he promised me that he would keep me in the loop so that we could tackle the issue together).
To be honest I'm feeling pretty defeated about it all, and don't know how to move forward, because I value honesty and truth above pretty much everything else... and he constantly lies directly to my face.
When we have this argument, he tries to see it from my point of view, says he understands and will try to be better, and then it's like enough time passes before the next incident, that he handles it in the exact same way.
I'm not sure if it matters, but his dad is an abusive narcissist and I don't know if this lying behaviour is learned behaviour from growing up as the child of an abusive parent, but even so, it's not fun for me to be on the receiving end of it.
I just don't know if this is something I can work with or if I just need to be more patient.
Have you ever been in a situation like this? How did you handle it?
Why do people lie to avoid conflict? Is it a sign of a bigger red flag in general?
I want to know about any issues as soon as they arise, so we can formulate a plan and tackle it together
This may depend on specifics that aren’t detailed in the question, but it seems like he might not want your input or involvement in these issues. Your question reads as very stern and judgmental of him (which makes sense because it sounds like you’re very frustrated). Is he lying to avoid the judgement of others? Does he get anxious about others’ opinions of him?
To the extent possible, I would let him sort out these situations on his own and let him face the consequences himself. Even if this is your child or partner, you can let him stand alone in the problem he’s created.
posted by sallybrown at 8:56 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
This may depend on specifics that aren’t detailed in the question, but it seems like he might not want your input or involvement in these issues. Your question reads as very stern and judgmental of him (which makes sense because it sounds like you’re very frustrated). Is he lying to avoid the judgement of others? Does he get anxious about others’ opinions of him?
To the extent possible, I would let him sort out these situations on his own and let him face the consequences himself. Even if this is your child or partner, you can let him stand alone in the problem he’s created.
posted by sallybrown at 8:56 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
But also, for your own sake, I think it is completely reasonable to resent being lied to regardless of whether it creates problems in the future. Truth is important to me and I make that clear to the people in my life. It’s ok to tell him that lying isn’t acceptable and that it erodes your trust in him.
posted by sallybrown at 8:58 AM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 8:58 AM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
To answer your titular question: my money is on the narcissistic parent. In fact, I was basically waiting for one to appear in this story. Reddit has a great "adult children of narcissistics" subreddit if you want to gain additional understanding, but yes I'm sure the behavior is extremely vexing, even as someone who has done it (not every conflict, just big ones where I thought I can see a path that would solve the issue without ever revealing the extent of the it), and if you're just done with it, that's okay and entirely understandable. It's his behavior to change, not yours.
posted by teremala at 9:01 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by teremala at 9:01 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Definitely childhood trauma. Any error would be an excuse for hours of abusive tirades (in my case about how evil treacherous and lying I am), and those patterns are bloody hard to break. My own father isn't a narcissist, but was copying abusive patterns from his own childhood.
You know what helps? Modelling good patterns. Talking about your mistakes and problems and making your partner see that errors are something that can be talked about without inflicting trauma.
And be aware that triggers can stay with you hard. I still have panic attacks twenty years later after particular problems that used to cause the most serious incidents.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:03 AM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
You know what helps? Modelling good patterns. Talking about your mistakes and problems and making your partner see that errors are something that can be talked about without inflicting trauma.
And be aware that triggers can stay with you hard. I still have panic attacks twenty years later after particular problems that used to cause the most serious incidents.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 9:03 AM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
Best answer: Yes, this can be a holdover from some sort of difficult earlier experience - abusive parent or partner, school bullying, the specifics vary and don't necessarily matter. What matters is that you're looking at a learned behavior that was probably a useful survival mechanism at one point, and has outlived its usefulness now that the person is in a safer environment, but is really hard to unlearn. Slightly different but related, this can be a guilt/shame response too - someone who has learned at some point that they should be able to deal with things on their own or not to cause problems in the first place, can find it paralyzingly shameful to say out loud in words that they have in fact caused or stumbled into a situation they can't fix, and need help with. That may come from having experienced a lot of judgment or shaming, whether from you or something else in his past.
You've been really up front about the way this harms you and your relationship with this person, he's agreed to change it, and that hasn't actually materialized. What you're asking is not unreasonable given that you say we're talking about things where you are severely negatively impacted, but he can't or won't do it on his own.
At this point I think your choices are either accept that this is who this person is and change, if it comes at all, will be glacially slow (like, years or decades slow), or to insist that this person get outside help in tackling this change if your relationship is to continue in its current form. If the latter, please do understand that this is likely to be an extremely slow and painful process for you both; this isn't one of those things you resolve with three counselling sessions. It can be the project of a lifetime to overcome this sort of deep-in-the-bone fear and shame. It might be helpful to really understand, and to verbally express that you understand, that this isn't something he's doing for kicks but almost certainly is something he needed to do at some point to survive a bad situation. This behavior served a real purpose at some point, and if it was the best that a kid could do to figure out how to survive, well, hell - good for that kid. You can be proud of that kid for figuring out how to get through to a safe adulthood, even as you rightly point out that you are not his abuser and that it's not healthy for either of you to replicate that dynamic now.
In the meanwhile, maybe you can practice together talking about much smaller things with less import, to get some successful shared conflict resolution under your belt. Maybe you can ask him if there's something specific you have done or said in the past that unintentionally triggers that fear response, that you can work on not doing. Maybe you can carve out some more areas where his mistakes are really truly his own to make and the consequences will not be dire for you, and you just - abdicate those areas, let him make his mistakes without any fear of judgment from you because you've already agreed explicitly that you will not interfere at all and support however he wants to tackle it. Maybe once he's done some individual therapy, you can do a session or two together with the support of his therapist to address some of your pair dynamics.
posted by Stacey at 9:13 AM on June 28, 2019 [40 favorites]
You've been really up front about the way this harms you and your relationship with this person, he's agreed to change it, and that hasn't actually materialized. What you're asking is not unreasonable given that you say we're talking about things where you are severely negatively impacted, but he can't or won't do it on his own.
At this point I think your choices are either accept that this is who this person is and change, if it comes at all, will be glacially slow (like, years or decades slow), or to insist that this person get outside help in tackling this change if your relationship is to continue in its current form. If the latter, please do understand that this is likely to be an extremely slow and painful process for you both; this isn't one of those things you resolve with three counselling sessions. It can be the project of a lifetime to overcome this sort of deep-in-the-bone fear and shame. It might be helpful to really understand, and to verbally express that you understand, that this isn't something he's doing for kicks but almost certainly is something he needed to do at some point to survive a bad situation. This behavior served a real purpose at some point, and if it was the best that a kid could do to figure out how to survive, well, hell - good for that kid. You can be proud of that kid for figuring out how to get through to a safe adulthood, even as you rightly point out that you are not his abuser and that it's not healthy for either of you to replicate that dynamic now.
In the meanwhile, maybe you can practice together talking about much smaller things with less import, to get some successful shared conflict resolution under your belt. Maybe you can ask him if there's something specific you have done or said in the past that unintentionally triggers that fear response, that you can work on not doing. Maybe you can carve out some more areas where his mistakes are really truly his own to make and the consequences will not be dire for you, and you just - abdicate those areas, let him make his mistakes without any fear of judgment from you because you've already agreed explicitly that you will not interfere at all and support however he wants to tackle it. Maybe once he's done some individual therapy, you can do a session or two together with the support of his therapist to address some of your pair dynamics.
posted by Stacey at 9:13 AM on June 28, 2019 [40 favorites]
Best answer: Nthing the people who talk about abusive dynamics. Other people may do it for other reasons, but it's one of the deepest scars of my childhood, and has hurt me in professional and personal ways. It took me decades to even realize what was going on, because I got very, very good at lying and handling things without telling anyone.
Maybe the single most helpful thing in realizing how deep the damage was/how much I had internalized old patterns/getting me to stop was when I picked a small thing my spouse regularly got frustrated with me for not being honest about (what time am I leaving to come home?), and then trying to be scrupulously honest and prompt about it. My heartbeat would go up. I would feel anxious. My hands got sweaty. I would put down the phone, and then go do something else for a while rather than actually text him back that I wanted to get drinks with a friend, or finish up something for work.
But I started making myself tell the truth, and then my spouse would react calmly and rationally, even when he was disappointed. Incredible! Mind-blowing! And that confidence helped me start making changes with bigger truths.
posted by joyceanmachine at 9:20 AM on June 28, 2019 [38 favorites]
Maybe the single most helpful thing in realizing how deep the damage was/how much I had internalized old patterns/getting me to stop was when I picked a small thing my spouse regularly got frustrated with me for not being honest about (what time am I leaving to come home?), and then trying to be scrupulously honest and prompt about it. My heartbeat would go up. I would feel anxious. My hands got sweaty. I would put down the phone, and then go do something else for a while rather than actually text him back that I wanted to get drinks with a friend, or finish up something for work.
But I started making myself tell the truth, and then my spouse would react calmly and rationally, even when he was disappointed. Incredible! Mind-blowing! And that confidence helped me start making changes with bigger truths.
posted by joyceanmachine at 9:20 AM on June 28, 2019 [38 favorites]
Can't favorite Stacey's answer hard enough. There is terror and shame embedded here that may take a long time to unpack, even in the safest of environments. But if you are trying to make a life with this person, your expectation of not being lied to is reasonable. For that reason, you should put to him that if he wants the relationship to go forward, he needs to seek help from a third party. It's not something you can specifically help him with so much, because you clearly have a role in his life such that his brain reads you as one of the potential vectors of punishment or unsurvivable criticism (I'm not saying that you are, just that his brain has fitted you into a certain familiar role). He needs a therapist.
posted by praemunire at 9:29 AM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 9:29 AM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
He says he avoids telling me about it because he "is scared of my reaction" but my reaction is only upset because he's been lying to me for weeks, even when I have asked him directly about it. I find that to be a major cop-out, putting the blame back on me when all I've ever asked is him to be honest.
This isn’t about you or a real perception of your reactions, and I started typing this comment even before I finished reading your post and got to the part where you disclosed that his father was an abusive narcissist. This kind of lying and covering up things that are even a little bit stressful, difficult, or just not what they think the person they’re lying to wants to hear, is a dysfunctional coping mechanism. It comes from being raised in a household where the adults could not be trusted to have proportional, reasonable, or non-abusive reactions to normal situations. When I talk to other friends who’ve dealt with this trait, we have similar stories — anything, from a less than perfect grade, parking the family car at the wrong angle, loading the dishwasher “incorrectly”— could and would be an excuse for hours of raging, tantrums, and abuse. You learn that other people simply cannot be trusted to handle anything even remotely stressful, so you arrange your life and lie to make sure they never have to. It doesn’t mean he thinks you’re an abusive person, it’s a survival skill, a muscle memory. Your partner needs conscious therapy to deprogram himself from this, because it’s deeply unfair to both of you. It’s hard but not impossible. Good luck.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 9:38 AM on June 28, 2019 [21 favorites]
This isn’t about you or a real perception of your reactions, and I started typing this comment even before I finished reading your post and got to the part where you disclosed that his father was an abusive narcissist. This kind of lying and covering up things that are even a little bit stressful, difficult, or just not what they think the person they’re lying to wants to hear, is a dysfunctional coping mechanism. It comes from being raised in a household where the adults could not be trusted to have proportional, reasonable, or non-abusive reactions to normal situations. When I talk to other friends who’ve dealt with this trait, we have similar stories — anything, from a less than perfect grade, parking the family car at the wrong angle, loading the dishwasher “incorrectly”— could and would be an excuse for hours of raging, tantrums, and abuse. You learn that other people simply cannot be trusted to handle anything even remotely stressful, so you arrange your life and lie to make sure they never have to. It doesn’t mean he thinks you’re an abusive person, it’s a survival skill, a muscle memory. Your partner needs conscious therapy to deprogram himself from this, because it’s deeply unfair to both of you. It’s hard but not impossible. Good luck.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 9:38 AM on June 28, 2019 [21 favorites]
From my experience, lying, for whatever reason or due to any childhood trauma, is untenable for intimate relationships and I would never stand for it. I feel like lying leaves a maybe-hole in the lied-to that is impossible for someone like me to overlook. It will always be the piece of poop in the milkshake... or if not, I'd be wondering if the poop is there.
I'm not terribly concerned as to why the poop is there and sadly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for adult liars. I think it's generally cowardly regardless of it being a childhood coping mechanism, and I'm not attracted to cowards as friends or partners. "afraid of conflict" as an adult male, to an adult woman who is not abusive, is really frustrating and also not something I make time for.
So.... my answer is to root it out and find a non-lying person. This isn't going to get better (again, based on my experience).
posted by Dressed to Kill at 9:53 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'm not terribly concerned as to why the poop is there and sadly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for adult liars. I think it's generally cowardly regardless of it being a childhood coping mechanism, and I'm not attracted to cowards as friends or partners. "afraid of conflict" as an adult male, to an adult woman who is not abusive, is really frustrating and also not something I make time for.
So.... my answer is to root it out and find a non-lying person. This isn't going to get better (again, based on my experience).
posted by Dressed to Kill at 9:53 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Best answer: The instinct can indeed come from childhood -- growing up in a household in which dissent or any sort of negative admission is consistently met with anger, punishment, or abuse conditions people to behave this way.
Yup, cosigned. I can only speak for myself, but for me growing up, it was NOT safe to talk about problems or ask for help. I had to do and figure out everything on my own. It created a huge sense of shame. And I think this is what your person is doing - he thinks he has to do things on his own, that he can't come to you with x problem; he may not have a sense of how to figure things out together and that it's possible. Then that leads to tons of avoidance, keeping things under wrap and then it comes out at the worst possible moment, you're understandably and reasonably upset, and that confirms things for him that he should still avoid things. This is a cycle of his own making though, from old patterns and shame, and only HE can break it. So yes, therapy.
"I can handle the truth. We can deal with the truth. We can work together as a team to overcome whatever the issue is, but if you actively HIDE the situation from me, and directly lie to my face on multiple occasions about said issue, then all that happens is my trust is completely eroded and THAT'S when I get upset and annoyed."
He says he avoids telling me about it because he "is scared of my reaction" but my reaction is only upset because he's been lying to me for weeks, even when I have asked him directly about it. I find that to be a major cop-out, putting the blame back on me when all I've ever asked is him to be honest.
I totally understand what you're saying here - you're saying just tell me the truth, it's WORSE than not telling me, the lying is the worst part, not the actual thing that precipitated all this lying. Telling you about the thing at the outset is terrifying because he's pretty much never done that before. He's expecting you to react like his Ndad (even if intellectually he knows that you won't), but also change is hard. He's used to you being mad at him in this way, and to be honest at the outset means that you could start seeing him differently. Like right now, you're mad at his avoidance (and fallout from his lying actions). If he's honest from the start, then he's opening up himself for you to be at HIM as a person for screwing up x thing, and for someone who operates from shame (which might be at play here), is just terrifying.
I may be wrong. Just wanted to give you some insight from his side if it'll help. Again, therapy is the only way to get through this and hopefully he can find someone skilled in healing from narcissistic abuse and trauma specifically.
posted by foxjacket at 9:56 AM on June 28, 2019 [12 favorites]
Yup, cosigned. I can only speak for myself, but for me growing up, it was NOT safe to talk about problems or ask for help. I had to do and figure out everything on my own. It created a huge sense of shame. And I think this is what your person is doing - he thinks he has to do things on his own, that he can't come to you with x problem; he may not have a sense of how to figure things out together and that it's possible. Then that leads to tons of avoidance, keeping things under wrap and then it comes out at the worst possible moment, you're understandably and reasonably upset, and that confirms things for him that he should still avoid things. This is a cycle of his own making though, from old patterns and shame, and only HE can break it. So yes, therapy.
"I can handle the truth. We can deal with the truth. We can work together as a team to overcome whatever the issue is, but if you actively HIDE the situation from me, and directly lie to my face on multiple occasions about said issue, then all that happens is my trust is completely eroded and THAT'S when I get upset and annoyed."
He says he avoids telling me about it because he "is scared of my reaction" but my reaction is only upset because he's been lying to me for weeks, even when I have asked him directly about it. I find that to be a major cop-out, putting the blame back on me when all I've ever asked is him to be honest.
I totally understand what you're saying here - you're saying just tell me the truth, it's WORSE than not telling me, the lying is the worst part, not the actual thing that precipitated all this lying. Telling you about the thing at the outset is terrifying because he's pretty much never done that before. He's expecting you to react like his Ndad (even if intellectually he knows that you won't), but also change is hard. He's used to you being mad at him in this way, and to be honest at the outset means that you could start seeing him differently. Like right now, you're mad at his avoidance (and fallout from his lying actions). If he's honest from the start, then he's opening up himself for you to be at HIM as a person for screwing up x thing, and for someone who operates from shame (which might be at play here), is just terrifying.
I may be wrong. Just wanted to give you some insight from his side if it'll help. Again, therapy is the only way to get through this and hopefully he can find someone skilled in healing from narcissistic abuse and trauma specifically.
posted by foxjacket at 9:56 AM on June 28, 2019 [12 favorites]
Best answer: Echoing foxjacket and others, he is manufacturing the circumstances to mitigate uncertainty. You being upset with him once things have reached a breaking point is both a logical consequence of his behavior-- which makes it easier to accept, since he knows he has done wrong-- and something he is used to accepting. He probably hates it and hates himself for always doing it, but he still views it as being better than the alternative (which his conditioning convinces him is always a possibility) of doing anything from a half-assed effort to his absolute earnest best and still being abused for it, because abusers operate on their own logic. One way children learn to cope with that sort of uncertainty is to always expect the worst possible reaction. Some provoke that reaction to get it over with, and others avoid it (which I think is another way of provoking it).
Speaking only from my own experience, yes, technically you could help this, for your relationship with him specifically, by letting yourself be tested and disappointed repeatedly while having no negative reaction whatsoever when his lies and whatever they have been concealing come to light and eventually, possibly, he will learn from this that you (and you alone) are safe for him to be honest with. Given that this is an entirely bullshit thing to expect from anybody, the alternative is that he gets professional help. Hopefully he will. But compassion and understanding have a limit, and he is not in a place where he can treat you fairly. It's shitty and I'm sorry.
posted by notquitemaryann at 10:47 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Speaking only from my own experience, yes, technically you could help this, for your relationship with him specifically, by letting yourself be tested and disappointed repeatedly while having no negative reaction whatsoever when his lies and whatever they have been concealing come to light and eventually, possibly, he will learn from this that you (and you alone) are safe for him to be honest with. Given that this is an entirely bullshit thing to expect from anybody, the alternative is that he gets professional help. Hopefully he will. But compassion and understanding have a limit, and he is not in a place where he can treat you fairly. It's shitty and I'm sorry.
posted by notquitemaryann at 10:47 AM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
It's also true that if he admits to you that something is a problem, he has to admit it to himself, too. He may be lying to himself as much as he's lying to you.
posted by Ausamor at 11:13 AM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Ausamor at 11:13 AM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Friedrich Nietzsche supposedly said “I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.” And yeah, he got that right.
I read your question, with all of the stuff about “he said this” and “he said that” and I’m thinking he’s probably lying about all that stuff, too. In my experience, people who lie in this manner are trying to avoid consequences. If you talk to them and attempt to address changing their behavior, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re responding with whatever they feel they need to say to get you to leave them alone. Note that when this happens, they are lying to you and showing their lack of respect.
His father was a narcissist, and so on - does this really matter? Reading your question closely, it sounds like you and this fellow are in a cycle that has been repeating over and over again for some time. This tells me that this person is not making any effort to change. Worse, it sounds like it’s turned into a somewhat stable situation, where
10 He lies
20 You suffer
30 He apologizes and promises to change
40 Everything is okay for awhile
50 Goto 10
I think it is fundamentally incorrect to think that they are lying to avoid “conflict” - they don’t seem to have any issues with repeated conflict with you. They’re lying to avoid consequences.
And “it escalates and his decisions always negatively impact me.” I interpret this as “he takes advantage of you again and again and again.”
I tend to try to distance myself from people like this so that I don’t have to deal with them. The closer you are to the liar, the more it hurts when they lie to you. You don’t specify your relationship with this person, but if they are some kind of SO, then I’d advise you to leave them. It will be painful, but perhaps you can frame it as your own personal growth: you’re becoming a stronger person who doesn’t get played for a sucker.
posted by doctor tough love at 12:03 PM on June 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
I read your question, with all of the stuff about “he said this” and “he said that” and I’m thinking he’s probably lying about all that stuff, too. In my experience, people who lie in this manner are trying to avoid consequences. If you talk to them and attempt to address changing their behavior, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re responding with whatever they feel they need to say to get you to leave them alone. Note that when this happens, they are lying to you and showing their lack of respect.
His father was a narcissist, and so on - does this really matter? Reading your question closely, it sounds like you and this fellow are in a cycle that has been repeating over and over again for some time. This tells me that this person is not making any effort to change. Worse, it sounds like it’s turned into a somewhat stable situation, where
10 He lies
20 You suffer
30 He apologizes and promises to change
40 Everything is okay for awhile
50 Goto 10
I think it is fundamentally incorrect to think that they are lying to avoid “conflict” - they don’t seem to have any issues with repeated conflict with you. They’re lying to avoid consequences.
And “it escalates and his decisions always negatively impact me.” I interpret this as “he takes advantage of you again and again and again.”
I tend to try to distance myself from people like this so that I don’t have to deal with them. The closer you are to the liar, the more it hurts when they lie to you. You don’t specify your relationship with this person, but if they are some kind of SO, then I’d advise you to leave them. It will be painful, but perhaps you can frame it as your own personal growth: you’re becoming a stronger person who doesn’t get played for a sucker.
posted by doctor tough love at 12:03 PM on June 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
It is weird that some people would behave like this and not want to change
Survival strategies developed in an abusive childhood home have a tenacity in the brain you would not believe. Stepping outside them requires facing not merely ordinary adult anxiety about consequences, but the gaping abysses of childhood shame and fear. And to what end?
None of this is to say that OP is required to put up with this person's behavior if OP doesn't think it's worth it. It's not right to treat another person this way. But it doesn't sound like it's being done out of malice or general dishonesty or some kind of laziness or wilfulness. The Jesuits may not have said it, but "[g]ive me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man" has a lot of force.
posted by praemunire at 12:12 PM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
Survival strategies developed in an abusive childhood home have a tenacity in the brain you would not believe. Stepping outside them requires facing not merely ordinary adult anxiety about consequences, but the gaping abysses of childhood shame and fear. And to what end?
None of this is to say that OP is required to put up with this person's behavior if OP doesn't think it's worth it. It's not right to treat another person this way. But it doesn't sound like it's being done out of malice or general dishonesty or some kind of laziness or wilfulness. The Jesuits may not have said it, but "[g]ive me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man" has a lot of force.
posted by praemunire at 12:12 PM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
I'm not sure if it matters, but his dad is an abusive narcissist...
Before I even finished reading your ask, I wondered if this would come up.
You've just described a bit of a telltale trait of someone on the narcissistic spectrum. I'm in the middle of a divorce from a man who, also raised by a narcissist mom, spent 8 years of our relationship lying to me about Very Big Things. After he was caught red handed, his response? He wanted to avoid the conflict he knew the truth would bring. This realization didn't change his behavior beyond making him committed to lying to preserve his preferred status quo.
In my past 6 months of therapy, I've learned the painful truth that this is not a problem you can solve. You can, though, encourage this person to seek professional counseling if they are indeed willing to acknowledge first that lying is a problem and second that he can change if he wishes to put in the work to do so. If he has adapted this strategy as a coping mechanism from his early childhood experiences with a narcissistic parent, the trauma that lies beneath his lying may be too difficult for him to voluntarily confront. At which point, so goes the therapeutic wisdom of the day, you may save yourself much future grief and agony by letting go of the relationship.
I'm sorry you're going through this. It's incredibly difficult to live contentedly with the overarching anxiety that you may not know the truth. Be well.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:15 PM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Before I even finished reading your ask, I wondered if this would come up.
You've just described a bit of a telltale trait of someone on the narcissistic spectrum. I'm in the middle of a divorce from a man who, also raised by a narcissist mom, spent 8 years of our relationship lying to me about Very Big Things. After he was caught red handed, his response? He wanted to avoid the conflict he knew the truth would bring. This realization didn't change his behavior beyond making him committed to lying to preserve his preferred status quo.
In my past 6 months of therapy, I've learned the painful truth that this is not a problem you can solve. You can, though, encourage this person to seek professional counseling if they are indeed willing to acknowledge first that lying is a problem and second that he can change if he wishes to put in the work to do so. If he has adapted this strategy as a coping mechanism from his early childhood experiences with a narcissistic parent, the trauma that lies beneath his lying may be too difficult for him to voluntarily confront. At which point, so goes the therapeutic wisdom of the day, you may save yourself much future grief and agony by letting go of the relationship.
I'm sorry you're going through this. It's incredibly difficult to live contentedly with the overarching anxiety that you may not know the truth. Be well.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:15 PM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
A young adult I love very much does this. Partly it is the learned behavior from being in a crazyhouse where dissent resulted in highly dramatic rejection of the GET THOSE BRATS OUT OF MY HOUSE variety. And partly it is the learned behavior of being a healthy, capable sibling of someone with special needs and an overwhelmed single parent.
Both situations - and the accompanying conclusion that he was on his own anyway and couldn't rely on others - taught him to maintain no matter what that EVERYTHING IS FINE and he's got it under control. He simply does not know how to ask for or accept help, so small things snowball unnecessarily. It is heartbreaking to see, because asking for and accepting help is the only way out of it.
posted by headnsouth at 12:39 PM on June 28, 2019
Both situations - and the accompanying conclusion that he was on his own anyway and couldn't rely on others - taught him to maintain no matter what that EVERYTHING IS FINE and he's got it under control. He simply does not know how to ask for or accept help, so small things snowball unnecessarily. It is heartbreaking to see, because asking for and accepting help is the only way out of it.
posted by headnsouth at 12:39 PM on June 28, 2019
I'm another one who has been that person, and yes, for me it goes back to having been afraid of my parents. (Not abusive in any concrete sense, I feel responsible for saying, just erratic and scary.)
Following up on notquitemaryann and foxjacket, first, this isn't your problem to fix and you would be completely reasonable in just giving up on him, and probably he needs therapy to get over it (I managed to break out of the pattern without therapy, but it was hard). If you don't want to do that, I think the only way for you to ameliorate the problem is to let him back off from initial lies without penalty -- to be willing to hear 'I lied to you about that situation last week, this is the truth now' without being angry about the initial lie, and try to talk him into backing off lies faster. I had a period where I would say things that weren't true and take them back in the same breath -- I'd thoughtlessly lie about something to avoid trouble, hear it come out of my mouth and realize that I wasn't doing that any more, and correct myself immediately as if I'd just misspoken.
But if as soon as he's said something false he's committed to it if he doesn't want to make you angry at him for lying, I don't think you two can maintain much of a relationship until he manages to get himself fixed somehow. If being lied to is a hot button you can't manage without anger (and there is no reason why it should be, you're completely entitled to be angry about being lied to), he's probably not going to make much progress breaking his pattern while he's with you. I would probably break up with him if I were you.
posted by LizardBreath at 12:46 PM on June 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Following up on notquitemaryann and foxjacket, first, this isn't your problem to fix and you would be completely reasonable in just giving up on him, and probably he needs therapy to get over it (I managed to break out of the pattern without therapy, but it was hard). If you don't want to do that, I think the only way for you to ameliorate the problem is to let him back off from initial lies without penalty -- to be willing to hear 'I lied to you about that situation last week, this is the truth now' without being angry about the initial lie, and try to talk him into backing off lies faster. I had a period where I would say things that weren't true and take them back in the same breath -- I'd thoughtlessly lie about something to avoid trouble, hear it come out of my mouth and realize that I wasn't doing that any more, and correct myself immediately as if I'd just misspoken.
But if as soon as he's said something false he's committed to it if he doesn't want to make you angry at him for lying, I don't think you two can maintain much of a relationship until he manages to get himself fixed somehow. If being lied to is a hot button you can't manage without anger (and there is no reason why it should be, you're completely entitled to be angry about being lied to), he's probably not going to make much progress breaking his pattern while he's with you. I would probably break up with him if I were you.
posted by LizardBreath at 12:46 PM on June 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure if it matters, but his dad is an abusive narcissist and I don't know if this lying behaviour is learned behaviour from growing up as the child of an abusive parent, but even so, it's not fun for me to be on the receiving end of it.
Yep. Bingo. I'm that child of an abusive narcissist and unlearning this behavior is really, really hard work. Like, some of the hardest work I've ever had to do. I hated myself for lying but I didn't know what else to do because telling the truth is so, so scary when you've been conditioned all your life that truth telling only makes things worse in the end, no matter what the truth is. Also, add in super unpredictable reactions to the same or similar situations and things get real messy, real quick.
I had years of therapy and a very patient and loving spouse (who, incidentally, came from a supportive and loving family). And still, sometimes my first reaction is to think about hiding things and lying. Remember, this was built into me from my birth by the people who were supposed to take care of me and shield me and teach me.
So yeah. He's going to have to want to work on this with a professional to make it work.
posted by cooker girl at 12:59 PM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Yep. Bingo. I'm that child of an abusive narcissist and unlearning this behavior is really, really hard work. Like, some of the hardest work I've ever had to do. I hated myself for lying but I didn't know what else to do because telling the truth is so, so scary when you've been conditioned all your life that truth telling only makes things worse in the end, no matter what the truth is. Also, add in super unpredictable reactions to the same or similar situations and things get real messy, real quick.
I had years of therapy and a very patient and loving spouse (who, incidentally, came from a supportive and loving family). And still, sometimes my first reaction is to think about hiding things and lying. Remember, this was built into me from my birth by the people who were supposed to take care of me and shield me and teach me.
So yeah. He's going to have to want to work on this with a professional to make it work.
posted by cooker girl at 12:59 PM on June 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
Best answer: I used to do this sometimes before I got treatment for my anxiety. The reason behind it was basically that when someone asked me "hey, did you remember to do this thing?" and I had not remembered to do that thing, I would sometimes be flooded with panic. Once that happened, I just wanted to make the panic stop, so rather than have a conversation that might include more anxiety, I would occasionally just say "yes," in the hopes that I could kick that conversation far enough down the road that I would be able to actually do the thing I was supposed to before the other person found out. Importantly, it had nothing to do with the other person and how reasonable or unreasonable they were - it was just a reflexive response.
None of this is to excuse any of that, but you asked for an explanation, so there it is.
posted by Ragged Richard at 1:05 PM on June 28, 2019 [15 favorites]
None of this is to excuse any of that, but you asked for an explanation, so there it is.
posted by Ragged Richard at 1:05 PM on June 28, 2019 [15 favorites]
something vermouth said above brought things to mind. I was consciously brought up to be sarcastic "so that you can feel superior" (along with all of whatever that makes a parent do that). At some point I realised this was evil and that lead to hiding my real self from parent. There was other stuff too where lying\deviousnes made my life safer (school bullying). But dropping all of all of that when life becomes safer is not something that just happens.
posted by unearthed at 7:42 PM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by unearthed at 7:42 PM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
This is solvable, imo, but probably not without some time in a therapist's office.
posted by shaademaan at 8:49 AM on June 28, 2019 [31 favorites]