Automatic Lies

[Kubash16]

Please don’t judge me, this is a hard post to write and admit to.

I don’t have this problem with 99% of people I interact with. I’m able to compartmentalize who I am talking to and my brain knows it’s safe to be completely honest with strangers.

But when I’m interacting with my family? Total opposite. It’s like I gain this impulsive lying gene all of a sudden. I can practice and rehearse telling the truth about something when talking to my mom and then when we are talking I’m lying without a single thought or thinking through what the lie will even be.

I know I had to lie a lot as a kid for pure survival reasons. But it needs to stop. But how do you stop something that’s happening before you’re even realizing it?

 

[Gs172003]

Please don’t judge me, this is a hard post to write and admit to.

I don’t have this problem with 99% of people I interact with. I’m able to compartmentalize who I am talking to and my brain knows it’s safe to be completely honest with strangers.

But when I’m interacting with my family? Total opposite. It’s like I gain this impulsive lying gene all of a sudden. I can practice and rehearse telling the truth about something when talking to my mom and then when we are talking I’m lying without a single thought or thinking through what the lie will even be.

I know I had to lie a lot as a kid for pure survival reasons. But it needs to stop. But how do you stop something that’s happening before you’re even realizing it?

I suggest you work on this with your therapist. I'm sure there are ways of dealing with it they will know. It's very brave of you to own up to this.

 

[Ronin]

But it needs to stop.

So the family are safe and likely to treat you well, now, given you stop a self protective measure that so far works for you?

how do you stop something that’s happening before you’re even realizing it?

By grabbing all of the moments I am aware of doing it, finding out what drives me to that behavior, and choosing something else.

Or outright stopping myself because I'm fed up with me, already.

With lies that would be inserting more truth to my answers, until I learn the amount of it that is safe to share, and can hold myself to that regularly.

Or omitting topics that make me most likely to lie by default.

That or silence. Saying nothing? I may be truthful, I may be lying, I may be a lot of things, but I'm stopping myself before I do it, with all of them.

 

[Innordinate]

I can practice and rehearse telling the truth about something when talking to my mom and then when we are talking I’m lying without a single thought or thinking through what the lie will even be.

Heh
so like this with my dad.
you know why?
cuz he's a judgemental prick that criticizes every single f*cking thing I ever say. Or tries to control what I'm doing and how I'm doing it

Some people don't deserve honesty. Being honest with certain people is detrimental to our overall mental wellbeing.

And I've tried with my dad to be honest and tell him I don't want to share certain things and I've found really nice but assertive ways to tell him it's not his business etc etc.

Doesn't work with him. Just pisses him off more and makes being here way worse.
Or he tells me I'm lying anyways because it's not an answer he wants to acknowledge as being true.

So- I don't know if it's really a bad thing that you lie to your mom, especially given the type of person I understand her to be.

And if you had to lie to your family to survive when you were a kid, it's probably still a legitimate method of survival?

Or whatever, I could be super way the hell off base too. Not in the best head space right now - but i figure, if you're mostly honest with other people most of the time and this is only a problem with toxic family members then it's not really a problem.

 

[Kubash16]

And I've tried with my dad to be honest and tell him I don't want to share certain things and I've found really nice but assertive ways to tell him it's not his business etc etc.

Doesn't work with him. Just pisses him off more and makes being here way worse.
Or he tells me I'm lying anyways because it's not an answer he wants to acknowledge as being true.

This is what she does. It doesn’t even matter if I tell the truth or not. To her it’s either a lie, an exaggeration, bringing up things that don’t need to be talked about, or any number of other negative responses.

Maybe it will be easier if I explain what the most recent incident was.

Some background: I had a storage unit I was paying for with mine and ExH’s stuff. This past spring I got myself in a bind financially after some stupid decisions. Neither of his parents ever contact me, his mom is constantly facing foreclosure (or so she says), and his dad has pretty much written him and his siblings off and spends all his time with his stepkids and grandkids. My mom has already been helping me financially by a lot and I HATE feeling like I owe her so much.

I let that storage go because I couldn’t afford it anymore, nothing seriously valuable was in there and I didn’t feel like I could go to anyone about it. Plus, no one has so much as mentioned it in over a year, so my thought was I’ll just let it go and hopefully no one will even remember it. Stupid thought I know.

Anyway, ExH called my mom this past weekend to chat, yes they still talk all the time. He mentioned the storage unit to her. She came to me when I was trying to take a nap and asked if I was still paying on it. Without any hesitation or even thinking up any excuse or truth I automatically said I paid ahead with taxes ?‍.

I know if I tell her the truth I will be in big trouble (yes I realize I’m 28 years old but I have to live with her for now) but I know she will be angry, ExH is going to be angry, and that alone is going to make her even more angry. And now I don’t know how to untangle this. I don’t know why I can’t seem to stop myself when it comes to her. It’s like instinct kicks in automatically.

 

[scout86]

It seems like the problem isn't so much you, lying, as it is your mother isn't a safe person to be honest with and you don't have a better way to handle that. Some people you just can't deal with. My personal way of not lying in those situations is with a response like, "that would be none of your business." Because it's NOT any of her business and there's no acceptable answer anyway. You might have to start by figuring out what kind of relationship you can have with her.

Not totally related but how did you end up being the person who's solely responsible for paying the rent if it had his stuff in it too?

 

[Kubash16]

Not totally related but how did you end up being the person who's solely responsible for paying the rent if it had his stuff in it too?

He’s in prison so has no income ?. That’s pretty much why his dad has totally written him off. Long story short our marriage ended (still not legally though I did file papers and then didn’t hear anything back and haven’t pushed it) when he decided having a relationship with my 14 year old niece was a smart thing to try. So needless to say he’s going to be in prison for a very long time. My mom still talks to him because “he’s a good person and everyone makes mistakes”. He’s her favorite person since my stepdad died. It’s a really shitty dynamic right now.

 

[Gs172003]

He’s in prison so has no income ?. That’s pretty much why his dad has totally written him off. Long story short our marriage ended (still not legally though I did file papers and then didn’t hear anything back and haven’t pushed it) when he decided having a relationship with my 14 year old niece was a smart thing to try. So needless to say he’s going to be in prison for a very long time. My mom still talks to him because “he’s a good person and everyone makes mistakes”. He’s her favorite person since my stepdad died. It’s a really shitty dynamic right now.

Dang. I'm sorry.

 

[Ronin]

Honestly she doesn’t sound like someone you would owe anything to, in terms of explanations, about your exHusband’s messes & your current life.

You say big trouble >> What worst do you think she is likely to do / what can she do that would harm you that bad? Cutting you off money? IME might be more useful to look at those things, and the fears, than constantly looking over your shoulder over every small darn incident that, if everybody acted like the adults they are, would not even BE an issue in the first place.

For financial messes of your ex shouldn’t be falling on your head, your mother shouldn’t be using your ex as a substitute for a man she needs in her life, and you shouldn’t have to lie about these things, altogether, because you are an adult and their issues are theirs.

 

[Muttly]

I am sorry you are in such a rotten dynamic. It sounds miserable.

I did lie to my family some when I was in contact with them. I never completely stopped because they weren't safe people. I did change my default, fear-induced lying to something more intentional. A lot of it was as others mentioned, being aware of why I was doing it. And what I was thinking (or feeling) in the moment. I was never able to say "That's none of your business". That would have created so much drama it wasn't worth it. I did get good at pausing before answering. Like in your example I might have talked about the storage shed without actually answering her question at first. "That thing? I'm surprised ex even remembers it. I don't even want any of the stuff in there anymore." That way I have some space to think and not simply react.

 

[Gs172003]

There are lies for the sake of lying ( or to protect ourselves from consequences when we do something wrong) then there are lies that are necessary for our sanity. They are not the same. Keep that in mind.

 

[Friday]

In dealing with my own family politics... when someone (that I don’t trust) asks me a question? I ask one right back.

Why?

Nope. They’re NEVER happy with being queried as to their intent. My family is very top down in rank structure, and that bucks it a bit. In “theory” I “should” answer their question -fully & completely- without pause or hesitation. Not gonna happen. Which displeases them. But it also makes them less unhappy than a straight up refusal, and over the years they’ve learned to deal with it.

Why? ... Allows me the ability to frame my answer in direct proportion.

“Your ex husband wants to know.” Doesn’t get met with a slap upside the head (although it should), but does get met with several different versions of “I’m so sorry he’s put you in this position. If he needs information from me, he should ask me himself. Not be manipulating and ferreting out pieces from other people. Again, I’m sorry he did that. You’re just trying to be helpful, I understand. You’re kind that way. I was about to make lemonade, would you like some?”

((A funny aside about my ex... I have almost zero contact with him. All contact is suppsosed to be either through attorneys or via certified mail. Which my family knows. Even with 11 restraining orders against him -5 on me, 5 on my son, 1 on the dog- they STILL passed him information “to be helpful” :banghead: So I’ve had no few rows with my family over that. But what’s funny -to me- is that I used to think it was about me. The whole disrespectful demands of info thing, regardless of any right they may or may not have to it. Nope. They don’t even view the considered opinion of the courts to be a factor. They want what they want when they want it. And they want it now. It took a great deal of pressure off me, once I realized they simply didn’t care about anyone else’s rights or authority.))

Other versions of “why they want to know” get met with different answers.

My family HATES that I do this.

“You can never answer a simple question!” :mad:

Shrug.

If they want an answer, because I won’t answer, otherwise... they can suck it up and deal with it. Which they well know. I WILL answer, but not just because they’ve snapped their fingers. And not to their satisfaction. And since that’s the best they can hope to get from me? They deal. Because the alternative IS that I won’t answer, at all.

In my family politics... it works. Because it’s the middle ground. It’s not the snap answer they want, but it’s not a direct refusal to answer, either.