I personally lie on occasion, used to do it a lot. I can't really even explain why, other than the fact that sometimes it's just easier to do that than get into a real answer, which would be messy and difficult to discuss. Maybe it's also because it allows me to build a little pretend world where things are better for me and I don't have the problems I have.
As for the other problem, I am also bad with trying to separate things out. To be honest, it may be a way for him to help deal with his problems. By separating and organizing things out into different little groups, it may be easier for him to deal with life. It certainly is for me; if I don't separate things out like that, everything gets so jumbled up and messy for me, and I don't know what I am doing, what I need to do, or when I need to do it. Sorry, this may be a little confusing, but I am trying to convey my own behavior through words, which isn't really something we naturally notice in ourselves, but instead notice in others. And the separating part, it really doesn't have to do with the lies, if that is what you are thinking, but instead with helping make sense of my life, which always seems out of control and unorganized. In addition, he is military, which means organization has been embedded into his personality. I also have a big problem with trying to emotionally separate myself from others. I compartmentalize my feelings and emotions from others, because for some reason I feel like all of my problems and the way I am so messed up inside will somehow transfer over to the other person and mess up their life too, as if it is contagious. I also do it because I am terrified of letting someone else into my life because I am afraid they will hurt me and make everything worse, bringing back very bad habits. This, in itself, is a bad habit, too.
I don't want to say to leave him be and let him do whatever he has to do to get by, but I also don't want to tell you to try and stop him from doing it because it may be the way he is dealing with whatever happened to him. Just please try to understand that maybe this is a way of dealing with it for him, or a way of making sense of his life, which is probably strangely and difficultly confusing at the moment, for reasons he can't consciously understand. If anything, seek therapy, the both of you (separately and together). One thing that you aren't going to like but are going to have to learn to deal with is that there are going to be things he never tells you about his trauma. That's just how it is. Like I said before, I almost unconsciously come to the conclusion that it is somehow contagious to the other person, and I'm afraid of transferring it to them, even though the details of what happened probably wouldn't affect anyone else but myself. I just naturally come to the conclusion that because it hurts me it must hurt someone else too, even though that may not be the case.
Just learn to be patient, learn to be supportive, learn to help, and most of all learn to not pry when it gets difficult for him, no matter how bad you want to know. And like I said, he definitely should see someone about whatever happened, and it may help if you also see someone to help you through the process of helping him. Also realize that a lot of the times whenever you notice there is a problem or he is doing something out of normal behavior, he isn't going to realize he's doing it. We talk about behavior and subconsciously feel like we realize what we are doing when we do it, but most of the time we really don't until later. Behavior is just that - what we do at the moment, we don't usually think about it right then.
