My partner (26M) and I (26F) have been together for 5 years and have been living together for most of this time. I am hoping for some advice for my partner’s issues with avoidance/lying to avoid hard conversations or emotions.
My partner has always been pretty avoidant of any kind of harder conversations, especially about the relationship. When we first got together, I wasn’t really concerned because I thought he’d open up as we got to know each other better. However, even after a few years of dating, he still shut down in hard conversations or conversations about emotions/the relationship. He would get super dismissive and tell me things weren’t happening or he wasn’t doing things when they clearly were happening.
Over the last year and a half, I’ve worked really hard with him to improve communication. We’ve both gotten a lot better. However, through this improved communication, I’ve learned that my partner has had a concerning habit of lying to me and to people in general.
I’m going to avoid going into too much detail about specific lies for anonymity, but essentially it seems that he’s had a very consistent habit of lying to get out of any sort of uncomfortable situation. This includes lying to avoid being embarrassed, lying to make things more convenient/easy, and lying about things in the relationship to avoid uncomfortable conversations. The lies are mostly small lies, but this came to light when I learned that he had consistently lied to me about a couple of relationship things. These particular lies were bigger lies/lack of transparency and were repeated over a span of months and were over things that I considered major problems in the relationship. He essentially was lying about these things because he knew they were a big issue for me and he wanted to kick the can down the road and not have to address them.
After finding this out, I explained that the lying was incredibly hurtful and upsetting to me and, once I explained this, he seemed remorseful and told me he wanted to work on this problem. He’s been working on getting into therapy and we’ve been doing relationship/trust building workbooks together.
However, while I appreciate his efforts in these areas now and can see that he seems to be remorseful at this stage, I still feel betrayed that he lied to me for so long and apparently so guiltlessly. I can’t understand how, while I was working hard on creating a healthy relationship dynamic, he was lying to my face to actively avoid it. I feel like I can’t trust him and I find myself questioning whether he is being honest with me regularly now.
Is it possible to come back from being lied to like this in a relationship? If so, how can I rebuild trust on my end, and what can we do to facilitate honesty on his part?
Comments
My advice would be leave him immediately
You’ve been together for 5 years he’s a freaking LIAR! Move on you’re wasting your life on this loser he’s not going to change. A few workbooks will not be enough to change his lifelong pattern.
Question: Do you know what his relationship with his parents is like? More specifically, what it was like growing up? This certainly doesn’t excuse but a tumultuous childhood can be a reason for chronic lying. His parents don’t necessarily have to be abusive, but if they were particularly strict, that can be cause for wanting to be secretive to the point of dishonesty. If that is the case, perhaps that’s something for him to bring up in therapy. The fact that he seems genuinely remorseful and is making efforts to change speaks volumes. I would wait and see if anything changes before suggesting a permanent solution.
Nah, you can’t come back from this honestly.