My (33F) boyfriend (34M, we met 18 months ago) sat me down recently and confessed that he had misrepresented or lied about certain aspects of his childhood. Essentially, he lied about how much time he had spent in different countries as a child, as well as exaggerated a traumatic incident that happened to him as a child. I do have to share that he comes from a country besieged by conflict and with a mass refugee population, and that he has trauma, both from childhood as well as ongoing, which have left him with many many deep insecurities. He’s also someone of mixed ethnic identities and nationalities, and it is something that has left him insecure and deeply lost, because people from each part of his identity will say he’s not “X” enough. It’s an incredibly complex situation and it is something that I have tremendous empathy for, but I am still aghast that he withheld this and for so long. He essentially said these 3-4 lies about how much time he spent in each country and his experience on our first few dates when we matched online, but never really spoke much about them since. I never probed too much about certain parts of his childhood, because I know how upsetting it is for him. He said he had been meaning to tell me the truth over the last 5 to 6 months, but kept chickening out because things were going so well otherwise. Finally, he sat me down one day and admitted. He admitted to some the first day, and then when I asked him more questions the next day, he opened up about more. These lies are misrepresentations about parts of his childhood and mostly seem to be stemming from insecurity as well as how he wished certain situations from his childhood would have actually turned out. He’s never given me any doubt, in his words or behaviors, about any other lying (infidelity, financial, etc.), and I don’t think that’s an issue.
Until this came up, I thought he was a wonderful person. I always knew he was lower on confidence and had complex identity issues but not once did I ever feel that he was laying this baggage on me or in the relationship. We would talk about how tough it was for him to navigate this identity, but he never made it a central part of the relationship or something to burden me with. He is also incredibly attentive, kind, consistent in the relationship, and sweet and goes overboard to make me his top priority (in a way that I confess, I do not do as much for him). The main issue we had faced so far was we sometimes had different ideas on proactiveness (more below). I had also known that he had issues of low confidence and self-esteem, but I thought of him as a very genuine honest person and never thought this insecurity would have driven him to lying. This is calling into question everything I thought. He still says he has never lied anything when it comes to me or our relationship and that these lies are specific to his own life because of his insecurities, but I am really struggling. We were serious about the relationship, and were going to move in together in a few weeks.
- I don’t know how to move past a fear that he is now lying about everything. I know that people who lie about small things are almost certainly lying about bigger things. So is it foolish of me to think these lies are very specific to his own childhood trauma, and will not surface in other aspects of our relationship?
- I also worry that I might judge him for his insecurities now that I know that some of his insecurities have driven him to lying. I know that sounds terrible, but something that attracted me to him was the belief that he was a person of integrity, which is now shaken.
- The fact that he dragged his feet on telling me and was not proactive is a huge concern for me. I’m the one who’s super-driven and gets things done while he is a little more laid-back. We balance each other out, so I had thought until now. I am very highly-strung and headstrong; he calms me down and gets things done in his own way. But this also meant that he has been a little slow in his individual therapy journey (finding a therapist that works for him and opening up). Part of me doesn’t begrudge him because it has been incredibly hard for him to find somebody who understands the complex identities he holds and especially since we live in a place where there is so much bigotry against people of his ethnicity, but the other part of me wonders where to draw the line.
So, I would love to hear from people. I know that trust is the most important thing in a relationship and rebuilding trust is a tall ask. I’m a big believer in therapy, I’ve been in therapy for the past 4+ years and have worked hard on myself. He’s just at the start of his journey (he started last year, again with my help). There is a part of me that feels that if he is committed to doing therapy for himself and is committed to actually, actively addressing these issues in and out of therapy, then there is a shot. He has committed to doing this work. I guess I am struggling to figure out where the line is between giving the relationship a try versus accepting that lying is lying.
Comments
From the sounds of it you are otherwise a good match and good partners. Did he voluntarily explain discrepancies in his life, or did you have to directly tell him he needs to come clean? Is it a matter of he was in a refugee camp for 6 months or was it 10 years? Was he actually one of the security guards or was he a trusted refugee with certain priviledges? What I mean is there are relative degrees of lies or exagerations, and I don’t necessarily agree with the black and white way of looking at things, although I tend to be that way as well. I would give him the benefit of the doubt for now, as you say he’s been through a lot, although if now you are calling his whole life experience into question that could be a different matter.