They literally just never stop lying

Cheating on you with other women is definitely better grounds for divorce than playing video games. At least you'll be free of his lies then. Will you/he be moving out soon?

 

English isn't my first language, and sometimes I make mistakes like not realizing the difference between "cheating someone" and "cheating on someone". I thought you meant that he used to lie to you.
Sorry.

 

You hit the nail right on the head. I have been a revolving door psych patient for decades and betrayal trauma is probably my biggest issue, but they skate right over that one. What do you expect from a counselor with pronouns in her title?

 

Yeah, I agree with you there. Many counselors are not going to steer you in the right direction.

So what about COSA, S-Anon, Celebrate Recovery, or Al-Anon?

 

Bloom for Women has a program that is pretty affordable compared to doing therapy uninsured and comparable to a higher end of copays. I haven't done it yet but it is on my radar if I can't get over the last of my hurdles. I can understand not wanting to go to a therapist that does not understand betrayal trauma. There's no way Bloom would be off since it is run by Dr. Skinner.

 

I heard good things about Bloom from a podcast I used to listen to. Tried to get my wife to look into it but she wasn’t willing.

 

I did pretty much all of their free classes and listened to all the podcasts. I had found it right after my first dday, it was very reassuring to know that there was a reason why I felt like I had just been hit with a nuclear bomb. Some women are really good at acting like they can put themselves in a place where none of the trauma touches them. I am clearly not one of those women. I've spent the last 4 years (can't believe it has been that long) trying to put myself back together piece by piece. I can understand, having gone to hell and back, why some women will fight tooth and nail to pretend like it just isn't happening.

 

I kinda agree with this. I would think that addiction comes with lying only in so far as that it protects the addiction itself. But once the addict has shared that secret with their partner and is committed to recovery, there shouldn't be a reason to lie anymore as lying is the worst kind of betrayal to do a person one cares about and even an addict who has healthy empathy skills and a conscience would try their hardest to not hurt someone they love.

I think lying is a big red flag that can point to serious issues, no matter if someone has an addiction or not. I first joined this forum 5 years ago because my (now ex) partner claimed he was struggling with addiction as I had caught him lying to me over and over again already early in our relationship and that's how I kept trying to justify the lies. But it turns out he was just simply a liar. He even lied about the fact that he had an addiction to excuse his behavior and keep me hanging on.

Lying is a form of covert emotional abuse. Problem is (porn) addiction and people with unhealthy coping mechanisms who covertly try to use other people to cope with their own issues (for example narcissists) often go hand in hand so it's hard to know which one is the problem, if not both. So I'd definitely say: if lying continues when you have already discovered the addiction and your partner keeps doing it, leave. That's not love.

 

This is an important point. Not sure about the context of the rest of the thread and certainly not commenting in terms of particular personal experiences, I haven't read through everything but while addiction is not necessarily less serious, I think it's fair to say some other psychological issues are more complex. The reason why someone lies can be tied to trauma and a weird distorted survival response, and recently it occurred to me, in response to something I experienced directly that it is even possible that people are not even aware of it. From a certain perspective they may be defending themselves by assumptions that may amounts to erring on the side of safety, and since there is a certain logic to their assuming the worst that is taken to be fact while they invalidate what you say and think nothing of it because of a drawn out rationalization that doesn't seem to be in t ouch with objective facts.

Also, I can see how in some instances people are actually not really capable of what is called mentalization, which MBT/Mentalization Based Therapy addresses. Evidently in certain kinds of mind states, and there are at least three, people can literally believe something in their head is a fact with little to no regard to what is plainly observable objectively, in other words just because they think it is so. I'm not sure how that translates to them speaking about themselves and how much of those are a lie or just untrue, but if they see other people and the actions and social interactions in such a grossly distorted way it's going to snowball very quickly. In other words, you have a whole network of untruths rather than 'just' whether someone is using porn or not. And it isn't like people are in that state all the time, but if there's no real way to know when they slip into that state of mind, which in retrospect I can think of at least one instance where it happened in a very relaxed context (I was invited over) simply because of an assumption in their mind then you never know what's going to happen.

So it's like what's worse, lying or actual delusional perception? Frankly in a word betrayal vs. insanity? Or a combination of both?

 

Lying is definitely a complex issue. I have lied myself because I have crippling social anxiety and in the beginning felt overwhelmed when my ex wanted to introduce me to his extended family quickly and I made up lies to avoid that and at the time didn't even realize it was wrong because I was "just protecting myself" as I had done many times before, for example saying I was sick in school when I didn't want to give a presentation. Because I felt/feel such existential fear in social situations, it just seemed fine to me to lie to protect myself while that still doesn't justify lying to someone's face and deceiving them.

In my opinion, the essence of love is selflessness. And putting another person before yourself. If you deny someone their reality and deceive them because it benefits you either because it validates self esteem (deliberate and motivated by pure selfishness/narcissism) or so you don't feel painful emotions (kinda understandable but still wrong), in my opinion you don't truly love someone and you should rather let that person go if you realize that you do not love yourself enough to be 100% vulnerable and trust the other person on that level to actually put them before you.

And yeah personality disorders are actually usually caused by trauma (along with genetic predisposition) which in turn may not always result in a personality disorder but will either way cause someone to develop coping mechanisms that may or may not be abusive to other people. Both borderline and narcissistic personality disorder causes people to lie to cope with their painful emotions or build up their self-esteem. And self awareness can be affected to varying degrees too, so yes, sometimes it's not a black and white issue. But I do think in the end - no matter if someone is aware of their own lies or not - basic empathy, which certain types of people do lack, should enable someone to see their behavior is causing harm and suffering to another, especially a loved one, and making the right choice to leave that person or fix one's behavior to prevent that pain and suffering.

 

Through my recovery work, I realized how much I lied to hide things I was ashamed of. Maybe not outright lies, but deception anyway. Misleading (usually about why I was looking at what I was as looking at).
It was because I had learned it as a child as a protective measure and did it automatically. So it’s understandable.
But….
As an adult who has become aware of this, you have to work against the urge to be dishonest or deceptive. Just be honest. I only respect myself when I am. And it takes work. I have had to go back to people (including my wife) and say, “I’m not sure why I said that, but it’s not true. I’m trying to change and committed to being honest so here’s the truth…”
Usually about something small and they might not even care. But it makes a difference to me and how I view myself.
So, I agree with your post.

 

Yeah I can understand that. Doing something that you learned at an early age to regulate your emotions and not feel pain because you didn't know any better is understandable. But as long as you realize it's wrong and fix it, you're doing the right thing. And eventually it will also get easier I'm sure.

 

Wow. So many things right on the head!
But in the end, the same conclusion. Addiction is intrinsically tied to lying.
I loved this quote

“they have to learn to be honest with themselves. They, themselves, are the first victims of their lies”

It took me a long time to see what my wife was so angry about. It wasn’t porn, masturbation, or hiding it. It was because she would feel used when we had sex and I would tell her she wasn’t being used. I believed my own story because I felt that because I was concerned about her pleasure that I wasn’t using her. But it wasn’t true. I was still using her for my own self worth. I just didn’t realize it. And so then I would gaslight her and say it must be something else. Something from her childhood. I also believed this. But it was a lie. Until I had a therapist explain to me that abuse doesn’t have to be intentional to be abuse, I never saw it and I couldn’t accept it. Now it’s too late though and my wife doesn’t trust me. Sex is weird because I don’t want to take any chance on repeating the abuse and lying to myself about my intentions. So I wait patiently for her to initiate if she feels in the mood. But she does have some issues where she can’t receive anything. It can’t be for her. She has to be the one giving in all aspects of her life. Even with friends. So sex can’t be for her. So I try to balance it and be honest if she asks if I’m interested. I always say yes, because it’s the truth. But I also have to be alert to my own motives if she is just feeling like it’s time to “do her duty” I explain why that I’m not interested in that case because it will feel like I’m using her and I don’t like that at all.
Lying gets so complicated when you try to unravel lying to yourself.

 

I agree that not all addicts are the same and not all addicts have an easy time to let go of the lies while healing from addiction. My perspective was more in the context of lying vs love rather than lying vs being in a relationship with someone. I think this comes down to how someone defines love. I personally don't believe you can say you love someone and lie to their face for whatever reason, other than maybe being actively addicted. I am also only referring to deliberate lying as opposed to "lying" that is done unconsciously. I believe a lot of people don't actually know what love means and they think they love someone but they don't. A lot of people are and stay in relationships for many reasons but not true love. They might care about someone but that's not enough to love someone. Love really means not being selfish and actually loving yourself so I guess the nature of addiction equals being selfish+ so maybe an addict can really never be compatible with the concept of love. Or rather, an active addict is not capable of love and there is a high chance that even a passive addict suffers from some kind of trauma which got them addicted in the first place that makes them put their need to feel safe from that trauma (maladaptive coping mechanisms such as denial/lying) before their need to be vulnerable+honest with their partner to create a foundation for love. Only if they choose to heal that trauma that can be fixed. They need to learn how to love themselves first before they can love someone else.

But I also think some people are okay with and settle for relationships that aren't based on complete honesty+vulnerability but some kind of mutual agreement that certain lies are okay while other lies are a deal breaker. For me personally that is not enough. To me, the feeling of not being good enough to be trusted with someone's deepest fears and insecurities when I want to provide that in return and having my trust abused was one of the most horrible feelings I have ever felt and I never want to settle for a relationship again where I cannot 100% trust someone's honesty and openness to love. But of course everyone defines a fulfilling relationship differently, so that's just me.

 

So true.

 

I've been going through Adam Young's Podcast "The Place We Find Ourselves" recently, Affect Regulation really is a key to all of this for me, and I think many others.

Without going too deep into it, Young is a huge proponent of telling a "Family of Origin" story of trauma, and the importance of writing this as a form of healing. This has really revealed some things to me as I've been working through it.

For anyone wanting to practice empathy, I highly encourage listening to this podcast as every other episode a guest tells a "Family of Origin" story themselves. It's really good.

 

Something, I'm coming to terms with recently, is that this actually can go much deeper than P addiction, I know this is an anti P site, and I'm not trying to deflect from your point, but just because the P addiction is "in the light" does not mean the root issue is even remotely exposed and I believe it often is very much unrelated to P, what I mean is, the lying didn't start when P was introduced, it was a culmination of life experiences that shaped the behavior. I'm not saying that a P addict doesn't have or develop motive to lie about their addiction, what I'm suggesting is that there often is so much more to it than just the lying about a P addiction to their SO or anyone else.

Again, Adam Young's Podcast really gets into the deep parts of this, so much can stem from deep deep stuff, that is 100% unrelated to the SO and P addiction, each individuals struggles are different, yet, often end in the same place, using addiction as a coping mechanism, to regulate ourselves and our emotions (Affect). This is tied to things like attachment style, childhood experiences, etc.

I think that's the complexity that holds back recovery and healing, as neither the addict or the SO know the root issues, especially at first, it takes a lot of deep work to process this, recognize it, lament, relive the pain, and heal.