People Who Dated Pathological Liars Are Sharing The Big, Fat Lies They Caught Their Partner In, And It's Kinda Scary How Easily Some People Lie
We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who have dated pathological liars to tell us the wildest secrets they caught their partner in. And their answers were more jarring than I could ever prepare for. Here are the biggest lies:
1."I married a pathological liar and narcissist. First, he told me he was in the Navy when he was younger and had PTSD from being overseas. He would have dramatic nightmares and even went as far as trying to get a service dog for his hypervigilance. Ultimately, found out he was in basic for 27 days and discharged for lying on his medical form. He also told me he was raised by his grandparents in Germany until age 8, and even when confronted with evidence that he was, in fact, living with them in Florida the whole time, he refused to change his story. I could go on and on about all the lies that he would never admit to, but no one has time to read an epic like that. Thankfully, my son and I escaped the marriage, and he’s now in jail for pretending to be a firearms instructor even though he’s not allowed to own weapons."
2."My ex-boyfriend told me he went to university in Colorado but came home to California after his freshman year. His story was that he went hiking in the mountains with his best friend and roommate. While they were out, his best friend fell and broke his leg. Stranded in the snow, my ex went to get help. When they returned, his roommate had frozen to death. Overcome by trauma and grief, he decided to come home to California to be close to family. He began attending the local community college to fill gaps in transfer credits. I felt so bad for him and actually teared up when he told me the story. About a year later, we were with his family, and I mentioned something about how he had this horrible experience in Colorado. His sister looked at me and said, 'What? He’s never been to Colorado.'"
"I looked at him, and he pulled me aside, obviously flustered, and told me he would talk to me about it later and not to mention Colorado again. When later came, I asked him about it, and he revealed that he lied and never went to school in Colorado. When asked why, he told me he did it so I wouldn’t think he was a loser for just attending a local community college. I was shocked. This is just one of the wild stories he told me. It took me three years to find out what a pathological liar he was."
3."He encouraged me to plan an elaborate vacation, his treat. We went to Key West, no expense spared. It was beautiful. A few weeks after we got back, I found out he didn't actually have a job; he was getting dressed each morning and doing who knows what. He had been living on my half of the rent money for months and not actually paying the rent. From there, I found out many, many additional lies, all more psychotic than the last. I broke up with him, he disappeared, and left me with thousands in unpaid rent/bills. The following month, I found paperwork in his desk claiming that someone had opened a fraudulent credit card in his name, and all the 'massive' charges were from, you guessed it, Key West!"
—Anonymous
4."My ex and I had been together for years before this happened. Around tax time, he told me he had a little cousin he would be able to claim this year. I didn’t think anything of it. Three months later, I find a letter saying that the 6-month-old 'cousin' is really his CHILD!!! He tried to lie and say it was his other cousin’s baby and not his baby. Wow! Really! That was 10 years ago, and I still think about how wild that is and how he would try to lie about that, thinking I wouldn’t find out. No shame."
—Anonymous
5."I once dated a guy who would always talk about his two children. He had told me he had both a son and a daughter. He told me his daughter had died as a baby due to a heart condition. He told me his son had passed away at the age of 5 in a car accident. He had this elaborate story about how he witnessed the entire crash but couldn’t save him in time. One night while drinking with some friends, he shared with them that his son had died of the same heart condition as his daughter, and he was scared to have more children because he knew they would likely all have the same condition. Later that night, I (very carefully) asked him why he told two different stories about his son’s death."
"He started bawling and yelling at me, asking why I would even ask him about such a traumatic thing. I never brought it up again. After we broke up, I found out from his brother that he had never had any children at all. He lied about the whole thing. He told hundreds of lies during our short relationship, but I think that one takes the cake."
—Anonymous
6."We had just begun dating. When I asked if he had ever been married, he said, 'Nope.' I found out later that he was currently married, still living with his wife, and had been married to her for 17 years."
—Anonymous
7."Back in college, I started dating this guy who was a few years older than me, had a house, and a good job. He seemed like he had his life figured out. We got pretty serious pretty fast, and I would bring up the idea of moving in. However, he immediately turned it down, saying that we’d need to look for a place if that was the case. I was confused why I couldn’t just move into his place since it was completely paid off and big enough for both of us. He also never expressed any interest in selling it, so it was very confusing. It turns out he was lying the whole time; the house was his sister's summer home, and she let him stay there until he 'got his life together.' He had no job, and he even lied about having a degree. I found out from his mom when I told her about my concerns; no one knew he was keeping all this from me. No surprise, but we broke up shortly after that."
—Anonymous
8."My husband claimed he was attending a distance learning law school. One day, while checking our mailbox, I stumbled upon a packet of testing materials from his supposed law school. To my surprise, it was addressed to his best friend, with 'Esquire' listed as his friend's title. This was the same friend who barely graduated high school! It turned out, my husband had arranged for the tests to be sent to our mailbox under his friend's name, pretending that his friend was a lawyer serving as his proxy. He would then take untimed, open-book tests at home!!! Rest assured, he never completed his studies and went on to tell many other lies."
—Anonymous
9."My husband told me he was going to a medical convention down in LA for the weekend. He was gone frequently, and as I was busy and exhausted dealing with two toddlers, I didn’t think too much about it until I happened to look at our credit card bill and saw a charge for an extremely famous historic hotel in San Diego. Like, THE MOST FAMOUS hotel in San Diego. The one they show as a prize on game shows. So I called him at his meeting. He actually tried to tell me I was wrong at first, but I pressed him. His excuse for being in an entirely different city? 'I thought I was going to LA, but when I got to the airport, I realized I had the wrong city, and I was too embarrassed to tell you.' Then he went on to tell me how old and crappy and disappointing it was and how I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there. Needless to say, we are divorced now. Sadly, that wasn’t even the lie that did it, just one of his more egregious ones. I’d been pretty gaslit by that point."
—Anonymous
10."My ex-boyfriend constantly lied during our relationship. One of the most significant lies I discovered was regarding the mother of his children. He told me they only dated casually for a few years and were never truly serious. However, I later learned from his family that they were engaged, married for a year, and she ultimately left him to be with another man. The child he claimed as his biological son was allegedly the product of her affair."
—Anonymous
11."When I met Jarrod, he told me he was a wildlife biologist studying invasive species in Lake Michigan. He had a LinkedIn profile with that job listed. He shared all these stories about his coworkers, and sometimes even brought over leftover food from their meetings. Additionally, he lived in a condo with a friend of his. I visited a couple of times, but we never really spent much time there because I had a dog and lived alone, making it easier to spend the night at my place."
"After five months of dating, I broke up with him because he was a terrible boyfriend, and I started to feel like things weren't adding up, but I had no idea the extent of it. After breaking up, I found out that he was unemployed (and had never worked at that organization) and also homeless — he had just been crashing with his friend for a little bit and got kicked out by his friend for stealing money from him. When he wasn't sleeping at my place, he was with other women. He also racked up debts in my name and, like, a million other small lies. It was a slap in the face coming to terms with how gullible I was, but luckily, I'm happily married now to a compulsively honest and transparent person who's wonderful!"
—Anonymous
12."My older sister moved with her boyfriend to a new state so he could complete his PhD program. At the time, she wasn't attending school and was solely focused on her job. Every day, he would come home from his classes and share stories about the people in his program: their names, backgrounds, personalities, and amusing anecdotes from their time together. He even went out with them outside of classes while she was working in the evening, then returned home to tell her about their activities. Later, about a year or so later (I'm not sure why she didn’t try to meet them, but he was a manipulative creep so I can only assume he made excuses and she believed him), he randomly confessed to her out of the blue, laughing, about how he had made the entire thing up."
"He was in this program, but he had no friends in it. He literally made up all these fake people with their own names, personalities, and backstories just for fun to mess with her. He was actually laughing about how she believed every word he said and how she would ask him how 'so and so was doing.' She broke up with him, moved out, and was absolutely horrified. Weirdest thing I've ever heard."
—Anonymous
13."I dated a pathological liar. After we broke up, we stayed friends. We weren't in the same city anymore but would catch up from time to time when he visited my city for work. He was going to Columbia Business School in NY, but ended up doing an exchange semester at Berkeley Haas in California. He also wanted to graduate early. He told me he wasn't going to tell his friends at Columbia because he didn't want to explain that he was leaving them, and was planning to just fly back and forth so that it seemed like he was still in NY. This was shocking to me. I just didn't understand why he thought that was necessary. And what was more shocking to me was that he didn't seem to think that lying about it was weird at all."
—Anonymous
14.And finally, "My ex-husband pretended to go to work as an EMT for a few weeks; my mom, a nurse, even sent him a stethoscope that was special to her for him to use on the job. He tried to tell me that his first couple of paychecks went to union dues and uniforms. Instead, he was spending his time getting high on prescription meds that he was stealing from his parents, and from me after I broke my leg and had surgery to repair it. I went two days without pain meds before I unraveled the lies and thefts and subsequently kicked him out (once I got permission from my doc to put weight on my leg and was able to drive again)."
—Anonymous
What is the biggest lie you caught your partner in (whether they were a pathological liar or not)? Let us know in the comments (or use this Google form if you want to be anonymous).
