I hate myself some days.  I continue to fall in the same patterns over and over again with P. I can spot when he is uncomfortable (fake yawns!) or lying a mile away (rubs tongue on teeth or cheek and nods head with mouth open), but instead of opening my big mouth (which I have no problem doing this with anyone else!) and calling him out, I just avoid the drama and let it go. And it’s just the stupidest little things. I can’t even recall half of the little incidences of lies because they are so trivial there is no reason to even lie in the first place.

And then there are the things that might be lies, but I can’t tell if it is a lie or not. Like Friday P came home and told me his boss had given him a GPS nav device for Christmas. So I was like, well, why? He already got you a card and $40 bucks worth of Lotto tickets on Thursday, Dec. 23rd. P says that his boss “got it for Christmas, but he already has navigation things built into his cars”. Hmmm. That just doesn’t add up to me. Who gave his boss the GPS?  I mean, this thing is like a $200 item. Who spends that much on a person that isn’t a husband or wife? And I know his wife couldn’t have gotten it for him because obviously she would already know he had nav in his vehicles. So where the hell did the GPS come from? Who really gave it to him? Or where did P buy it from? And how did he buy it? Did he buy it from the dealership and they auto took it out of his check?  And how do I find out the truth? What if his boss really gave it to him and I grill him and make him feel like shit, when he is finally telling the truth? What if my overzealous questoning pushes him back away and he says “screw it” and goes back to lying again?

This is the problem that I don’t think we are going to ever get over. P can’t help but lie. He is a 100% compulsive liar. He lies when there is nothing to lie about. He lies when he does wrong. He lies when he does right! No matter what the situation is, a lie will surface. Maybe something a little as the color of the shirt he was wearing or where he bought it from to as big as what he was doing when he left work or who he called on his cell phone. I trust him to an extent, but with so many lies around it’s hard to wade through what is real and what is altered. And why should I have to? I mean of course I love him and want to help him and want only the best for him, but why have I made it my responsibility to be a human lie detector? And what good am I doing anyone by not pointing out the little lies? Yes, I’m avoiding drama, but how is that helping?

I’m not delusional. I know that my little methods and encouragement and understanding isn’t going to automatically change a 34 year old behavioral pattern. I know he needs professional help, which he will get once his insurance kicks in, but until then (and even after) how in the world does one cope when they can’t tell if the one person they are supposed to love unconditionally and trust is telling them the truth about what they had for lunch??