My partner is a compulsive liar

Gaslighting is a form of domestic abuse where one partner consistently tells the other that they must have been mistaken about something or imagined it. It’s a tried and tested tool used by people who seek to undermine their partner’s confidence and get them to doubt themselves. Now, it may be that in his case, he genuinely means what he says, is confused by things and ends up believing that what he says is true. However, either way the effect on you is exactly the same. You end up feeling you don’t know who you are and what you actually can believe in. That’s a really tough place to be and one which you need some professional help with.

Often, where a family member has a psychiatric illness, the focus of all the medical staff is on that person. Other family members don’t get a look in. They end up having to shoulder an immense amount of anxiety, worry and emotional pain because they have to cope on a daily basis with the symptoms of the condition and the impact of it all on every other area of family life. 

I get no sense that there is anyone around you to offer support. It seems like you’re trying to keep the show on the road with the kids and everything else while battling to work out what’s real and what isn’t. I think my first question to you is “who else have you spoken with about this problem?” I imagine your husband is connected into mental health services and if so, there may have been opportunities for you to speak with his care providers. Likewise, some mental health organisations run groups for family members and friends of people who experience mental health issues. These can be a significant form of support. Meeting others who know exactly what it’s like can be really helpful and offers the chance to feel less alone with everything – which is something that leaps off the page when I read your letter.

My next question is whether he behaves like this towards other people. For example, if he has work, have there been similar issues with work colleagues? Do other family members or friends see this side of him and regardless of whether they have or not, have you told them what’s going on? If the lying is something that only happens with you at home, then this is more serious than I think you are currently giving it credit for. From what you tell me, it sounds like you’re labouring under the belief that it’s really all down to you to sort this all out. Well, the challenging news here is that you can’t. Invariably, with the level of difficulty you describe, whatever its cause, the most important thing that needs to happen is that your husband addresses his behaviours – if he can. If he can’t, then you have some serious decisions to make about your future and what you want from it.

As a general comment, people lie for all sorts of reasons. It can certainly be a feature of some mental health conditions. Equally, some people find that telling lies was something that helped them to keep safe as a child. It’s not at all unusual to meet people where the only thing that stopped someone hurting them was to say what they wanted, even though it may not have been true. Some people find it difficult to deal with any kind of conflict and find it easier to cover up what may have gone wrong through lying. Other people seek to deliberately mislead simply because they can. Human beings are indeed very complicated.

I agree you need to get counselling, but you also need to ensure that you don’t find yourself being partly held to account for his behaviours. Unfortunately, although it’s usually always possible to improve our communication with a partner (and this involves both people working on making changes) in a situation like this, your husband has to stop doing what he does and that’s not down to you. Yes, it’s important that we care for partners when they’re ill. That’s all part of being in a loving and respectful relationship, but when faced with the behaviours you’re describing, I’d suggest that anyone would be seriously weighing up what they need to do to protect their own emotional and mental health. You tell me that you don’t want to let the kids down. I think you have to ask yourself what you mean by that. If you mean for example that you should stay no matter what, then I think perhaps you need some support to help you consider the ramifications of that decision for you and the children. But if you mean that you want to see if counselling can help him to firstly see the impact of what he does and then stop doing it, it might be worthwhile.

Broadly speaking though, it’s very difficult to know what is causing what here. That’s why I think you should reach out to any mental health workers who may be supporting your husband for information, and also reach out to family and friends. Being isolated makes things much worse and if your husband is indeed aware of what he does, then this is certainly domestic abuse and something that requires professional support to become safer.

You may feel I’m painting a gloomy picture here and I’m very sorry if it seems that way. But the thing is you need to shift your emphasis away from working out what he’s doing to caring for yourself. That’s hard when you have so many commitments, anxieties and concerns, but ultimately it’s the only way you can be you and know what’s what.