You are here

Do you confront a liar?

stepmommaof2's picture

Submitted by stepmommaof2 on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 8:30am

Well, I'm new here and want to say I love to come to this site and know that I am not alone when it comes to problems with BM's. Something my hubby and I are dealing with right now is a compulsive liar BM. This may be a long blog so that I can share some background info. We first started noticing the lying about 2 years ago. SD is 3. 2 years ago BM told us she had fluid on her brain and had a 30% chance of living. We believed her and bent over backwards for her. DH and BM have joint custody of SD so we took SD for weeks at a time because she always had to go to the hospital for MRI's and she was very sick. BM and DH were never married and we all have a great relationship. We were really upset about everything because we thought she was going to die. She had us believing this for months! She was even telling the sitter about these horrible headaches she had and everyone believed her. After a few months she just stopped talking about her medical condition and we just didn't bring it up. Which we thought was kind of weird??? About 4 months later she got pulled over in a routine traffic stop and it turns out there was a warrant out for her arrest because she violated probabtion. No one knew she was even on probabtion including her family. Out of all of this she had to go to jail for 3 weeks and we had SD the whole time which was great! During this we talked with her family and found out she had no medical condition and a whole bunch of other stuff I can't even remember. We were flabbergasted. After she got out of jail my hubby never confronted her about the lying, this was last summer. I sooo bad wanted to ask her about it but figured it wasn't my position. Anyways, things got better and we just forgot about everything and wanted to start over fresh. Well, we are now having problems again. We get SD four days a week and her mom has her three. Now she will call and ask if we can pick up SD a day early because she will have a work trip or somthing. There is always some excuse! So, of course we pick SD up early, we want her as much as possible. However, what is really maddening is she is lying about what she is doing. She really didn't go on a work trip, she wanted to be able to tailgate for a college football game early the next morning. I found this out by pictures that were posted on MySpace. Does she think we are dumb???? So, my question is do we confront her? We will take SD any chance we get and that is not the problem. We just don't like being lied to, we can't trust anything she says. If we confront her she will probably get defensive and have some strange person watch SD instead of letting us have her a day or two earlier. At the same time I'm sick of being lied to!!! So, sorry this is so long but if anyone has advice i would love to hear it. Thanks!

Comments

littlegrlzx4's picture

Submitted by littlegrlzx4 on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 11:06am

Has she always been a big fat liar or is this new? I experience this all the time with my ex spouse- he lied non stop during our marraige and it's only increased since our divorce. Every time I confront him on his lies, he just lies more and it frustrates me further so at this point, I assume he's lying, spend more time with the kids and try and enforce to them that lying is not OK. I can't change his behavior, I can only change my response to it. Personally, this has been hard for me since I'm a really honest person and I feel insulted with some of the huge lies he tells but I remind myself that it's his problem that he's lying and is not a reflection on how he thinks/feels about me.

kysmom's picture

Submitted by kysmom on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 12:03pm

I am experiencing the same thing also, well not the getting the sk's rearly part (ha, ha). But the constant lies is almost unbearable. I have to experience the lies that involve "oh well, he doesn't really love you becasue he say's he misses me" or "I'm still sleeping with him, blah, blah, blah.... I sometimes think she believes her own lie's!! It's pitiful.
She (the bm) also lie's to the kids and tells them how much better she is as a parent & how they are doing just fine without their daddy. She even brings men to the house & tells them to pick the one they like & she will marry him so that the children will have a father!!!!
Not that she would ever give the bf any extra time with them or anything.
My advice would be to ignore her lie's. Confronting her will only make her defensive and like you said use other people to"baby sit" rather than allowing you & the bf more time with the sd. Just grit your teeth & smile. Keep records of the additional time & maybe later file for amended custody.
Good Luck

Shopaholic's picture

Submitted by Shopaholic on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 12:28pm

It sucks about the lying. I have dealt with that for many years, but I would suggest that you have DH confront her on the lying because, eventually the SD will pick up on the lying and SD will turn in to a compulsive liar her self, other than that there is not much you can do, she will just deny it and then that will piss you off even more, and life is to short to be pissed off all the time, at least the SD has you and your husband as the stable people in her life.

Chocoholic's picture

Submitted by Chocoholic on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 2:35pm

She sounds like a really sick chick.... but I agree with shop, there is nothing you can do about it. I would document it as it may come in handy later, but other than that I would just recognize that she is a liar, and don't trust a word she says. If she lies about where she is going, fine... at least you get sd more! Its the big medical lie that I find interesting... she really does sound like a true blue sociopath.

Step Mom-in-law's picture

Submitted by Step Mom-in-law on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 11:13pm

Some women, and men I know, are just manipulators. They will tell you anything, true or not, just to get some sort of reaction from you. To me it sounds like, and this is just from the info you provided, it sounds like she wanted to see what your husband's true feelings toward her really are.You know maybe jolt some sort of confession of (hoped for) feelings for her? She was "Dying" after all...
She only lied to you two right? and the babysitter she knew would tell you about the "Headaches"? But her own family had no clue? Weird.
So when your reaction was compassion for her and he wasn't calling her like she hoped to "get some things off his chest", She moved on to something else.
And as far as all of you getting on so well, that's good on the surface if that's as far as it ever goes. Remember the old adage, Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I doubt you've seen the last of her kooky behavior. Be ready for anything.
After all, the most important thing is her daughter right? Why would any sane person perpetually lie where their children are concerned?In any instance?
Good luck.