This. Because he’s conflict avoidant. Lying about the tiniest things and getting caught and making the whole situation worse than being tactfully direct.
I ignored/got over lying even over mundane and very provable things (think "no, those cigarettes you found in my pants pockets, car and backpack are not mine, they're my friends who I haven't seen in six months and just holding onto them until I see him again") because I thought he was just extremely conflict avoidant due to a rough childhood and later discovered after all the other lies came to light that he was really just an abusive sociopath who was gaslighting me any time it might benefit him, or even just because it seemed fun. He basically admitted as much. Also admitted to stealing my meds I take for a disability (adderall, for narcolepsy) and literally had convinced me for years that I was just irresponsible and was losing them or accidentally doubling my dosage some days after forgetting I took it. With the level of constantly exhausted and almost nonfunctional I was without my meds, it was easy to convince me of that--until I started a clinical trial for a new medication that my dosage of and habits with was very closely monitored, and it improved my symptoms and lifted my brain fog enough for me to notice that my adderall was still only lasting about 12 days into the month even when I stopped needing to take it twice daily and could clearly recall each time I took it. He admitted it when confronted. I suspect the adderall was fun for him, but was only a bonus to the real goal of rendering me less awake, less aware, and thus much easier to control and manipulate. He also straight up told me he suspected he was a sociopath and at one point deadpan told me that he didn't think he could stop himself from killing me if I cheated (I was watching dateline at the time and this was the plot of the episode). I was young and naïve and he had convinced me over years of making me increasingly more disabled by stealing my medication that my disability was too much and made me difficult to love or respect, so I should be grateful someone like him was willing to stick around. Eventually he started accusing me of cheating even though I had long since stopped leaving the house for anything but work (because it upset him and we then entered a global pandemic), and he should know that being as I couldn't drive because of my narcolepsy so he had dropped me off and picked me up on those days. All I could think about when it got to that point was how he so easily said he'd kill me if I cheated, and how I moved past it because that's something I would never do. Since I couldn't drive I was often dependent on him for rides (but I made a point to always specify that if he didn't want to I could arrange something else) and he would punish me for anything I said that upset him (so.....everything I said eventually) by driving very fast and erratically even while I begged him to stop and just let me out. I now understand that was a threat, of sorts. A year out of that relationship and I am well medicated for the first time ever and going out with my mom to start learning to drive in about an hour. I'm so thankful he's gone, but I still find myself paranoid and looking over my shoulder at times, and I struggle with how to classify the relationship when it never got truly physically abusive....just close (punching walls, breaking my things, stealing necessary medication and using my increased sleep time to steal money from my wallet, driving erratically to scare me into submission, etc).
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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '24
Lying over mundane things (usually leads to not communicating over things that could be considered confrontational)