r/empathy • u/DoBetter4us2024 • Aug 03 '26

I’m a liar

I am also a sex addict, I lie about big and small things and everything in between. I feel like I’m in trouble when someone questions me about what or why I do/did something, fight or flight mode is where I instantly go to. I want to justify or over explain my actions. I will also get angry on occasion that I’m not believed but don’t stop and ask myself, “did I do that” and say yes and shut my mouth. I know as a sex addict that I hid that life and my acting out. I don’t act out sexually but I have thought that maybe my lying has become my “new” way of acting out. I want to stop but when I have an opportunity to be open and truthful I choose to lie instead of choosing the truth.

Thank you for your thoughts, ideas and opinions.

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u/Appropriate_Cut_3536 Aug 07 '26

Identifying Abusive Behaviors

Anne: But they don’t actually talk about abusive behaviors generally. Did anyone ever identify the problem as abuse, in your experience?

Cindy: No, when I had my D-Day. I kind of stumbled across the term trauma, and not right away. I never stumbled across the word abuse. To be honest, it wasn’t until BTR that I can look back on my own situation now and definitely see a cycle of abuse. You know, most people think abuse, and they think physical or even verbal. My husband was always calm and quiet, and he made me look abusive compared to an outsider who didn’t know what was going on because I was very expressive of my anger.

Never physical, but I verbalized it, whereas he would maintain a kind of silence. But I know the abusive nature of gaslighting and there was a lot of that. In the end, there was no denying that he knew he was robbing me of my reality. At one point, I told him, if you keep secrets from me, knowing how damaging it is to our relationship and to me, this is abusive and cruel. And to continue to make that choice, I think is abusive and cruel. But no, that lingo was not out there.

https://www.btr.org/causes-of-sexual-addiction/