Dear Juanita:

About Husband, page 1, June 6-7,

In my words: you shared that you’ve been with hour husband for 18 years, and that within these 18 years you supported him financially for over 10 years, being the sole earner. You shared that he is a compulsive liar who said that he cannot stop lying. You shared that you played down his compulsive lying because you said to yourself something like: at least he is not violent. You shared that he was never responsible. When I asked you to  list what you referred to as his compulsive lies, you shared that you felt horror at the thought of doing so because there are too many lies to list, that it is impossible to list them all, that he lied to you in every contact you had with him, that you never know what of what he says to you is the truth and what is a lie. You shared that he was financially irresponsible, but more so, that he financially defrauded you: having spent your savings secretly, and he lied and swindled you, saying that the costs of things were higher than they truly were, pocketing the difference. You shared that you researched and proved to him some of his dishonest financial practices.

In your words: “being with my husband (18 years)”,”I was the sole earner… I supported him financially for over 10 years”, “He is a compulsive liar.. he says he can’t stop… he’s  one of those natural charmers who can wear a smile whilst they lie in your face… I used to play down his behaviours because I was just glad he wasn’t violent… I never had a responsible partner at my side… The horror I felt is.. due to facing those ugly truths… I cannot ever list all the lies, it is impossible, there are too  many to count. It is a continuum with every contact we have. I don’t know most of the time what  is the truth and what is a lie as I find them out later.. He spent all of my savings in secret… He told me shopping costs were very expensive (I was paying) but in reality he was siphoning money off for himself. Then he lied about that too until I proved it. He always flatly denies everything unless I can come up with proof… he seldom keeps his word”.

About Husband, page 10, August 17 and August 20:

In my words: From the time you met him, there has been a clan of people (consisting of his family members, friends and other people) who consistently tried to destroy your husband financially, as well as in other ways. Your husband was a good man to you and the relationship with him was good for many years. He stopped being a good husband when the clan wore him down and succeeded to destroy him financially, causing him a bankruptcy: he lost twenty years of work.  As a result of the clan’s actions, he became depressed and angry. When he saw a therapist a few years ago, the angry therapist fueled your husband’s anger even more. As a result of these misfortunes, your husband started to be irresponsible and dishonest in his dealings with you.

In your words: “my husband was a very good man.. My relationship with my husband had many good years”, “When we first met, it seemed like the rest of the world.. had it in for us.. the lengths they went to caused his eventual bankruptcy, losing everything he had worked towards for twenty years.. the clan continued to destroy everything they could  of his life, business, family ties, friends, etc.”, “the therapist he saw for several years was an angry misogynist who encouraged my husband to be angry towards women, revengeful and blaming”, “it just got too much for him.. and this is when he became depressed and started to be irresponsible and dishonest towards me”, “I can see that he has definitely improved his awareness of his problem behaviours… Regarding recent lies, I discovered that he was not lying.. I am experiencing my husband now consistently behaving in positive and constructive ways in daily situations and I believe he has recovered from being an angry person”.

Incorporating pages 1 and 10:

1. Page 1: “I never had a responsible partner at my side”, page 10: “my husband was a very good man.. My relationship with my husband had many good years”-

-if your understanding of “a very good man” includes the man being responsible, and if the words “partner” and “husband” are interchangeable in your vocabulary, then there is a stark contradiction when placing these statements together. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you lied, as in intentionally stating what you know is not true. Maybe you were angry at him on page 1, your anger hijacking your thinking.

2. On page 1, you presented your husband as “a compulsive liar” who lied to you at every contact you had with him, and you shared two strikingly dishonest behaviors on his part: one is that he spent your savings behind your back, without your consent. The second is that he overinflated the costs of things so that you give  him more money than the things cost, and then pocketing the money. On page 10, you explained his dishonesty by saying that he was depressed and angry.

This is another stark contradiction: the adjective compulsive (in “compulsive liar”) indicates one who lies not only when angry and depressed, but at any other time, out of habit, no matter how he feels. And indeed you said that he lied to you in every contact you had with him… But on page 10, you cancelled, or neutralized the adjective compulsive, and your previous statement that he lied to you during every contact, and redefined him as an occasional liar when angry and depressed.

Even this contradiction does not mean that you lied: maybe you were very angry at him on page 1, and your anger hijacked your thinking.

Looking at how you came up with the term “compulsive liar” is revealing. On page 1, you wrote to me: “Do you mean that I need to learn to live with my husband with his faults? He is a compulsive liar..”- I think that you felt threatened by what you believed that I suggested (that you live with the man you were angry with). Threatened, you came up with the term “compulsive liar” so to justify why you will not live with the man you were angry with, and why I should therefore not suggest again.

About lies, you wrote on June 6: “why did I always end up with men who lied to me? Drove me round the bend, as I find lying the pits… I had so far not connected the dots  between my mother’s lying and the lying of partners. And indeed there is a kind of unspoken law in my family that you are not allowed to ‘say it as it is’. So today I have also just begun to realise that my mother, indeed the whole family, was lying all the time.. I wasn’t allowed to ‘say it as it is'”

My concluding thoughts: I don’t know if at any one point you knew that you were stating an untruth aka lying, or if you have let your fear or anger hijack your thinking, causing you to perceive things in exaggerated, extreme and untrue terms. What I am certain about is that you didn’t “say it as it is” to me, neither on page 1, nor on page 10.

It is my understanding, that when you feel threatened by a suggestion a person makes, you come up with some  dramatic and even a shockingly tragic piece of  information so  to protect yourself from the perceive threat (the suggestion made). It happened at least twice: the first I mentioned 3 paragraphs ago, and another time it happened someplace in between pages 1 and 10, after I repeatedly suggested to you that you end contact with your mother. You wanted me to stop suggesting it, so you brought up a very tragic and shocking event. After I read about that event, I indeed promised you to not repeat that suggestion.

I can’t tell whether these dramatic events happened, and whether the tragic, shocking event really happened. I don’t know. Not infrequently, “truth is stranger than fiction”.

In whichever case, our communication has come to an end. I wish you well.

anita