Dear Lunaryogini:

“He says he would be willing to take a polygraph test to prove that he hasn’t cheated on me as well” (June 2023)- I didn’t read this part earlier this morning, so, it’s interesting that he already brought up the polygraph test idea.

“The reason he lied was because he was scared of my reaction because he knew I was very uptight about anything to do with his ex-wife… he is scared of my reaction if he would just tell me the truth“- in every man there is a scared little boy who is scared of a woman’s anger.

“This morning, I was looking over our shared bank accounts and something came up along the lines of ‘EV raffle’ for $230 so I questioned him about it.  He lied and said that he did it last year… I don’t think $230 is a big deal but I am feeling very hurt and betrayed that he would lie to me about something so silly like this…We share finances, run two businesses together“- I don’t understand the reason behind this lie… have you been in the habit of criticizing his personal and business financial purchases and choices?

“I tend to have big reactions to things like this so his fear in my reaction is justifiable” (June 2023)- big reactions such as raising your voice, getting emotional/ angry… interrogating him like a harsh detective interrogating a suspect?

“I know this lack of trust stems from something inside myself, my past, my upbringing… I was and still am very traumatized by the fact that he lied to me about all of this, which happened back in late 2020/2021” (Feb 11, 2024)- You were in your late 20s back in 2020-21. I wonder who lied to you 20 years earlier, when you were a child, a lie so distressing that it traumatized you for years to come…?

“For about four months I kept having these invasive nightmares of him cheating on me with his ex-wife. One night he finally admitted that there was more as far as there being several times that she came to the house to visit the cats/etc. He promises that he never was with her intimately.“- he admitted and promised, but he can’t admit wrongdoings that someone else (a parent perhaps) did to you and make promises in the name of that person. It never works for us when, as adults, we try to retroactively resolve childhood traumas by proxy of a romantic partner.

“I am very avoidant and always threaten him with leaving the relationship“- it is abusive on your part to always threaten him, isn’t it?

“I am also an independent woman and own a condo that I am renting to his brother, but I am always fantasizing about just getting my condo back and leaving my partner because I don’t fully trust him“- because you don’t trust him and because you are angry at him and want to punish him…?

“His ex-wife has been completely out of his life for two years now since he gave their cats to her, but I am still traumatized by the lying/having things hid from me… last night I had another one of those invasive nightmares… I don’t know if this is stemming from my own fears, PTSD from the lying or if my intuition is trying to communicate something with me. Any outside advice here would be very much appreciated. Thank you for witnessing and reading my share“-

– You are welcome. You mentioned PTSD originating from being lied to by this man, in your late 20s. Are you familiar with the concept (and diagnosis) of Complex PTSD, which is about suffering repeated trauma experienced in childhood? I suffer from C-PTSD, and I know how heavily and terribly it affected the great majority of my adult life.

anita