Individual therapy for sure and maybe couples therapy as well.

Maybe it would be helpful to sit down with your wife and explain to her that you are trying to improve yourself by stopping these patterns and show her everything you are doing to work on that. Restate what you said here- you understand if she wants to leave, but you really would like her to stay. Actively show her that you are making progress and celebrate your successes together. Another idea I saw on another thread was to keep a journal about all the reasons you feel like lying and why you want to lie about it. Best of luck!

How badly do you feel about lying? I have family members who lie all the time and they have no remorse about not telling the truth. It can be about what they purchased at the grocery store, they flat out lie when the truth will do and it is just conversation. They will look us in the face and bold face lie. If you really don't feel badly about lying, this is going to be a problem in all your relationships and is best addressed in therapy.

Assuming you feel bad about lying and want to change, you have to be accountable to yourself. I am going to suggest you get paper and pen, or a notebook, and every evening check yourself. Write down what you lied about that day. Write down what you told the truth about that day. Maybe even tell your wife you will go over this list with her every evening and be accountable. It won't feel good, it will be hard - at least at first.

Your spouse really gets to decide whether this is a deal breaker or not. It might be that the consequences of your lying end in separation or divorce. You see, trust is often a fragile thing once it has been broken. She can't trust you at this point, which may make being intimate with you difficult for her. I am trying to give you a fuller or new perspective of your bad habits or actions. I think perhaps having empathy for her will help you change because it gives you consequences. Maybe expressing verbally some empathy for her will do wonders for her attitude. My ex felt very justified for looking me in my eyes and lying to me and then in the separation and eventual divorce made me the bad guy for having "standards" and "ethics" that his behavior killed our marriage. So maybe I take your wife's side a little bit.

Mentally ill people deserve love too. You can make things work, everyone comes with some sort of baggage, even me. I have mental health issues myself. Like i said mentally ill people deserve love too.

Urban gardener
Good advice for addressing the lying NOW. What can I do about lies in the past? I’m pretty sure my wife will make me leave if I confess all of my past. I’m in a really tough spot and I own that I created all of it. She is also wanting me to try and “make right” the lies and deceits she knows about. Any suggestions on how to do that? Thanks
DubDub

We can't go back and change the lies from the past but we can apologize to the person, people, we have hurt and make amends. This means saying I am sorry, I was wrong, I will fix this by telling the truth from now on or I will pay for the item I broke and lied about or stole from you or whatever, and please forgive me. This means humbling oneself and accepting their anger and even refusal to forgive or accept your apology. You can't get mad if or when they aren't real nice back at you because they get to feel how they feel about whatever you lied about or did. Make a list of all the people you have wronged, harmed, and start one by one. Look into the 12 steps of AA for information on how they suggest amends be made. I am really giving general information here because I don't know what kind of lies you have made.

If your wife will leave you once she finds out all your past lies, then it sounds like your marriage is built on a lie. Things built on a lie have shaky foundations. Your wife thinks you are a different person than it sounds like you really are. Its all a matter of do you want to change how you are and live an honest and more stress free life or do you want to stick with lying, being false, living false? A liar, a false person, lives a stress filled life because they can never relax and be themselves and have to remember all the lies plus maybe feeling bad about themselves for lying. Your wife may decide she likes the real you or she may decide trust is broken by the lies and she finds you to be someone she doesn't want to be married to.

Took me 34 years to finally tell my husband the truth about my past decisions ... I gave him bits and pieces over the years ... and always lied there was nothing else out of fear of losing him . I have now told him everything and he won’t trust me anymore because he says there has always been something else ... I don’t blame him , I get it ... but I would suggest telling her everything at once and be proactive about it ... I wasn’t and I sure wish I would have done things differently . Now my marriage is barely hanging on by a string ... its heartbreaking to hurt the one you love more than anyone else in this world . Hope all works out and you get another chance with your love .