Going out to meet a salesperson today, just for today I'll be me in that conversation, and I'll count to 5 and take a couple of good breaths before I speak.

Hi, my name is Michael and I'm a liar. I'll have to take a breath and start again...I've been honest for 5 hours.

Today I went and admitted to someone I had lied over a small matter and offered to correct the mistake, they said don't worry about it. It felt right to do that.

Ok today so far.

Is it correct if sharing on this website to say I'm a member of Liars Anonymous? It's just that I want to be 100% correct if I said that. Just for today, am being honest and kind in what I say and do.

Good evening, my name is J.P. and today is the day I ask for support in finding my way back into my wife's heart. I am a liar, I lie to protect myself above all others when i'm scared. By most people's accounts Im very honest, brutally honest even. I believe my lying was a result of stress, it started a a couple years ago, my wife and I hit a rough spot, I just kept telling myself, "we will get through this, we've been married 7 years, we will find our way again." I never told her how I felt, fast forward awhile and I started a friendship with a woman at my office, this friendship grew quickly and turned into an emotional affair, I hid this as well. My wife had suspicions and I lied, i knew it was wrong but it didn't feel wrong. She found out the truth and i confessed, we spent the last year finding love again. Instead of just being parenting robots to four young children, we began loving each other again. During that year I lost my job, I was terminated because I lied to cover up a mistake that I was afraid to admit I had made. Now after a successful 10 months, I found myself in the exact same place. Due to a situation, I began to speak with the woman I had allowed myself to become emotionally connected with, and I lied again to my wife. So now I sit here, lonely in a hotel room far away from my family. I proved to myself that I wasn't strong enough to tell the truth on my own, I had a inexcusable moment of weakness after almost a year that has now very well cost me my entire future. I need help, I need support. I need to relearn that an honest man is who I am. I hope that by reading through everyone's posts I can find the daily strength to show my wife that I am the man she married and not the fool I've become.

JP... I feel for you. Your post moved me because it's awfully similar to my story.

I am a liar. A compulsive liar, who seems to spout deceit, deception and dishonesty before the truth. Almost every time. I am working on this. In the recent time since I've finally admitted to myself that I am indeed a liar, I've been able to recognize the feeling I get when on the tip of my tongue is the truth, as well as the lie I want to tell. It hurts in my gut, and my heart flutters, and out comes the lie. I choose the lie before I can even think that the truth would be better here. So, I find that when I slow it down when confronted, and feel that "pain", I have the time to choose the truth.

See, lies were always easier than the truth. Since a very early age, I learned to lie to my parents to avoid, or lessen, the punishment when I did something bad. Blaming them for my addiction to lying is not for this post because I take full responsibility for the lies and deception inflicted on my wife. However, in short, I lied to avoid what I now realize to be emotional abuse. So, lying became part of my being.

I am right now where you were a year ago, trying to find love again with my wife and trying to allow her to trust me again. My indiscretion was exactly like yours. Building this trust seems impossible right now because the wound is so raw, as my house of cards collapsed just a few months ago. Not a day goes by that she doesn't keep asking me angrily why I did this. And all I can seem to say is, "I don't know." There were other lies other than my workplace indiscretion that she found out about since then, which is why this is all so difficult. It's amazing that she's still here actually.

Anyway, I'm new at this, but for me what has helped so far was to find out why lying comes first. I have been in therapy to help with my enlightenment, and like you are now I've been combing the internet for articles and papers regarding this affliction. I'm slowly gaining insight. That's not to say that I've immediately turned it around. It's a daily struggle. I mean, I still don't like confrontation. I still don't like the argument. But what I'm going through right now trumps any bickering that may have occurred if I had just told a truth in the first place rather than a lie.

In my humble opinion, it would be better if you wanted to change for you rather than for someone else, even if it is your wife. My wife may still decide to leave me. She tells me every day she thinks about it. So if she does, do I go back to being a liar and a cheater? I've hurt her so often with my lies over the years, and every time I promised I would change. I didn't, and it was because I wanted to preserve how she felt about me, or what I thought she felt about me.

Now, I want to change for me. Although that sounds like a selfish statement, I think that if my wife can see that I've really made a change, she may tough it out with me.

I told my wife last night, that coming to terms with my lying and how it affects everyone around me is something that Ive got to do for "me". Because if she feels that she can no longer love me and wants to part ways then that is understandable, but getting her not to leave cannot be my goal for getting better. I need to fix myself for her or and future partners, I cant just go back to lying if she chooses not to stay beside me. (sorry all of that sounded better in my head but as i read it back it doesn't flow very well.)

As angry as she is with me she has been supportive by not shutting me out, we've been talking every night and I woke up to a message this morning, inviting me back into our home. Why is honesty so damn hard sometimes, I just keep thinking that if I wouldn't of been so scared to tell the truth, that yes, she would of been mad but not this mad. She has asked me to write a letter to her, explaining how Ive felt, what steps and realizations Ive made, and how I plan to make it "forever" with her again. The littlest steps forward make me smile the brightest these days, my grin is from ear to ear as I write this.

As far as your situation with your wife, I understand. I too had nothing but "i dont know" answers for her, and I can honestly say those were truthful. I didnt know why until a few months later, I was forced to feel real emotions for the first time in a long time during an intimacy interview between my wife and I, I couldnt hide from them, and I had a moment of clarity and realization. I was able to put into words, why I had allowed an affair to happen. I was unknowingly missing the feeling of love from her, we had become parenting robots, super efficient but not great for a marriage. That was all she needed to hear, she did everything she could to amp up the intimacy, to show me how much she loved me and tell me how much she loved me. From simple post it notes, to date nights, to arranging a kid free getaway for a long weekend. It helped immensely, and we made huge strides in our relationship. We also chose not to do couples counseling but rather a marriage boot camp by a guy named Mort Fertel (just google his name) he is pricey but it was really quite wonderful , he has a unique perspective on things compared to what we had been finding everywhere else.

That's a positive thing that your wife is being supportive and that lines of communication are still open.

Pulling for you to get through this.

- John

Hello, my name is Michael and I' a liar. Just a moment ago my wife checked to make sure that I was on tis site and that I was participating.
Needless to say we are working on problems due solely to my lying.
I am not doing this for her, our relationship, my being here has nothing to do with us.
If this were an "us" issue, if I slip whose fault is that? Did being married drive me to lying?
My biggest problem is lying to myself, everyone else is incidental. I am writing this because I lie, I lie all the time, it didn't begin when my marriage hit a rough patch, the rough patch was amplified by the lying.
I was/am trying to be another person, different past, unreal reactions even my emotions are questionable.
I need to be honest for me, first and foremost. I need to find out who and what I am. I might not be the man my wife may want to be with when I am real...regardless, I have to live with and learn to love the man that I am or nothing is worth while.
My wife and I are in a bad place, my fault. I have no idea what will happen when I accept who I am and can be honest about it. The first step is building me, that has to be the rock that any other relationship is built on.

Good on you for deciding to change.

The 12 steps work for lying addiction like they work for other addictions. So maybe you could have a look at the 12 step literature for other addictions too, that has really helped me, I have seen myself in those stories. The basic way of recovering is very much the same and there this is so much information out there, and on this site.

Take one day at a time, just for today I will not lie.
Deal with consequences one day at time too. Try not to let other people lead you too far into the future or too far into the past. Easy does it.
Pay attention to your body, and how you feel, because addiction is in the mind.

We're all on the same road. Hang in there.

Good morning everyone,

Just checking in, Last night was another good night. I was able to get back into my family routine. I hope each and everyone of you out there is feeling the best you can. We may all be at different points on our road but we are all in the journey together.

JP

Hello I'm back on. I went 62 day before I missed up again. So now I'm back to 0. I will make more of an effort to be on here. Lots of things have fallen a part in the last few days so. My ex says she hates me and so on but I know deep that she doesn't she's just hurt because I lied to her. So here we go day 1....

62 days is a huge accomplishment, we will all stumble at some point. Picking yourself up and continuing on can be hard and daunting. We will all be here for you on the tough days and the not so tough days. Carry on Anthony, carry on.

Thanks jp. I appreciate it. It's tough knowing that I hurt the girl I love again. Seeing her cry and spill how much I've hurt her is the worst feeling. I've gone this entire day with out lying but she thinks everything is a lie but I know that she is angry with me and really hurt. I know she loves and I know I love her and I'll do whatever it takes.