Hi I'm Rod and I'm a liar. Back to square one for me. It's been about 12 hours since I lied. It's a new day.

Hi Everyone, I am MRB and I Am a liar. I had a setback to my total honesty pact, I have not made amends to one guy that I used to work for and he repeated a lie to someone else that boosted my credentials, unbeknownst to him it was a stretch of my real background, although not imparitive for the discussion, I did not have the strength to either privately or publicly cut him off and share the truth, I felt really embarrassed hearing a lie I must have told years ago being repeated as if it were true. I know I need to openly confess to him at some point when I am ready, but for now I see the never ending issues with lying. I am starting a new day and pray for the courage and strength to make better choices and for my higher power to remove this character defect of embellishing and lying as it is not who I want to be going forward.

I am MRB and I am a liar.

Hi folks, I am Greg, and I am a liar. It is good to see such an active dialogue going on here. I never seem to find enough time to join in as often as I would like, but it is very heartening to check in and see so many folks using this venue. The one thing I have learned is that you can't measure yourself by how many days you go without lying. Every day, and every minute you go without a lie is a victory. You can go for months without telling a lie, and then the moment comes where a lie comes out, and that is it. The length of time without telling a lie does not ensure that you will not lie, or be tempted to lie. The big danger in measuring the longevity of your period of honesty is that it can lull you into a state of false security. This inevitably results in you becomi9ng complacent, and then out comes the lie. Every minute of every day requires vigilance. And yes, the vigilance does become second nature to you, and by maintaining this constant vigilance, you will remain honest. I have slipped and fallen over the past couple of years, and you can't beat yourself up for this happening. recognize why and how the happens, and it will help you in your battle to conquer the urge to lie. Stay strong everyone, and remember that we are all here to lend strength and support to each and everyone here.

Hi I'm Johnny and I have been a liar. It's been a total of 1 week since my last deception or lie. I hope everyone finds strength in reading what others have posted. I myself always do. I am commited to changing my character for the better. I don't know if any one saw the final Oprah show but it was interseting that she said from all of her experiences that all addictions center around the peron feeling "unworthy." I myself am going to start building a feeling of worthiness.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and remember those who have fallen and are fighting right now for our freedom.

J0hnny

My name is Carmen. Although I never thought myself a liar. I do now. In my previous relationship everything was so honest. He was the father of my child. But after I met my current partner something changed. I made a mistake while we first started dating. Before we became official. And when he asked i lied. And i continued to lie about everything that could possibly make me look bad. Lied about even the little tiny things like going to the store with a friend. Anything that could possibly hurt him. It just kept going. A huge string of lies. And as my love became stronger it became harder for me to tell him the truth. Even when i lied out of good intention. to save him hurt. I only caused more. Today i have shared everything that i can think of with him. Everything I have lied about. But i don't know if we will work in the end of this. All of this is so hard. I don't even know how things got this way. I don't want to lose him.

Hi guys i have gone 3 weeks with out lying or doing anything stupid, i'm finally happy now have a amazing girlfriend who has supported me the whole time through thick and thin and I love her so much and we have a baby girl who i will bend over backwards for. Thanks for listening speak to you soon Jack

Hope everyone had a good memorial day weekend. Carmen, I relate. I have found that finding my true love made me a liar. I want so much to impress my husband, not to bother him with my mistakes, etc. that I developed a serious habit of lying. While he has some work he needs to do, it's taken me a long time to accept that his actions do not excuse my being dishonest. He is in no way abusive. I just don't like when he's mad at me or when he disapproves of me. I am learning that I need to step up and let him know when I've screwed things up and to accept the fall out, whatever that is rather than be dishonest. In other news, I ate my daughter's candy from a birthday party over the weekend. I'm hoping she doesn't ask for it tonight after dinner as I don't want to lie about it, but I really shouldn't have eaten it!!! Oops :)

Hey Jack. Congratulations. You're a lucky guy for a great girlfriend and baby girl. Just remember you always have to work to keep it real. For us I don't think there's really a cure without working on this every day.
I'm Rod and I'm a Liar. I haven't lied for 3 days now.

Hello everyone! My name is Jeremy and I am a compulsive liar. I am here because honestly I have no other place to go. There are no Liar's Anonymous groups I can find in my area and since I do not have insurance I am unable to benefit from professional help. However I am looking into a few organizations here in Knoxville, TN that may provide psychiatric care for free.

Where do I begin when I was a young child I would lie about silly things that kids do like "I didn't break the vase it was broken when I got here" kind of lies.As I became an adult that changed with the rare occasion I would lie to fit in or to feel better about my self, which stems from a self esteem problem that I now recognize. That was of course until I got married. You see my marriage and relationship with my wife was perfect for the first 4-5 years. No lies not many arguments just happiness with each other. After my daughter was born my wife decided to go back to school and get her teaching degree which I fully supported. Unfortunately, our spending habits and my inability to manage our finances appropriately caused major problems. I began to lie to my wife about our finances telling her that everything was okay and that she had nothing to worry about when in fact our finances were spiraling out of control. For some reason I could never bring myself to admit to the problems we were having. My days consisted of thinking more about how I was going to get the mail before she did or prevent her from getting phone calls from a debt collector. Long story short that came to an end and I almost lost my family.

Well 6 months after that the finances fell in my lap again. How I don't know but it did and then shortly it all happened again. You see our financial problems stemmed primarily from my problem with procrastinating combine that with pride and fear of losing my family and now I set all the way down the spiral. I have lost two cars, cost my mother a ton of money and caused her to be evicted from her apt in addition to the money my wife's family paid to prevent her from losing our home. You now listen to a broken divorced man who wants nothing more than to get his family back and be the father my daughter can be proud of.

I am back living with my wife and daughter. My wife and I are going to couple's counseling but I seriously need help with my lying. If I would have told my wife the problems we were having this all could have been prevented but my lying is out of control. I don't think, lie and then think about it afterwards when I have to deal with the fallout. I need help I have thought seriously about suicide about running away and not looking back, but I can't do that to my daughter or my wife. So I am here looking for support and guidance, Please help me, pray for me or whatever it is you believe in doing. I need an act of God to get my life in line again.

Hi Jeremy, You are not alone. Everybody on this board has struggled to various degrees with the issues you are contending with. You will find that we too have issues with procrastination, self-esteem and ultimately showing up as the imperfect people we are. I hope that you stay on this board daily and glean insight from the many wise folks who frequent it. You will be in my prayers.
The board has been quiet for the past few days. I am hoping that everyone is doing okay.
I was in a grand funk. I lied a couple of times about stupid things and felt completely crummy about it. I let self-pity get the best of me. But today is a new day and I am grateful for every new opportunity to learn and grow.

Hi Jeremy. Committed is right. You are not alone. I'm glad you get to go to counseling with your ex wife. I however will not have that opportunity. My soon to be ex wife wants nothing to do with me and only gives me the courtesy of living in the same house so I can be with my two girls for what it seems is going to be a very short time. Keep working hard at overcoming this.

I want to THANK Laura O for pointing me to the book by Melody Beattie, "Codependent No More" and I encourage you to read it. I beleive I have discovered why my lying developed the way it did. My mother was very controling and sheltered me as a child. I too lied about the "broken canlestick" as a kid. Later though I would lie to keep from disappointing my mother for not being or not doing what she thought I should be or be doing. I WAS LYING TO TRY AND CONTROL BACK! I did not have any self identity because of her control which led to lying or exaggerating to others about what I was doing, had done or what I was going to be.

Once I moved out with my brother, it seems the lying was not as bad. I was more honest with others and myself but still had no identity. It just seemed I was rolling through life with no direction I but seemed to be happier without my mother being involved in everything I do.

When I met my wife all seemed well at first. I was trying to rescue this depressed girl and help her out of her depression by trying to be this "Prince" i thought I was. I would endure verbal abuse. I gave up friendships and other relationships because of her depression because i thought I could save her. I started lying about the finances so that I would not have to endure verbal abuse. I hated going home everyday from work because I know that there would be something I would be verbally abused for whether it be something recent or something she would dig up from the past. I would borrow from people without her knowing to try and make our finances look better. I would lie about where I had been, etc..I was letting her depression CONTROL me and I was trying to CONTROL the situation by lying and by being deceitful.

Ironically because of all my deceit and lying she is going to divorce me. Can't blame her. I am trying to divorce that person she has known for the past 19 years as well. Because of that book I now have a much better understanding of how to be the type of man she wanted. Though it's too late for her, I can be that man for my two daughters.

Sorry for rambling but I beleive this will work out in the long run the way God wants them to work out. I am Johnny and I have been a liar.

Johnny

Thank you all for the encouragement. It is comforting to know I am not alone in all this. I just wish some of you all lived in my area. I was curious what types of lies we are all telling. For me it has been about my finances and anything related to it. On occasion I would lie to sound more appealing to others like "I played baseball in high school" etc. Any who it was just something that crossed my mind today. Thanks again to everyone and good luck to everyone in the middle of this struggle we face. My name is Jeremy and I am a LIAR. Heaven help us.

I'm Bill, and I'm a liar. I just joined this group last night, and I've only gone the two hours I've been awake this morning without lying or exaggerating. But that's a start.

Jeremy, you are absolutely brave and you are absolutely not alone. I have lived a debt lie now for several years, also, and it does stem from procrastination and thinking that somehow, some way the magic thunderbolt will make everything you said true or somehow make it irrelevant so it will go away. There is no such thing, it doesn't happen. I hope you will keep working hard on telling the truth, one day at a time.

Something which is helping me is the idea of kaizen, which is the idea of a small step that sneaks through the holes in our web of falsehood. It's like the idea that a person can learn to run 50 miles in a day by running one step today, two steps tomorrow, three the next day, and so on until you find you can run a marathon because you worked up to it so slowly that your "can't be done" mentality never gets a chance to kick in. That helps me build self-esteem a little at a time: "well, I did this much yesterday, maybe I can just do a little more today...."

Anyway, I will pray for you as you ask, in my own way. My hope is that you stay strong. My name is Bill, and I'm a liar.

Lied this morning. I am typing next to my beautiful little daughter. I want so much for her to grow up with a mommy who models healthy behavior, not perfect but healthy behavior. I want so much to be totally honest with my husband. But despite my good intentions, I still have been feeling like a deer in the headlights when presented with a question that, if I answer truthfully, will no doubt produce anger or confrontation. I will hold Bill's notion of kaizen with me today. Thank you for sharing that. Peace to everyone here today. I invite those of you who are lurking and reading out there to check in and share how you are doing.