Welcome. I am brand new too and posted a few days ago but have not received any replies yet. My situation is similar to yours in that I have lied to my fiancé and I am now trying to change and repair the damage.

All I can say is that I am learning why I lie, and now trying to change the thinking that makes it feel necessary. It is hard, but I believe it will be a long process after reading other posts. I need to get to a point where I feel confidence and self esteem no matter what others think of me, since fear of how people may think of me is my trigger to lie to protect my self image. Accepting yourself and your flaws takes some of the need to lie away. I have turned to God for help in this and I know He is with me and will help me.

Thank you for your feedback. I also believe that I lie to protect my self image. I have always had self esteem issues and I have been very immature in a lot of things in my life. I believe those are the biggest issues for the reason that I lie. I think understanding these things and knowing that it is a problem is the first step, Now I just need to be committed to making this change in my life. This will be a long and hard process but in the end it will be worth it. I hope this group can help me with that process. Best of luck to you.

I think your attitude an honesty with yourself is a great step towards fixing this. I believe that lying is a habit that we developed to protect ourselves from the pain of feeling like we may not be accepted as we are, even if that belief is wrong. (I have begun to realize that the things I fear about how others would interpret the things I lie about are not accurate. People don’t even care that much about the things I lie about).

I initially thought that fixing my self esteem would be the place to start, but my therapist tells me that I need to change the behaviors that I lie about to help improve the self esteem. He also told me that I need to slow down and think about every response before I speak to check to see if I am telling the truth or a lie. If it is a lie I need to ask myself why?

You are right that it will take time and a lot of work. But your honesty about your problem is a huge step towards being honest. Keep it up, and I know you (and I) will beat this and be happier more confident people. Keep me posted on how it is going with you, and I will do the same.

Yes it will take a lot of time and effort. Commitment is very important for this, and if we do not stay committed to getting better then this whole thing will be a waste of time. I feel very confident about all of this and I believe we will both be ok. I will keep you posted as time goes on to let you know how I am doing and to see how you are doing