# Self esteem?



## slowalker (Aug 18, 2020)

My wife always told me she had low self-esteem. During our 20 year relationship, I started questioning this but never brought it up. She is beautiful. She excells at her job, and she is very aware and proud of her success. She is very fashionable and always presents herself so. She has always had and maintained quality friendships. She is shy but I have never seen confidence issues. 

For 4 years we have been having issues with trust. She lies constantly, and even when you have hard evidence she will never admit fault. Instead she gets very angry at me and puts me down. One night she broke down and told me she couldn't tell the truth and she needed therapy because she didn't feel good about her past and it prevented her from telling the truth. She had a session the next day but she never told her therapist what she told me. I have reason to believe she was raped in college. She brought something up a long time ago but has discredited it ever since. The last 4 years have been very hard on our family and was so excited that she was going for help. 

Anyway, she had 3rd session recently and her therapist said she has issues with self esteem and is working on it. She wrote me a letter as part of her therapy apologizing for a very hurtful lie she told me three years ago. The letter was full of very big inconsistencies from her latest version. When I brought them up she was mad at me. Her therapist told her she only had to worry about telling the truth and it was up to me how I processed it. She showed no empathy for misleading me 3 years ago. 

I was so hopeful things would get better. I am not a therapist and do not want to doubt her dr. Could it be possible this could be a self-esteem issue?


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

I doubt that self esteem or a bad incident in her past would make her lie.


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## Affaircare (Jan 11, 2010)

Actually compulsive lying has strong ties to low self-esteem...the theory is that when a person thinks lowly of themself, they tell lies to make themselves seem more important or "to get noticed." Here are a couple articles on the theory:









Why Lying Becomes Second Nature for Some People


What is a compulsive liar? Why does lying becomes their second nature? And how to deal with them?




www.lifehack.org













Inside the tangled mind of a compulsive liar - triple j


Fraser lies up to 20 times a day. What happens when his lies snowball out of control?




www.abc.net.au







https://www.yahoo.com/now/pathological-lying-doesnt-mean-want-122402945.html











Is Compulsive Lying a Personality Disorder?


It can sometimes be natural for people to feel compelled to lie because of Personality Disorder they want to hide their true feelings about aspects of life.




seasonsmalibu.com





Now I realize these articles are hardly academic, psychological studies with a lot of credential backing...but a medical study is a difficult read, and I thought these could communicate the premise in relatively layman's terms.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

I think its moe to di wiht ho


Affaircare said:


> Actually compulsive lying has strong ties to low self-esteem...the theory is that when a person thinks lowly of themself, they tell lies to make themselves seem more important or "to get noticed." Here are a couple articles on the theory:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


People tell lies because they are liars.


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## Affaircare (Jan 11, 2010)

@slowalker ,

It was my understanding that you were asking if there was a connection between compulsive lying and low self-esteem. Specifically, you asked "Could it be possible this could be a self-esteem issue? " 

@Diana7 I'm not trying to contradict you or argue, but rather just to point out to the OP that in psychological circles they suggest that compulsive lying and low self-esteem are connected. Now that may not be my personal opinion nor yours, but he asked if the counselor was making sense, or to be doubted. It's my understanding that the counselor is following pretty typical training.

@slowalker I don't mean to threadjack, so I'll return to you. You say that your wife "...wrote me a letter as part of her therapy apologizing for a very hurtful lie she told me three years ago. The letter was full of very big inconsistencies from her latest version. When I brought them up she was mad at me. Her therapist told her she only had to worry about telling the truth and it was up to me how I processed it." It sounds like your wife wrote this apology letter for lying...but in the letter she told more lies (or at least very big inconsistencies). Did you bring the inconsistencies up to your wife or to her counselor? I would be willing to bet that the counselor is not aware of the actual inconsistencies but IS aware that your wife is a compulsive liar...so knowing that, the counselor is giving your wife some time and opportunity to work through what causes the lying and why. In the weirdest way, right now the focus may not be the absolute factual truth, or even you and how you feel, but rather, to get your wife to consistently face some things she's been avoiding.


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## NextTimeAround (Dec 15, 2011)

Diana7 said:


> I think its moe to di wiht ho
> 
> People tell lies because they are liars.


That does not explain WHY they are liars.

I can't remember which election it was in the UK, but some guy stood in Parliament Square for some time and said over and over again "Politicians are liars." One radio presenter played it many times afterwards. It was funny.


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## StarFires (Feb 27, 2018)

Affaircare said:


> the theory is that when a person thinks lowly of themself, they tell lies to make themselves seem more important or "to get noticed."


In addition to what Affaircare noted, another way people's low self-esteem is connected to lying is so they can create an acceptable reality - an alternate reality as the Trump crew calls it - because the real one doesn't fit their self-image or it fits their self-image too well.

If there was something in her past that your wife struggles with, it's possible she tries to trick her brain into believing it wasn't as bad as it was, so she has to change the narrative of the event in her mind so the story falls within acceptable parameters.

By the same token, if there is something in her past that she struggles with, it's possible she projected the terrible event onto herself as being a terrible person for causing it to happen (whether or not she caused it to happen), so she has to create alternate realities to deal with being that person she thinks she is.

It's similar to dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) and can be explained by the story of Sybil if you recall seeing the movie (to assume that everyone did see it lol). Sybil created many different personalities to deal with the traumatic events of her childhood. Whenever there was something she, herself, couldn't handle, she would create an alternate to act as buffer and absorb the impact. Her alternates increased in numbers over the years in order to relive and maintain those memories so she didn't have to accept them. Some she began to create just to help her deal with life in general because she'd grown accustomed to sending the others in her stead until she could hardly deal with anything.

I'm not saying your wife has multiple personalities. I'm saying that in similar ways, your wife creates lies in order to help her deal with unpleasant events because she finds it too hard to identify herself with the unpleasantness or she thinks of herself as someone who is unpleasant and unworthy. Whether she can't associate the image she has of herself with being that kind of person, or whether she has a poor image of herself, her low self-esteem is constantly trying to protect her self-image.

There doesn't always seem to be any particular pattern to the lying. A person's lie can make matters appear worse than they actually were or better than they actually were. It all depends on the self-image and whether the ego is subjective and always the victim (making it seem offense is being done to them), or if the ego is subjective and never the culprit (making sure to never be accountable for their actions).


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Can you go to therapy at least once with your wife so that her therapist gets more background on what's really going on? It sounds like she's not being honest with her therapist either.


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