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I believe there are several basic motivations to lie when you have BPD. There are also two types of lies: by admission (by telling) and by omission (by not telling). Both types are a problem with someone with BPD. The motivations for telling a lie (or omitting truth) by someone with BPD are as follows:
1. When it is more painful to admit or tell the truth.
2. When she wants the other person to think “better” of her than she thinks of herself.
3. To avoid the judgment of the other person or judgment of herself.
4. When she can’t see the “truth” because of emotional reasoning brought on by the refractory period of the emotion felt. In other words, when feelings = facts.
The first three of these factors play a role in the lies of someone with BPD and they are often inter-related. If the person to whom the lie is told is likely to judge the person with BPD as “bad” or “deficient,” the expectation of disapproval triggers first rejection sensitivity and then shame, because the person with BPD actually feels deep inside that, if she admits the truth, the other person will “find out” that she is a “bad person” and reject her fully. The last motivation is “emotional reasoning.”
I bring up these motivations not to “let liars off the hook” but to point out something: a person with BPD does not live in the same “reality” as you (the Non) do. Your truth is informed by what you see, hear, experience and what you believe about those inputs. A person with BPD is most often informed by her feelings about the experiences. These feelings can be misaligned with the facts and, as Paul Ekman notes in Emotions Revealed, a person overcome with strong emotions “cannot incorporate information that does not fit, maintain or justify the emotion.” In effect the original lies can be motivated by the inability to see information that doesn’t support the feelings. When someone is emotionally dysregulated, she just can’t see the truth if it doesn’t match what she is feeling.
In effect, she is not really “lying,” but merely pointing out “facts” (or generating them) that support her overwhelming emotion about the situation. The subsequent lies, which are used to “cover up” or support the emotional reasoning, are typically done for one of the first three motivations, particularly the idea that you would think of her as less of a person (and deservedly so) if it was revealed that she lied in the first place. I think there can be some argument about whether deep-down a person with BPD really believes the original lie (or any of those generated by motivation number four) when she exits the prolonged refractory period. My suspicion is that deep down a person with BPD is more concerned with the pain and shame the revelation of the lie will cause her than with repairing, rather than repeating, the lie.
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While it is useful to know the motivations behind the lies, it still doesn’t make the lies any less hurtful. Being lied to is a painful and hateful experience for the Non. It destroys trust and personal integrity and leads to suspicion and paranoia. When someone specifically lies to you (by admission) or is secretive (by omission), you end up feeling angry, saddened and disconnected from your loved one with BPD. It is a confusing, embarrassing and painful experience.
Each of the motivations can be removed by:
Number 1: Pain management, distress tolerance (when the pain can’t be removed) and self-soothing
Number 2: Self-acceptance*
Number 3: Self-acceptance and developing the ability to tolerate judgment
Number 4: Emotional modulation
* a quick note on Number 2. I have known at least 3 borderlines rather well in my life. I have also known about 3 more peripherally (and of the 6 – not including my wife – 5 are female). But the 3 that I have known well (2 women and 1 man), ALL of them used motivation #2 to generate seemingly outlandish lies. Sometimes, each of them would have to “own up” to the lies and that was a painful experience I’m sure. I know if I every have to own up to lies, it is painful for me. I can only imagine how painful it is for someone with as much shame as a borderline feels.
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Lying is the worst symptom of my borderline (or so my husband says). So many times it seems easier to lie to him than tell the truth. The truth may hurt me, I always think to myself. In reality, the truth will hurt a lot less than telling a lie and getting caught.
My question for you what is the motivation? You’ve said to avoid pain. Will the pain come from your hubby’s judgment? Or something else? Self-invalidation perhaps? I guess you are following motivation #1?
About 6 months ago I told my hubby that I was raped simply because I thought he didn’t care about me and didn’t want me anymore and that is the way that I tried to get attention. I told him today that what I said was a lie. He is so hurt by this and wants a divorce as in yesterday.
WHAT CAN I DO!!!!!!
What I would do is this: tell him that you lied because you wanted sympathy and felt alone. That you were sad at the time and you felt you needed more communication. You lied to make yourself feel better, not to hurt him or deceive him in a malicious way. When a person is sad and lonely, they might do and say things that they wouldn’t otherwise do and say, so that they can make a connection and feel better. The lie was about YOUR feelings of loneliness and sadness. It was not about him. That being said, lying is not an effective method to deal with your sadness, because, if the lie is discovered, you feel guilt and shame and more sadness. Tell him that you will try and be more truthful with your feelings, rather than have your feelings shape the “truth” – which is what you were doing before by lying.
My BP wife has had several flings during our 10 year marriage. periodically, it has been over most of our marriage. She says it is to feel wanted by men as she has no identity or self esteem and I am not a source for helping her as i am supposed to tell her she is sexy and beautiful. So, she lied until I cought her and demanded a lie detector test because she wore she told me the truth about 50 questions that were unanswered and times and places she went missing. I gave her amnesty to tell the truth at 20 intervals over 6 months and after telling me that all lies had been corrected, one more lie would come out each time. Most of the lies were to protect the persons involved, not me, nor herself. She did not want me to speak to ppeople involved or that knew information nor did she want me to seek vengenece. i have been the butt of a huge joke and mass infidelity and the last of many of my friends to find out. I dont see where her lies meet any of the criteria above, they were just selfish transgressions and I am the bad guy, the interogating parent. i can never trust her enough to continue. We have kids, and the suffering is about to become theirs chiefly. if ou want out of a relationship, I advise being truthful and not bringing in a 3rd person. Above all, she fears me leaving her and will kill herself if i leave her. She is in therapy and I am in trouble for putting this issues first and “in the current” while her therapist damns me for selfishly preventing her from allowing her therapy to take her back to her youthful abuse source. I cannot wait as i am deciding to stay or go before more infidelity occurs at my expense. Why is that so unfair to her therapist? Isnt it unfair and creates more suffering for mw to not have important questions that deide the direction i must go for my own well-being?
I recently had a very bad breakup with someone I believe has BPD. We are both in the process of divorces and she contacted in about 1.5 yrs ago and the first time I hesitantly met her and this slowly blossomed into a relationship. We were both in similar situations and we understood each other. Throughout the relationship there seemed to be a lot of chaos, lots of lies from her and she would embellish stories. She had episodes of shutting herself in for a couple days at a time, would just disappear at times and then tell me she was at her moms etc when later on I found out she really was not. She would have episodes of anger that surprised me. She told me several time she was afraid she would met me down, she also told me that she thought that I would always be there for her, and looked at me for reassurance. She has told me she loved me and at times was very genuine. However she also told me she is not sure at times if she knows what real love is. She comes from a physically and emotionally abusive background. Her dad did not like girls and did not want her as she was born 8 year after her brother and she never felt loved by him. She in private tells me she loves me but to other says she has no feelings for me, and that I am the one pursuing her. She loves playing the victim role. Now I am the bad guy.
I love her very much and care for her deeply. After the break up which is 4 weeks ago, where she actually called the police on me. I have come to accept that I cannot help her, or ‘fix’ her. She has over the course of her 20yrs marriage refused any therapy. She has cheated on her husband and on me. However my feelings have not changed for her. She is deep down inside a very good person, who is amazing and loving at times. I feel that I can only accept her for who she is, love her, care for her be there to support her.
We have not spoken in a weeks. What do I do? Do I walk away and that would be the safest and easiest way. Do I attempt to contact her down the road and reassure here that I care about her and love. her. Love comes along very infrequently. I have certainly met my share of people but have not felt this strongly about someone. I work hard, I have found this relationship to be emotionally taxing. But I recognize how hard this whole thing is. I would like thoughts based on your experience. Can someone have a successful relationship with a BPD partner, and what are the steps and understandings I must have to be supportive to make that happen.
So, in a nutshell, a “Non” shapes their emotions to reflect reality, while a person with BPD shapes reality to reflect their emotions, right?
I was in a long-distance relationship with a BDP girl for one and half years. I am 41 and she is 33. We knew each other as friends for 12 years before initiating our relationship. Five months ago she started acting weird to me. When confronted in the kindest possible way, she did admit to having slept with another man on two occasions. Although I suspected the actual number to have been higher, I forgave her. She claimed that he was just a fling and that her feelings for me were differen altogether than what she felt for him and that she really loved me. When I insisted that she stop seeing the guy, she made a promise to me. Yet the very next morning, when I called her, I found the guy in her bed (I could hear his voice in the background). I could not make sense of anything. After ending our relationship, my ex paid for a 1,000 dollar plane ticket just to come see me for three days. She then told me again how much she loves me, and that she had stopped seeing the other guy. I loved her (and still love her), so I took her back. Yet shortly after, I caught her with the other guy once again, when I phoned her unexpectedly one morning. Although we have had no contact for some time now, I am still traumatized and extremely confused about what really happened. Until the end, she has insisted that she loved me, “no matter what happens”. I discovered that she started taking ecstasy when she met the new guy. She never took any kind of drugs in her whole life before. I got a message from one of her female friends telling me that my ex-girlfriend had revealed to her that I am the “love of her life”, and that the guy my ex is seeing is a player who is manipulating her, threatening to kill himself if she leaves him. My ex, when she visited me, did say something like “I don’t know why I am hurting you, when you are the one I love, while I am trying to please everybody else”. Now, I am wondering if I should believe her earlier words that “I am the love of her life”. After all the lying, I find it hard to believe. My question is: What should I believe? Does my ex really love me, or is she just lying (through her friend) to look good?
Although your ex may have a disease that does not mean you have to be subject to abuse from her or that she be allowed to do as she pleases. She may be telling the truth when she says “You are the love of my life” but she is not capable of following through with her actions. If you stay you will be subject to more hurt and pain
Your ex has a disease. No amount of love from you will cure it.Love can not cure cancer nor can it cure BPD.It is up to you if you want to continue on this path of pain. Please stay away from her.