hello, this is my first time visiting your web site. I’m glad that there are sites like yours to help women in need. my question is this: Should i be concerned with my husband’s mental stability??he made up this big, humongous lie about him having a 1 1/2 year old daughter by another woman before my time. We were just dating when he told me this girl was pregnant……we went shopping about 3 weeks later and purchased newborn clothes, etc…so he could give it to his “daughter”….he choose to still stay in a relationship w/me…that what they had was over, etc..cause she had cheated on him too many times….We eventually got married supposedly his daughter would’ve been about 8 months old at the time…..then the BIG BANG…11 months later we separated because of physical and emotional abuse during this time I found out that his ex-girlfriend didn’t have his child, and a matter of fact she didn’t have ANY children at all..and had recently gotten married herself(the girl’s mother told me) I couldn’t believe this. My husband had been so cunning and convincing that he had his whole family believing he had a child. S—@#$ he even convinced ME, his wife.I mean Dr. love he brought clothes and toys for this “baby”. He even went as far as to show me a picture of this baby to ‘prove” he had a daughter. ..Even now that the truth is out he still is too embarrased to tell me who the picture he carried around in his wallot for almost 2 years is really of. I mean gosh the baby even looked like him. So I was thinking she had to be at least ‘family’ if not his, or something..????Can you help me? What would make a person do or make-up such a thing? I have a daughter outside of our relationship too and he loves her like his own. And i’ve never made him feel like she was ‘outside’ of us. So why would he have to put up a front about this??Thanks in advance for your advice
What you have told me about your husband’s story telling is alarming. There are many possible causes for his behavior. Some possibilities include: he’s psychotic, a pathological liar, or emotionally fragile.Let’s start with the possibility of psychosis. People who are psychotic live in a make believe world that is divorced from reality. They may experience delusions (seeing or hearing things) or persecutory ideas (thinking people are out to get them). Without more information, I wouldn’t be able to say whether he is psychotic or not. Only you can observe his behavior and come to your own conclusions on this point. If, you suspect that he is out of touch with reality, then a good place to start is your family doctor, who can refer him to a psychiatrist for medication.Regarding the second possibility, that he is a pathological liar. To rule this out, find out if he’s lying in this one area or if he lies all over the place. Pathological liars tend to lie about many different things. Making this distinction will help you make your diagnosis.The last possibility is that his ego is too fragile to deal with painful emotions. Perhaps his lie sprang out of a strong wish to have a child with that woman. It is possible that the break-up with her, and the loss of his dream, was more than he could bear. By creating the fantasy that they did, in fact, have a child, may have been his unconscious mind’s way of insulating him against unbearable emotions.This last possibility (that he created a fantasy in order to escape unbearable pain) is the most likely. If this is true, then you need to know that you are dealing with a very fragile individual who uses the same coping mechanisms (making up stories, and creating make-believe worlds in order to avoid pain) that young children employ.In order to find out for sure what motivated his lie, start exploring the last, most benign, possibility. You could open the discussion by asking him if he knows what feelings led him to make up the story . Did he know what feelings he was trying to escape by telling the untruth? Realize that he is very fragile, so go gently. Once you understand better what prompted his lie, you need to also understand that he needs to go into therapy so that he can be helped to develop not only a stronger ego but also to find healthier ways of handling intolerable emotions.Until he does this, you are at risk of future lies. Let me know how you make out.
