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He lied and now I don't really know what to do...

Hey all,

I've been with my boyfriend since November. I love him dearly and he loves me, and I know that. I'm 22, he's 20. Currently, he's gone away to South East Asia for 6 weeks. I'm going to be meeting him and a group of his friends in Vietnam in 2 weeks. He's gone to Kuala Lumpur and Indonesia for a while beforehand, and when I asked him who he was going with, he told me he's not going with the friends I'll be meeting out there, but he's going with some other friends from school. Obviously, I didn't question this. However, I was talking with both him and his flatmate the other day, and his flatmate said 'Is Kuala Lumpur the place you're going with the fam?' and he said 'yeah' and changed the conversation. I didn't say anything at the time, for one thing I was unsure whether I'd heard 'fam' properly (weird North London slang means I misunderstand about 50% of what they say a lot of the time). But later, when talking about travel plans, I asked 'So who are you going with to Indonesia again, is it the people I'm meeting?' and he said 'Nah, different friends from school'. So this time, I knew I hadn't misconstrued what he'd originally told me, but left it there.

Now he's gone, but I decided to do some investigation via facebook. Before anyone goes up in arms about me facebook stalking, he's admitted to being curious and stalking my family on facebook before as well so this is perfectly acceptable in the relationship... I stalked his little brother for evidence. And actually, his wee bro had posted about their arrival in kuala lumpur etc, and posted the same photo as my boyfriend sent me. So now I know for sure he's there with his family.

It's really not a big deal as lies go, I just don't get why he would feel like he has to lie about it. I want to trust him, which I do, but I also want him to feel like he can trust me enough to tell me anything.

I'm going to talk to him about it. I don't want to make a big deal of it, I'm not angry at him in any way but I just want to get to the bottom of his reasoning behind it. I have a feeling it's a class thing. Indonesia is obviously pretty expensive. My family have always struggled for money, and his dad owns a chain of restaurants. He's always a little self-conscious about how much he has, but I really couldn't give a ****.

My questions to TSR are- how should I talk to him about it? Is it worth discussing? Should I do it via email, or wait until I'm out there (I'm just a little concerned that waiting until I'm there will make me wuss out of doing it, or cause embarrassment or something, but doing it over the internet means we can't have a proper discussion and it's easier for him to not tell me the reasons for doing it)? Also, why would he lie about such a non-issue? Any help?

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Reply 1
I dont really see what you think he has lied about:

You asked if you were going with the same people as him - he said no = true.
He's there with his brother (who he may consider a friend) - he said he was going with other friends = true.
He may be with his brother + others, therefore it is easier to say "friends" than "some friends and my brother".

This seems like a non issue? It's not as if he's gone with a group of girls and your relationship is in jeopardy? What are you so worried about?
Reply 2
Original post by odkfn
I dont really see what you think he has lied about:

You asked if you were going with the same people as him - he said no = true.
He's there with his brother (who he may consider a friend) - he said he was going with other friends = true.
He may be with his brother + others, therefore it is easier to say "friends" than "some friends and my brother".

This seems like a non issue? It's not as if he's gone with a group of girls and your relationship is in jeopardy? What are you so worried about?


I guess it's something quite difficult to get across when you're not IN the relationship. The fact is, it's not that he just said 'I'm not going with the same people as you're going to meet', he said 'I'm going with some friends from school', which was after his flatmate said 'are you going with your family' and he said yes, so outright false.

Yes he does have a brother, but he wouldn't say 'friend' for him. They're not that close, and he doesn't really use that sort of way to describe the relationship.

He's with his parents. Not just his brother. His brother is too young to be going away with him and his friends, in fact, and I know they don't get along well enough to go with eachother. His flatmate wouldn't say 'family' for 'brother'.

I realise this sounds like a non-issue, but I explained above that I was actually bothered about the reasoning behind him lying about such a non-issue, more than anything. Also, it's not really up for debate that he was lying to me. That was a fact. Though I KNOW he wasn't away with some girls.


As a matter of fact, I spoke to him about it last night. It turned out the reasons which I think I posted above for him potentially lying were correct. He was worried because he's staying in expensive hotels in kuala lumpur, and as I'm not from his 'north london' bubble, i.e. the well-off people you sometimes find in the places he's familiar with, he feels a bit more uncomfortable talking about how his parents are paying for him to stay in 5 star hotels. He recognised that it was stupid but he just automatically ends up making something up. Which I pointed out wasn't healthy in a relationship. But we sorted it. My point was to ask TSR for opinions on how to address it without mking it into a bigger deal than it needed to be, and without embarrassing him. The fact is, he did lie, and I knew that. Though in hindsight, with all due respect, I should have expected the usual cynics from TSR either considering the problem to be a complete non-issue that I'm making a fuss out of over nothing, or alternatively telling me to dump him.
Reply 3
Well, how it reads to me is, you have a boyfriend in a relationship you're happy with, he went away with his family (which you found out through whatever means) and instead of waiting to see how it played out/trusting him to tell you in due course, or respecting his reasons for not being completely honest with you, you snooped, asked randoms their opinions and got yourself worked up over, essentially, nothing.

If this is this biggest lie in your relationship then you have a pretty solid relationship and should count your blessings.
Reply 4
Original post by odkfn
Well, how it reads to me is, you have a boyfriend in a relationship you're happy with, he went away with his family (which you found out through whatever means) and instead of waiting to see how it played out/trusting him to tell you in due course, or respecting his reasons for not being completely honest with you, you snooped, asked randoms their opinions and got yourself worked up over, essentially, nothing.

If this is this biggest lie in your relationship then you have a pretty solid relationship and should count your blessings.


I didn't snoop, actually. Originally, I left it entirely after his friend had said he was going with his family. However, considering he continued with the story despite knowing I heard the conversation, I wanted to talk to him about it, as much for him as for me. But first I wanted to be sure of myself, so I looked to his brother on facebook. A pretty harmless activity in essence, I didn't go searching through his browser history/facebook messages or anything, and I knew he'd be ok with it considering he'd looked my brother up too.

I asked randoms because it's essentially harmless. I get on well with his flatmate, and my friends want to get to know him. It's not great to involve other people in something potentially embarrassing when it's fairly unnecessary to do so.

My reasoning behind my concern was not that he was dishonest, it was the reasons behind him being dishonest. I respect your opinion, but I have to emphasise that I feel like it is a bit of an issue if one half feels he cannot tell the other that he's going away somewhere with his family. Family is quite important, what is not as important as he felt it was is whether or not his family has enough money to go to kuala lumpur, that I could not give a **** about.

And yes, we do have a pretty solid reationship. We've had two arguments, ever, but they've been pretty adult ones but both of them have been solved on the basis of us being honest and open with eachother, and they were started from one of us having a concern about an aspect of the relationship. We don't even bicker generally. But this is all for emphasis of the fact that, if we weren't open with eachother, we wouldn't have quite as solid a relationship and so I wanted to get the bottom of the 'lie' (for want of a better word) he told in case it had a more deep-rooted issue, which it did. Now we've solved it, and he feels relieved and so do I. I tried as hard as I could to not make it into a big deal, which is ironically why I asked the opinion of randomers. Though, in essence, I've been made to feel like I'm wrong to do that no matter how good my intentions were. But hey-ho, that's the internet for you.
Reply 5
Spoke to my gf about this yesterday and she agrees with you, so either boys see things differently or I just see things differently! So apparently your argument is valid...Touche.
Reply 6
Original post by odkfn
Spoke to my gf about this yesterday and she agrees with you, so either boys see things differently or I just see things differently! So apparently your argument is valid...Touche.


:smile: I'm pretty relaxed, as it is. My flatmate has borderline personality disorder and as a result can be a pathological liar. It generally doesn't bother me in the slightest... if he'd lied a tiny bit about something it'd be fine, but as he repeated the lie even in the face of being caught out, there was clearly something wrong and instinctually I just thought it wasn't normal behaviour for him. Thanks for your input anyway, though. It's interesting to see what other people think. Also had there really been no problem underlying it I'd have apologised for bringing it up and never would have spoken about it again, as it is, he's pretty happy I did because now it means he can speak a bit more freely generally, and talk to me about what he's doing and how his holiday is going.
Reply 7
Also, I'm willing to admit that girls often see things in a very different way to boys. I'm not sure he'd have noticed had the tables been turned, or brought it up if they had unless he thought I was there with someone questionable, like someone I'd been romantically involved with. Though he admitted that he knew I would catch on eventually.
I can see where OP is coming from.

It's more principal as to why he lied, rather than what he lied about.
Reply 9
Original post by odkfn
Well, how it reads to me is, you have a boyfriend in a relationship you're happy with, he went away with his family (which you found out through whatever means) and instead of waiting to see how it played out/trusting him to tell you in due course, or respecting his reasons for not being completely honest with you, you snooped, asked randoms their opinions and got yourself worked up over, essentially, nothing.

If this is this biggest lie in your relationship then you have a pretty solid relationship and should count your blessings.


Must of just been you, I understood her, she explained it pretty clear.
Reply 10
Oh good, I'm glad I'm not the only one :biggrin: in the end I did tell my flatmate, we're quite close, but that was more to check whether I'd made a big deal over nothing and as a result needed to apologise to the boy more.
Reply 11
Original post by Daner
Must of just been you, I understood her, she explained it pretty clear.


It's not that I didn't understand, I just didn't agree and thought my train of thought would be the "norm" until my girlfriend said otherwise.
Original post by odkfn
Well, how it reads to me is, you have a boyfriend in a relationship you're happy with, he went away with his family (which you found out through whatever means) and instead of waiting to see how it played out/trusting him to tell you in due course, or respecting his reasons for not being completely honest with you, you snooped, asked randoms their opinions and got yourself worked up over, essentially, nothing.

If this is this biggest lie in your relationship then you have a pretty solid relationship and should count your blessings.


Hmm, this is interesting.
So let's imagine this: Your girlfriend lies to you about who she is going to holiday with (even if it's just her family instead of her friends). She tells her friends the truth. You realise this doesn't sound right because of a conversation you overheard, and you ask her again who she is going with. She blatantly lies about it, and you find out.

In the end, you just respect her decision to lie? No questions asked? This sort of lie (even if it's a small one) doesn't bother you at all?

Fair enough if you find lies in relationships ok and if it works for you. I'm just genuinely curious because I would definitely continuously wonder what's the purpose of lying to me is... Especially as I see no benefit to the lie. Just rather strange

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 13
Original post by yennibubs
Hmm, this is interesting.
So let's imagine this: Your girlfriend lies to you about who she is going to holiday with (even if it's just her family instead of her friends). She tells her friends the truth. You realise this doesn't sound right because of a conversation you overheard, and you ask her again who she is going with. She blatantly lies about it, and you find out.

In the end, you just respect her decision to lie? No questions asked? This sort of lie (even if it's a small one) doesn't bother you at all?

Fair enough if you find lies in relationships ok and if it works for you. I'm just genuinely curious because I would definitely continuously wonder what's the purpose of lying to me is... Especially as I see no benefit to the lie. Just rather strange

Posted from TSR Mobile


That's actually a very good way of putting it, and I thank you for it. Thankfully I never suspected him of cheating, particularly as he was with his family. However, he's also gone with some family friends (and I guessed he had, they always go away together), who have four daughters who he's previously said his parents have tried to set him up with many times before, and he's actually been on a date with one of them to see how it went. Had I explained this situation to a friend of mine objectively (which is why I didn't), and probably had I not had many reasons to believe he was purely being dishonest through self-consciousness/embarrassment, the friend of mine and I could have come up with a very different conclusion.
Original post by Anonymous
That's actually a very good way of putting it, and I thank you for it. Thankfully I never suspected him of cheating, particularly as he was with his family. However, he's also gone with some family friends (and I guessed he had, they always go away together), who have four daughters who he's previously said his parents have tried to set him up with many times before, and he's actually been on a date with one of them to see how it went. Had I explained this situation to a friend of mine objectively (which is why I didn't), and probably had I not had many reasons to believe he was purely being dishonest through self-consciousness/embarrassment, the friend of mine and I could have come up with a very different conclusion.


I don't know... I find your bf's reasoning behind the lie a bit baffling. Surely you already know he is well-off and it's really not a big deal if parents can afford a holiday. When you go on holidays with parents, it's not the weirdest thing to have them pay for accommodation, especially if they have well paid jobs, etc. Besides, 5* hotels are not ridiculously expensive in places like Kuala Lumpur. If this is the case, it seems to me like you need to have a talk with him about his 'wealth' and not needing to hide it from you.
Reply 15
Original post by yennibubs
I don't know... I find your bf's reasoning behind the lie a bit baffling. Surely you already know he is well-off and it's really not a big deal if parents can afford a holiday. When you go on holidays with parents, it's not the weirdest thing to have them pay for accommodation, especially if they have well paid jobs, etc. Besides, 5* hotels are not ridiculously expensive in places like Kuala Lumpur. If this is the case, it seems to me like you need to have a talk with him about his 'wealth' and not needing to hide it from you.


I have spoken to him about it, and said he shouldn't be too bothered and I won't judge him. We have this 'banter' about him being 'middle class', but that's more something we got off twitter and we do to everyone else (middle class problems rather than first world problems kind of thing). I asked him if that bothered him and he said no. I think he literally just feels embarrassed. If I'm honest, I'm not even sure he knows I've clocked on to what his dad actually does. As I may have said in the original post, his dad owns a chain of restaurants. When we met, he told me his dad owns 'a restaurant', then when I asked later where his restaurant was he said 'oh he has a few of them' and changed the subject. I only found out because he had a ****e load of the restaurant-branded products, he took me there once for lunch (not expecting me to realise) and the menu had a section talking about the hunger charity he told me his dad fundraises for, and then his flatmate started talking about it (but shortening the name) which confirmed it. I'm hoping he realises I've clocked on now considering his friends speak openly about it, but he's never spoken directly to me about it. And it's a very quickly growing chain so I imagine, if he was already conscious about his dad owning it, he's a little more so now and just hides the idea of being wealthy.

I dunno, I hope he does feel he can open up to me about it. More than anything else, I find it really interesting to hear about what his dad actually does and how he got into it, he's apparently (according to my boyfriend's flatmate) an incredible businessman and has made the restaurant grow in popularity so I'd just be interested. Also I haven't met his parents yet, and I think that may be the reason behind it. They live in london, so it wouldn't be too hard to introduce us and we're quite serious.

Hmm... as we're discussing this now, I'd probably like to gain some opinions on whether I should outright talk about the restaurant his dad owns, and how I'd go about doing that. I think he must have his suspicions that I know, but he may still be either hoping that I don't, or completely ignorant to the idea. I think it'd really help if it was just out there in the open, he'd realise I had known for a long time and not cared enough to even bring it up with him and as such it's not as big a deal as he thinks it is.
Original post by Anonymous
I have spoken to him about it, and said he shouldn't be too bothered and I won't judge him. We have this 'banter' about him being 'middle class', but that's more something we got off twitter and we do to everyone else (middle class problems rather than first world problems kind of thing). I asked him if that bothered him and he said no. I think he literally just feels embarrassed. If I'm honest, I'm not even sure he knows I've clocked on to what his dad actually does. As I may have said in the original post, his dad owns a chain of restaurants. When we met, he told me his dad owns 'a restaurant', then when I asked later where his restaurant was he said 'oh he has a few of them' and changed the subject. I only found out because he had a ****e load of the restaurant-branded products, he took me there once for lunch (not expecting me to realise) and the menu had a section talking about the hunger charity he told me his dad fundraises for, and then his flatmate started talking about it (but shortening the name) which confirmed it. I'm hoping he realises I've clocked on now considering his friends speak openly about it, but he's never spoken directly to me about it. And it's a very quickly growing chain so I imagine, if he was already conscious about his dad owning it, he's a little more so now and just hides the idea of being wealthy.

I dunno, I hope he does feel he can open up to me about it. More than anything else, I find it really interesting to hear about what his dad actually does and how he got into it, he's apparently (according to my boyfriend's flatmate) an incredible businessman and has made the restaurant grow in popularity so I'd just be interested. Also I haven't met his parents yet, and I think that may be the reason behind it. They live in london, so it wouldn't be too hard to introduce us and we're quite serious.

Hmm... as we're discussing this now, I'd probably like to gain some opinions on whether I should outright talk about the restaurant his dad owns, and how I'd go about doing that. I think he must have his suspicions that I know, but he may still be either hoping that I don't, or completely ignorant to the idea. I think it'd really help if it was just out there in the open, he'd realise I had known for a long time and not cared enough to even bring it up with him and as such it's not as big a deal as he thinks it is.


I'd say you should definitely talk to him openly about anything and everything you know about. If he's taken you to one of the restaurants before and his flatmate speaks openly about it, then it's not surprising how you found out.

Maybe one day when you're just in bed chatting or something, you can just ask him about himself. Don't mention the restaurants just out of the blue, but tell him you're very interested in his background/family/past and wants to know more about him growing up. You can both share stories. Talk about yourself to make him more comfortable too. Eventually, the conversation will lead to what his family does. Even if it doesn't happen on the first talk you have, the openness will lead to other chats in the future which I find nice.
Reply 17
I would wait until you see him... Don't make a big deal out of it (i.e. don't come across as angry), but just say you're confused as to why he wouldn't tell you.

It's so much better to discuss things face to face.
Reply 18
Also, I'd say relax - it could've been worse - if he'd said he was going with family but actually went with friends, I'd find it more worrying.
Reply 19
Original post by yennibubs
Hmm, this is interesting.
So let's imagine this: Your girlfriend lies to you about who she is going to holiday with (even if it's just her family instead of her friends). She tells her friends the truth. You realise this doesn't sound right because of a conversation you overheard, and you ask her again who she is going with. She blatantly lies about it, and you find out.

In the end, you just respect her decision to lie? No questions asked? This sort of lie (even if it's a small one) doesn't bother you at all?

Fair enough if you find lies in relationships ok and if it works for you. I'm just genuinely curious because I would definitely continuously wonder what's the purpose of lying to me is... Especially as I see no benefit to the lie. Just rather strange

Posted from TSR Mobile


I love my girlfriend as much as I believe I can possibly love someone, but I have the same rationale that I have with everything in life: I would either trust her, or if I didn't trust her, I'd dump her. There is no point being in a relationship otherwise.

In the scenario you just set up I wouldn't beat about the bush, I'd say "I heard blah blah say you are away with your family" if she said "yeh" I'd say "why did you lie" she would say "for this reason___" and depending what it was I'd accept it, or she'd say "No, I AM away with friends" which I would believe and do no further enquiring about, but if I found it to be a lie I'd dump her. I'm not going to go out my way to check up on her (not saying you have been). I've never once gone onto my girlfriends facebook (unless I have a post to leave her), I've been left around her facebook logged on, her phone unlocked, her emails open, etc, and I've never once checked any, or even thought about checking any - it's not in my nature. I'm not out to prove she's up to something, she either is, or isn't. And if she is and it somehow gets back to me I'll dump her, until then I'll assume she's not up to anything and just enjoy my relationship.

Not really sure if I've answered what you asked, or if I've gone off on a tangent...

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