Three Reasons Narcissists Can't Stop Pathologically Lying

One winter evening, I opened my curtains to see my lover walking down my street while talking on his phone.

Thrilled, I nearly pole vaulted myself out of bed and ran to the front door to greet him.

But he wasn’t there…

That was strange — I’d seen him clearly. I got out my phone to call him — no answer.

I shut the door, confused, and went back upstairs. A half hour later, my lover was ringing the doorbell.

“Where were you?” I exclaimed, “I saw you walk by a half hour ago on the phone.”

“I wasn’t on the phone.”

“You weren’t?”

“Nope.”

“But I saw you — it was definitely you. Did you go chat for a bit or smoke?”

“I wasn’t on the phone.”

I dropped it. It wasn’t worth it. All I wanted was my drug, my trauma bond, the sex that would ease all my pains like it was a Xanax.

But after sex, I saw him pick up his phone to call a cab, and I glanced over at the list, and, INDEED…he WAS on the phone at the time I saw him. And it was for a half hour — with his father.

When I pointed this out to him, he seemed embarrassed and went mute on the subject.

“I’m not mad,” I explained, “Why should I be mad that you’re having a phone call? I just don’t undertand why you made me feel crazy as if I didn’t see you on the phone.”

“I forgot I was on the phone.”

“Two seconds after you got off it?”

“I don’t see why you’re in my business so much.”

“I’m not — this wouldn’t even be an issue if you didn’t lie about it — I just don’t understand the need to lie to me over something that I wouldn’t even be mad at to begin with?”

As you can imagine, I never got any satisfying answers about the pathological lying happening in this relationship. I ended up getting cheated on, shoveling thousands of dollars at therapy, and eventually getting a restraining order.

However, enough damage from lifelong gaslighting has helped me to understand why narcissists behave this way, even when they have nothing to lose from the truth and nothing to gain from the lie.