How do we deal with a chronic liar? Or with someone we don’t trust?

I think we have all had the experience of finding out that someone has broken our trust. The common term is “gaslighting”, which comes from a movie name. The term implies that the lying is consistently done to manipulate the person.

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But not all lying is gaslighting. Sometimes people lie once or twice but usually don’t do it routinely. Some people lie to make people like them, or because it’s easier. But the most serious is people who seem incapable of telling the truth.

People have four ways of reacting when someone lies:

• Ignore it, and trust them again

• Don’t trust anything from that person again

• Don’t trust anyone ever again

• Treat what the other person says with caution.

Which way is most useful depends on whether the person is a chronic liar and whether the person is gaslighting (i.e., trying to manipulate you.) I’ve written before about trust and gaslighting. Link: https://fracturedrelationships.substack.com/p/dealing-with-complexity-manipulation

The first thing to do is to recognize the lie and how often it happens. Is it a pattern or a one off? If it’s a pattern, you need to accept the reality of the situation. You can’t keep trusting this person if they have demonstrated consistent lying. If it’s a one-off lie, that’s a different matter. That’s no excuse to give up on the entire human race.

If the person doesn’t lie habitually, then ignore it and trust again is probably the best way to deal with it, as long as they have apologized. Or perhaps you can create a trust ladder, by starting by trusting them with small stuff before trusting them with important stuff.

I think that people who have the extreme reaction of not trusting at all or not trusting anyone probably had a chronic liar in their childhood and might benefit from therapy to deal with chronic lack of trust. This is beyond the scope of this newsletter.

I’ve noticed that it doesn’t take much to make people distrust. I think this is partially a result of the pandemic, where we have all been traumatized.

My personal reaction is a mixture of a trust ladder and to treat what a person says cautiously. What’s your style?