Hard Core Advice From
Hard Core's Hardest Core... John Leslie
Dear John,
My girlfriend and I are going through a very rough time after five years together, and we are now on an extended break.
I am trying hard to address my own issues through counseling, and one of those issues is dealing with being lied to. I can't stand it. I am a rather honest person, but my girlfriend is far from it. After being exposed to her little white lies for so long, I have become aggressively suspicious and controlling, and borderline paranoid. I am hoping to address this and learn to "let go," since the snooping, spying, and obsessive grilling of her for the truth is destructive.
I try to offer her opportunities to tell me the truth about things, but her first reaction is always to lie. It could be about something as innocuous as what she spent her time on in the evening, or it could be something more serious. What she gives me is what I call "the onion" truth, in which a little bit is revealed, and, when pressed, a little more, until finally the whole truth is revealed and it's completely different from what she first said.
She is an avid reader of your column and I hope seeing this letter will cause some sort of epiphany in her, and impress upon her just how much I like to use the word "epiphany."
Am I doomed to be an honest person amid a world of lying liars who lie? Do you think she is ever going to be honest with me? And what really happened in Benghazi?
--The Grand Inquisitor
Dear Grand Inquisitor,
Honesty is key in any relationship if you want it to grow and thrive. Since your girlfriend is such a compulsive liar, I see little chance of this happening. I suggest your getting all the sex you can out of her, and then dropping her like a bad habit.
Dear John,
I love my boyfriend dearly. We've been together for five years, but are now on what he calls "an extended break." The problem is he's become a kind of Grand Inquisitor who grills me mercilessly over every aspect of my life, and I can't stand it.
Things were wonderful at the beginning. He was kind, loving, and attentive. But, ever since he began counselling, he's become aggressively suspicious and controlling and borderline paranoid, obsessed in his belief that I am lying to him, which is untrue. He says he's hoping to "let go" (whatever that means) since--as his counselor has told him--snooping, spying, and obsessive grilling for the truth is destructive. I can honestly say that I've NEVER lied to him. Well, except for that one time, but, as we all know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
I try to be as honest as I can about things, but his first reaction to anything I do or say is to distrust me. It could be something as innocuous as what I spent my time on in the evening. I'll tell him, and then he'll start giving me what he calls "the onion" treatment, which consists of him pressing me for more and more information, until I've explained the whole minutia of my evening and then, at the end of it, he'll call me a liar and stomp off in a huff. I almost feel like making things up, because it seems that he'd prefer believing lies rather than the honest truth.
He sees himself as Diogenes, who spent his life alone in a fruitless search for an honest man (how sad to live your life without fruit), but I've come to see him as Sisyphus, forever cursed to roll a boulder up a mountain and doomed to never reach the top. Not because of the boulder thing, but because Sisyphus sounds like "sissy first," and that's what my boyfriend is.
He holds you in high regard, and I hope if he reads this letter he'll see himself in it and try to change for the better. Do you think this is possible, or do you think our relationship is over? Also, what do you think really happened in Benghazi?
--Perplexed
Dear Perplexed,
Trust is key in any relationship if you want it to grow and thrive. Since your boyfriend is such a controlling snoop, I see little chance of this happening. I suggest your getting all the cash you can out of him, and then dropping him like a hot potato.
Confidential to What Do You Think Really Happened In Benghazi?
I went straight to the source and asked the future President of the USA, Sarah Palin... er, I mean Hilary Clinton.
"Ben who?" she asked.
Exactly.
American Chimpanzee
jimduchene.blogspot.com
RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com
@JimDuchene
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