He lied about his age

[pmw06092016]

@yogacat I didn’t give him a chance so I could learn a lesson & it wasn’t toxic to begin with, in the start he was lovely to me & the only negative was the lying about his age which to begin with I made excuses for & tried to understand his reasons. 
I always try to take a positive from a negative and I think learning a lesson from a negative thing happening to me is a good thing. 

[yogacat]

15 minutes ago, pmw06092016 said:

@yogacat I didn’t give him a chance so I could learn a lesson & it wasn’t toxic to begin with, in the start he was lovely to me & the only negative was the lying about his age which to begin with I made excuses for & tried to understand his reasons. 
I always try to take a positive from a negative and I think learning a lesson from a negative thing happening to me is a good thing. 

But you did absolutely give him a chance by getting to know him, going on multiple dates, and even becoming intimate with him. It wasn't until, as you referred to it, he turned out to be controlling and ultimately narcissistic, that things took a turn for the worse. 

Your insistence on calling it a lesson seems to suggest that you still view the situation as something you were meant to go through for personal growth rather than acknowledging that it was simply a bad situation that you were lucky to get out of.

 

[Batya33]

55 minutes ago, yogacat said:

Not everything is meant to be tried out so that you "learn a lesson" in life. This idea implies that people must go through negative experiences in order to learn and grow, which is not always the case. 

Staying in a toxic or harmful situation for the sake of learning a lesson is not necessary. 

I was thinking the same -it really depends.  

Also as far as the silly search results/algorithm - I know I was overlooked by many many men because I was honest about my age despite looking much younger back then.  I was in my 30s looking for marriage and family and I knew many men who wanted younger women particularly so they didn't have to rush into parenthood or go through a geriatric advanced maternal age pregnancy (which I did in my early 40s).  

So since I was honest- and had to experience the downsides of my choice -I wasn't ok with anyone messing with the algorithm by lying even if they "came clean".

[rainbowsandroses]

On 5/6/2024 at 7:46 AM, pmw06092016 said:

Since we’ve met we have had several long phone conversations and lots of lovely dates, he is lovely to me, gentlemanly kind generous, good job ect. We had a weekend away which he took me on, got even closer, became intimate. Here’s the problem…

@pmw06092016, my take from what is written above is that you went on many dates and became intimate prior to your discovering he lied about his age.

Once you discovered he lied, instead of negatively judging and dumping him you made an attempt to understand why he lied, which in my humble opinion, is something we should all strive to do unless it's something so totally egregious that there is no 'understanding why' and you have no choice but to NEXT him. 

Here, NOT suggesting it's right (it's NOT) but many people initially lie on dating apps, it's not uncommon.  You expressed your boundaries that going forward NO MORE LIES and chose to give it a chance.

Unfortunately he turned out to be controlling and "narcissistic" so you dumped him for those reasons.

Again, my take based on what you posted, can you clarify?

EDIT:  FWIW, like you I don't go looking for negative experiences either but when I encounter them, I always try to learn something from the experience and let it go.

This is healthy IMO versus carrying around that negativity with you and into your subsequent relationships..

 

 

 

 

 

[Batya33]

46 minutes ago, pmw06092016 said:

@yogacat I didn’t give him a chance so I could learn a lesson & it wasn’t toxic to begin with, in the start he was lovely to me & the only negative was the lying about his age which to begin with I made excuses for & tried to understand his reasons. 
I always try to take a positive from a negative and I think learning a lesson from a negative thing happening to me is a good thing. 

I'm glad you learned from it but I agree with Yogacat that it's not necessary to take certain risks because "everything is a lesson." My choice to let a drunk guy I'd met a day before at Club Med into my room after we made out on a dance floor because my roommate was on the other side of the wall was really dumb and and in my late 20s I surely knew better.  I was assaulted - tried to  force me to have oral and also said he was bigger than me and could force me if he wanted.  Then thankfully he passed out from the alcohol.  The positive was I wasn't raped.  And he didn't get sick in my bed as he'd thought he might. I did count my blessings that I wasn't raped so I hear you about trying to take something positive -and we had fun before that dancing and flirting and kissing - but I never ever told myself that it's good it happened as a learning experience. 

Because I'd be dishonest with myself but also for me personally it might give me the perspective that it's ok to take those sorts of risks because it might be a learning experience -the assumption beforehand -not in hindsight. It's good you happened to learn something but to me it's not good that you stuck around once you knew he lied.  I'm glad that it was short lived after that and you were able to get out.

[yogacat]

But why should she try to understand why he lied?  

If anything, he should have made an attempt to understand why he lied in the first place, so that she could feel reassured that he understands the impact of his lies and could build trust from then on.  

A potential relationship between adults should not be reduced to a "proving to be better judges of your lies" competition.  

He lied about his best features, how many miles he cycles a day, his job, fine.  

But the fact that from the beginning, he felt it necessary and okay to adjust his age range in order to 'get' her to 'like him' is dishonesty in action.  

There is no reason for her (or any woman) to make an attempt to "understand" that type of dishonesty, when she specifically asked him about that, he didn't say "yeah I've been dishonest, I realized I fit better with you so I fibbed a little."  No, he just continued being dishonest.  

There's no "attempt to understand his dishonesty" to understand. He's a liar. Period. He didn't attempt to redeem himself.

[catfeeder]

2 hours ago, pmw06092016 said:

@yogacat I didn’t give him a chance so I could learn a lesson & it wasn’t toxic to begin with, in the start he was lovely to me & the only negative was the lying about his age which to begin with I made excuses for & tried to understand his reasons. 
I always try to take a positive from a negative and I think learning a lesson from a negative thing happening to me is a good thing. 

I heard a great analogy about learning lessons:

• Stage 1: I walked down a familiar street, but didn't see the big hole, so I fell in.
• Stage 2: I walked down the same familiar street, and I saw the red flag over the hole, but I fell in anyway.
• Stage 3: I walked down the same familiar street, and I saw the hole, so I wasted lots of time trying to navigate around it.
• Stage 4: I took another street.

[rainbowsandroses]

1 hour ago, yogacat said:

when she specifically asked him about that, he didn't say "yeah I've been dishonest, I realized I fit better with you so I fibbed a little."  No, he just continued being dishonest.  

I do agree with you about this^. 

Also, the way he approached the sitch by leaving some arbitrary letter on a table with his birth date showing hoping she would see it was beyond lame.  If me, I may have dumped him for that!  

I think I mentioned this previously but an ex of mine initially lied about his age, but came clean about it later.  Right then and there I told him if this has any chance of working out, NO MORE LIES.   

We dated for four years and to my knowledge, he never lied to me again.  He was honest about everything, even things I didn't necessarily want (or need) to hear.  But it was the truth and I appreciated it.

Anyway @pmw06092016 you took a chance and it didn't work out.  You did the right thing imo.  No second guessing, no what ifs.

And life goes on!! 🙂

 

 

 

[pmw06092016]

@yogacat the fact your picking out things I’m writing and trying to find fault in them is a reflection on you not me.

I was intimate with him before he lied about his age, I chose to try to understand him and see if I could get past the age and so I wouldn’t be looking back wondering if it would have worked out, am I glad I did that? Yes, and am I glad I ended things? Yes.

I don’t believe we are meant to go through bad things in life but what I do believe is we should see a positive from a bad situation and the positive I see is learning a lesson from it and not making the same mistake again.

I am very thankful for the people on here who gave me kind and constructive advise it really has helped me to make the right decision and not waste too much time on it.

[DarkCh0c0]

Guys, OP gets it. Cut her some slack. 

@pmw06092016 I'm glad you had the courage and strength to walk away. You're always welcome to come back here for support. Tc 🩷

[yogacat]

1 hour ago, pmw06092016 said:

@yogacat the fact your picking out things I’m writing and trying to find fault in them is a reflection on you not me.

I was intimate with him before he lied about his age, I chose to try to understand him and see if I could get past the age and so I wouldn’t be looking back wondering if it would have worked out, am I glad I did that? Yes, and am I glad I ended things? Yes.

I don’t believe we are meant to go through bad things in life but what I do believe is we should see a positive from a bad situation and the positive I see is learning a lesson from it and not making the same mistake again.

I am very thankful for the people on here who gave me kind and constructive advise it really has helped me to make the right decision and not waste too much time on it.

You're right. My apologies. I just see a lot of people slip into dangerous situations where they gloss over what someone's done wrong, or justify bad behaviors because they want to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

I'm glad that you had the wits about you to look into things and get out of the situation before it became worse.

[Batya33]

5 hours ago, yogacat said:

You're right. My apologies. I just see a lot of people slip into dangerous situations where they gloss over what someone's done wrong, or justify bad behaviors because they want to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

I'm glad that you had the wits about you to look into things and get out of the situation before it became worse.

Yes -here the positives outweigh the negatives -she only wasted another 6 weeks.