Am I(23F) being overdramatic by being upset that my boyfriend(24M) lied to me about being bullied
For context, me and my boyfriend have been together for a year and a half and have a good relationship. We were friends for a few years before we started dating, and when we started seeing each other my friends were overjoyed because I have a bad habit of dating guys who end up being liars and cheaters.
Another important point, he has an awful memory. He does not remember things such as the names of people he has lived in the previous years, and trips he went on as a teenager. He frequently as false memories (which also concerns me) about things like if he has done chores, if conversations were irl vs over the phone, and what he has said out loud vs in his head (just to name a few things). I on the other hand have an annoyingly good memory- the kind that confuses people because I will bring things up I was told once months ago that people assume I have forgotten.
A few months into us dating we had a conversation about bullying and our experiences of bullying as teenagers. I told him a lot of very upsetting things that have happened to me and I distinctly remember crying during this particular conversation because I still get upset to this day because of the extent of the bullying. Most of what I dealt with was verbal and emotional- I also don’t know if it is of note but a lot of it was due to racism (I am a woc and my bf is white). After I said my turn my boyfriend proceeded to tell me how when he was a teenager he was very badly bullied to the extent of being tied to a tree and beaten until he was black and blue. I, obviously, was very shocked and sad on his behalf and have always kept in mind how he was bullied whenever we have a disagreement that he has a lot of trauma that I do not understand.
Cut to over a year later (and like an hour ago). After seeing a tiktok about bullying and how it manifests in people I turned to my boyfriend and joked about how we’ve turned out pretty well considering we were both very badly bullied. He looked confused and said he wouldn’t class himself as ‘badly bullied’. This confused me so I gently said how being beaten by your peers until you have bruised ribs is something I would consider bad bullying.
His response? 'That never happened to me, that happened to [friend a]’. A being one of his childhood friends that I have never met. I asked him what he meant- as he definitely told me this happened to him. I questioned him about this, saying that he told me it was definitely him that got beaten up, not A. Our whole conversation was about how we were bullied, not our friends? He shrugged and responded, 'I guess I must’ve lied because that never happened to me’.
Since then he been extremely defensive and claims he does not recall the conversation talking about bullying at all and does not know why he lied. He has also even tried to suggest that I’ve gotten confused and am misremembering the fact that he told the story about his friend, I know 100% I am not.
His opinion is that he has said sorry, and that he does not know why he lied so he can’t really feel bad for it beyond the fact that it’s upset me that he has lied. I am really confused though and am sort of spiralling, I have dated liars before (every one of my exes excluding one) and I am particularity sensitive surrounding being lied to because of the bad relationships I have been in that have had a lot of lying.
How should this progress? He has said that I should not be this upset over one lie from over a year ago, and I agree, but I feel like this is such a strange thing to lie about so there must be more? Or is that just the experiences I’ve had before clouding this relatively tame scenario?
He should probably be single while he focuses on intensive therapy for his compulsive and pathological lying. You can’t trust someone who just flippantly lies to you all the time. That’s…not suitable for a relationship. I’m sorry. I don’t really see a way forward here, especially when he gets defensive and refuses to see why this is a GIANT, GLARING problem.
