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ORIGINAL: SueACydell

After many years of bad experiences, I finally found someone recently (not on this site) who is both dominant and has treated me well.  The sex is great.  He is a good listener (though maybe not as forthcoming himself about his own feelings and thoughts), seems to care about my feelings and pleasure, seems to be a substantial and respectable person with many admirable qualities.  I felt truly happy that I had met him and hopeful that perhaps this could turn into a long-term relationship.

Recently he lied to me about something.  It could be considered a small thing, but nonetheless that bothered me.  When I told him about it, he denied that he had lied.  I am 100% sure that he did (please note, this is absolutely not in question, it's not even 99%) so it disappointed me further that he wouldn't come clean.

I don't know how to deal with this.  On the one hand, I don't want to overreact nor persecute him for the bad experiences I've had with those who have come before him and assume that because he's lied to me once he's lying about other things or that he can't be trusted.  I want to be open-minded and forgiving enough to get over his having lied to me.  On the other hand, I don't want to be a sucker.  I don't want to be with someone in whom I'm disappointed and who won't 'fess up when he does something objectionable like lying.  I don't want to give my love and trust and respect to someone who won't love and trust and respect me in return.  I thought that he was doing so, but now that's in question.

I would like to know how people think I should handle this situation so that I neither overreact nor don't stand up for myself and the good relationship that I want and deserve.

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ORIGINAL: SueACydell

Well ok.  I avoided giving the details of the lie both because it seemed too annoying to explain, and because it didn't seem that relevant.  What's most relevant is that it was a definite lie, but a small one.  I'm going to attempt to explain the details below, but i really want to avoid getting drawn up in these particular details.  The question stands as is, what do you do if someone lies to you about something small, and then won't come clean?

He and I chat every day, often multiple times a day, on Yahoo IM.  Usually he appears on most of the work day on IM, although doesn't always respond right away.  Today he cancelled our plans on short notice, saying that his parents were unexpectedly in from out of the country (I'm trying not to be suspicious of that because I know things like that *do* happen, but this lie has made me lean towards suspiciousness).  He sent me a message about this that morning.  When I came on a couple of hours later, he no longer appeared on YIM.  So I went about my business, sent him a YIM, did email etc.  I logged into an old email address that I keep for old time's sake and which I rarely log into, just enough to keep it active (maybe once every 3 weeks or so on average).  As part of web-based yahoo email, you see a little chat window in the interface.  Well, on there he appeared on.  This was my old handle, that I used years ago when we first started chatting (we chatted for maybe a few weeks eons ago and only recently reconnected after many months of not chatting).  Meaning, he had specifically set himself to invisible for my current handle, but I guess had forgotten my old or had removed it from his YIM list without setting it to invisible.    I was stunned when I realized that he was on chat but specifically not visible to me.  Actually I had not put two and two together for a while as I went through all the accumulated email.  It finally dawned on me that the little yellow smily face in that interface did not match the grey smily face in my free-standing YIM app where I have my current handle.  I sent him a brief message using my current handle ("um, hello??").  After a few minutes he went visible.  I asked him why he had been invisible to me and he claimed he had just logged on.  Clearly untrue but I didn't push it and he logged out a few minutes later and then appeared invisible everywhere.

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ORIGINAL: SueACydell

Sigh.  As I mentioned in the first post, I'm sure he was on and wasn't visible to me.  I'm aware of technical glitches.  I'm a web developer.  I know what i'm talking about here.  If you want to claim otherwise, you're wrong but I won't expend energy arguing. 

Again: I'm REALLY not interested in debating details.  I'd love it if someone would actually answer my question.  Again, that question is: how should I deal with someone I'd started to really like and respect telling me a small lie and then not coming clean about it?

quote:

ORIGINAL: SueACydell

Sigh.  As I mentioned in the first post, I'm sure he was on and wasn't visible to me.  I'm aware of technical glitches.  I'm a web developer.  I know what i'm talking about here.  If you want to claim otherwise, you're wrong but I won't expend energy arguing. 

Again: I'm REALLY not interested in debating details.  I'd love it if someone would actually answer my question.  Again, that question is: how should I deal with someone I'd started to really like and respect telling me a small lie and then not coming clean about it?