'AITA for lying and telling my boyfriend my dad was deceased instead of the truth?' UPDATED

"AITA for telling my boyfriend my dad was d-ad?"

I (26F) lost my mother to cancer when I was 8 and have always had an absent father. I only found out who he was when I was 13 and even then he did not want custody of me forcing me to stay in the foster system until I was 18.

Over my whole life I have had about 5 conversations with him give or take- he is like a stranger to me. He appears once in a blue moon to ask for money or something along those lines. It doesn't really bother me anymore, I've just learned to accept it now but I don't like talking about it so to avoid that conversation with people I usually just say both my parents passed.

This leads me to a year and a half ago when I had just started dating my boyfriend (25M) and like usual I had just told him my parents were dead but the other day my dad showed up at my door (I still don't know how he knows where I live) and asked for 100 dollars except my boyfriend was there and he obviously found out my dad was not d--d.

This lead to a long conversation with him that night where I explained the whole situation. He said this was a breach of trust between us since I lied about my dad and that he needed some space to rethink our relationship but he doesn't think he will leave me.

I feel so sh--ty and that I should have told him earlier but I am going to be honest I just didn't think. So AITA?

UPDATE: my boyfriend texted me 5 mins ago asking to talk so we are going to have a full in depth conversation tomorrow after work and I'll update again then :)

The commenters did not hold back one bit.

VGA235 wrote:

Soft YTA. I mean honestly you could have just said, “my dad is d-ad to me.“ because a lie is still a lie. And you lied to your boyfriend about your dad. That sucks. And while at first I thought it was weird that your boyfriend needed space I wondered what I would do if I had a partner that said his dad was d00d but he’s alive.

I would be hella suspicious. Then again you have legitimate reasons to say you don’t have a father and quite frankly your dad may as well be d--d or at the very least a stranger. Hopefully you’re able to work it out with him but from now on you gotta be upfront and honest with him, even if that means bringing up the raw and emotional moments of your past.

If your boyfriend is someone you wanna become a family with doesn’t he deserve the truth? Cause if you can lie to your partner for a year and a half what else could you lie about? Also get therapy. Just in case you and your boyfriend need help with communication. Good luck!

EffectiveBig2275 wrote:

NTA however there is a lot to consider. First of all I’m sorry to hear about your mother, cancer is awful. Your dad sounds like a very unlikeable person and I do not blame you for wanting to distance yourself from him.

But your choice to tell others he is deceased isn’t the way to do that. I’m not blaming you, simply advising that it wasn’t right way to go about it and as someone who lied heavily about family in my childhood from the ages of about 12-18.

I can tell you, lies always catch up to you in the end and you either get called out by those too cunning to be lied to, or hurt those who are too trusting, there is no winning with it. So with that out of the way let’s look at the facts, your boyfriend now knows (because somehow your dad got your address and showed up) that your dad isn’t deceased.

I do understand why he’s angry with you because if he trusted you whole heartedly up until that point he may now be questioning what else you may have lied to him about and that will take time for him to wrestle with so I really do think you should give him space for now.

If he loves/cares about you I think what you’ve explained here is clear enough about why you felt it necessary to lie, it was out of convenience for you to not have to deal with explaining what your father was like and deal with that being real because by pretending to others he was dead you didn’t have to think about how he wasn’t there for you and is now a leech.

If and when your boyfriend is done thinking about all this I believe he’ll talk to you, what he’ll say I don’t know it will really rest on whether or not he understands why you did it but that’s a decision he should come to on his own and not have influenced by you otherwise he may change his mind later and believe you were manipulating him even if you weren’t and you don’t want that because you clearly care.

Learn from this, stop telling the lie about your father being deceased. Just because he isn’t dead it doesn’t mean it’s anyone’s business but yours if you talk to him or not and if anyone asks just say something like “my dad is still around but we don’t speak and I’m fine with that” and if anyone pushes you on it just say “I don’t wanna talk about him” and that’s that.

Anything further and people are just being nosey and you are well within your rights to distance yourself from them, hell I’d see it as a test for people to reveal to you how pushy/nosey they are! Please take care of yourself, we all make mistakes, you are not a bad person. 🫂

OP responded:

Thank you for this it really means a lot especially the last line :)

EffectiveBig2275 responded:

You’re welcome, your mistake does not define you. It is a part of your life that I do believe you made a mistake in yes but it is not all of who you are as a person, how could it possibly be.

Please try not to get overwhelmed, I know things are tough right now but believe me this happening was a good thing, you can finally release the weight of lying to others and be truly honest with the people you care about. I hope things go the way you want them to but if not this is just part of you becoming a better version of yourself moving forward.

OP responded:

I am taking advice from one comment on this post and I am currently looking into getting some therapy about my childhood because now that I have actually typed this out and really looked at it. I am probably still affected by his behaviour and what he had done so some professional help may be my best course of action lol.

The next day, OP shared an update.

UPDATE 2 (last update): Before I get to the update I would like clear things up.

I have only given money to my dad once when I was still desperate for his love and acceptance but he did not get any money this time.

Despite his confusion my bf stepped in to defend me and get my dad to leave and it was only after my dad left he asked me about it

Now onto the update. My boyfriend told me that all the sudden information along with the knowledge I hadn't told him the truth was very overwhelming and he just needed some space to not say the wrong thing. He also said that he got why I lied initially and he wasn't mad that I lied more hurt that I felt like I couldn't tell him about it.

He also mentioned that he couldn't be there for me if he didn't know what was going on. The conversation ended in tears and it is the most vulnerable I have been in front of someone. He was very understanding and we have decided to draw a line in the sand and 'start again' if that makes sense.

I have also looked into therapy for my childhood trauma and all in all I am using this as an opportunity to better myself and heal fully.

Thank you for all your kind comments :)

The internet was happy to hear an update.

Radiant_Maize2315 wrote:

One of my very good friends (we have now been friends for about 15 years, although we rarely see each other due to distance) had an absent father. She told everyone he had died and after about 8 years she told me she just didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t judge her at all, I just chalked it up to it being highly personal matter. It didn’t feel like a lie. In her mind, he was dead to her.

Gwynasyn wrote:

Honestly? I get it, on both sides. But it sounds like they're both mature enough to have cooled off, thought it through, and communicated about it to get on the same page. Hope they both learn valuable lessons from it.

TechnologyRoyal6685 wrote:

As someone with an absent father, I would never give him an easy out by claiming he was dead. I would want everyone to know what a piece of shit he was for abandoning his wife and two kids. In the event of him showing up, everyone will know exactly what type of person he is and give him the judgement he deserves.