My boyfriend lied to me.

I think you had a lucky escape from being wife and then ex-wife number 5. If he would not be honest with you from the start, who knows what he would have done once he had your trust. You sound like a kind hearted and sensible lady and I am sure you will find someone you deserve.

Annie has got the low-down skinny for ya . . .

Contrex, thanks for your reply. Yes once he had my trust. OK so this is how I found out about all the marriages. I caught him lying about a private relationship he was having with another woman: phone calls, private messaging. . . afternoons at the pool when her husband and I were gone to work. . . that kind of thing. Don't know if they actually slept together or not. When I confronted him he responded with anger, no aplogy. So then I no longer trusted him. A month later I listened to him talk about his ex-wife and realized his story didn't match up. I suddenly didn't believe what he was saying about her. So I went to the county court house, looked up their divorce record. And then, low and behold, the clerk informed me and offered me the divorce records on ALL of his divorces.
At the time I was shocked that ALL of this information fell into my lap, as I had no idea. Two years into the relationship my boyfriend did finally tell me about all of the marriages. And I then told him that I had known for awhile and how I came across the information. He responded with anger, no aplogy, stating that I violated his privacy. He remained angry about that for a long time.
So do you think I violated his privacy? Do you think I had the right to look this up, or not? It is public information. Do you think I should have not told him that I knew and how I found out?
The reasons I am asking is because I was uncertain for quite sometime about the ethics of this. Thanks.

I think you dodged a bullet, lucky girl.

Don't spend any time wondering about that guy's motives, he had TWO years to tell you the truth and couldn't bring himself to do that. What a chump.

Best wishes for a wonderful future.

Joe( don't even ignore him)Nation

so his story, which certainly is the best case scenario, is that his ego got in the way of being honest with you.....and you want to know what we think??!!

Perhaps he was a Mormon, Brigham Young had 55 wives at the same time, and 'Prophet' Joe Smith had 35

hawkeye - of course I want to know what you think. Yes his ego, and inmaturities, and small mindedness, and pathologic pattern got in his way of being an honest person. Yes I request honesty. But do you think it was right or wrong of me to research the guys personal bussiness at the court house? Was I violating his privacy? Should I have let it go and not researched the info?
I felt uncertain about this for quite sometime because I wasn't looking for ALL the information that came to me. I really was only looking into one divorce record, not four.

I like your response, Joe. Nice to get various opinions.

Funny, funny, funny. . . .

Telling him could only bring ill-will. Although you had every right to check his background, not to tell him straight out made you look sneaky - like getting ready and waiting to pounce. That only put you in a bad light. It's not bad ethics as much as just poor form.

Well I'm glad to hear that you broke it off with him. I've been lied to by many men and I made a mistake by hanging on and forgiving. This is definitely a big lie. This man sounds like he has a commitment issue and the whole big angry after you called him out on it is so typical. He made himself look better by saying 2 marriages just to benefit him. No apology either yeah good thing you let him go.

What ever you are looking for here now cant be good

he was wrong

you need to figure out why you stayed with a liar for 18 months

hopefully you can do better

wait, you did not walk out him the minute you found out that he lied about this??!!

He lied to you. He may have had affairs while with you. He gets angry when you ask about it. He never apologizes. And you are worried about your ethics? There is no way he had a lapse in memory about his marriages. There is a good reason he has been divorced 4 times. RUN!

Thanks Jack of Hearts. Your answer is very insightful and I never thought of it that way. It was bad form, but I did feel I had the right to public information.

Thanks Kathy 77. Yes he has commitment issues and many other issues as well. Speaking of angry. . . I let him go and well. . . he was angry about that too. . . I think he has anger issues. LOL.

Hi hawkeye, good questions and good points. I did not walk out on him right away because. . . I didn't know what to think. I had never been in a situation like this before and tried to take all issues into consideration. I made a point of trying to understand the underlying motivation for this behavior before jumping to conclusions in haste. So I read of on this, along with many other isuues. I always want to believe the best in people and that there is always room to growth and change. OK so he didn't change. But I did, and I learned a lot regarding this and about myself as well. Thank you so much for your response.

Thanks Nom de plume. Well yes I thought about my ethics because that's me regarding me. This was a very unusual experience for me, and it all seemed so unbelievable that I just couln't believe it. OK, so I believe it now and have moved on. Thank you for you response. It made me laugh.

Alright Everyone: I have some new questions about the boyfriend who lied to me. As a result of his dishonesty and unkindness I unfriended him, and the swimming pool chick on FB (you know what that is). We had a list of mutual FB friends, some were his personal friends and some were mine. Out of his list of friends there were a few women that I liked a lot and spent a little time with them doing the girlfriend thing. The women and I did not become best of friends, more like a casual friendship of when we would get togher as couples and then touch base with each other as women. It was nice.
So here is what happened. When I unfriended him on FB, I later heared through the grapefine that he had gone to his list of friends, stated unkind and untrue statements about me discrediting my character. He told them that HE unfriended me because I had insulted his friends, put them down, that I didn't like them. He then asked them to unfriend me on FB. A few of the individuals that I hardly know, did so. But the ones that I liked did not.
In response to this I did nothing. I did not want to look like the soar looser rushing to dig myself out from under. To my knowledge these women do not know that I know he did this.
The women are basically his friends, and date his closests buddies. Under the circumstances I have no intentions of hounding them down for friendship. Although I do like them, and if they ever offered to casually socialize with me I would be receptive. I sincerely do like them as individuals.
So if this occured and I were to have lunch, or even accidentlally bump into one of these ladies, and they asked me what happened to me and the boyfriend, DO I TELL THEM THE TRUTH ABOUT HIM? The one woman does not know the truth about his mariages (he doesn't tell anyone 99% of the time). The other women doesn't know about the swimming pool chick.
The reason I am asking is because (2 reasons) I like to manage myself from the high road of ethics and conscientiousness, reagardless of him being a looser or not. My actions are not based on him, but based on the kind of person I wish to be.
So what is the high road on this matter?
1. If I tell them the truth which is so unflattering about him, does that make me look like the disgruntled, negative, putting him down soar looser? Remember these two women are dating his closest buddies. Do they really want to hear, and would they even believe the unflattering truth about him if I told them? Their curiosity could be a set up to make myself look like a nasty negative person with aaaaalllll the negatives I would have to say in the event that I tell the truth. This negativity could possibly validate my ex- boyfriends unkind comments he said to them about me. Overall the women and I are acquaintances. We're not best friends. They are invested in their relationship with their guy, who are my ex-boyfriends close buddies.
2. Or, would it be better if I did not tell them much of anything? Should I make my comments about my ex-boyfriend very neutral, express apprreciation for the time when we were happy, biefly let them know it was my decision to unfriend him on FB as if I know nothing about the lie he told them? And, should I mention how I liked them, and that I had mentioned this to my boyfrind many times when we were together? It is true that I did mention this to him when we dated. And, it is true that I unfriended him on FB. (I acutally blocked him too.)
I wish I didn't waste my time on such trivia as this. But damn, it is bugging me. I can't stop thinking about it. I feel like I want to tell the truth and defend myself. I feel that the truth would discredit him. It would let my anger out, they would then know who he really is. Get honest revenge so to speak. But isn't this acting just like him? Is it really being the bigger person to tell his friends the negative truth about him?
My consciencnes is in conflict with myself feeling uncertian about truth and the high road.
1. Is truth, as negative as it is about him, the high road? Does that deliver anything positive?
2. Or is a neutral, polite sense of privacy, and only express a positive apprecition for whatever I gained from my experience the high road? Is that really being truthful?
I"ve been thinking about this for weeks and can't find an answer. Your thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.

This is a lot of ifs. If you run into these women, etc. etc.

If you do, I say keep quiet unless they start to say bad things about you. You do not need to go into details, just more like, I wanted a relationship built on trust and honesty and I found that there were things that were untrue. I don't want to say any more, not to tantalize you, but because you should hear them from him and not me. I will not spread this any further as I believe it would look like sour grapes.

If they persist, continue refusing to disclose the details. You may seem like not a lot of fun to them, but ultimately all you're doing is planting the seed.

What will he do? Squirm. Probably lie some more. If they believe him, then you probably don't want them as friends, anyway. If they believe you, then that says something, too.