I Fell in Love with a Con Man with Abby Ellin

He lied about everything from the Brussels sprouts at dinner to having another fiancee in another city. Abby is a journalist, the author of Duped, Double Lives, False Identities, and The con Man I Almost Married, and host of the podcast Imposters The Commander. Abby's experience in this relationship led her to do a deep dive into lying and deceit. Today, we get to hear Abbey's story, as well as some

of the truths she's heard about lying. We break down why people lie, explore the idea of self deception, and the steps you can take to protect yourself in a world where trust is often in short supply. All survivors of narcissistic relationships, know what it feels like to be lied to. Today we're going to learn about the anatomy of a liar. This podcast should not be used as

a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering

to some people. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. Abby Welcome. It is so nice to finally meet you in person. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. You know. When I read your book Duped and of course I'm double fisting it. I thought I was going to read a memoir of lying, and

I really got a masterclass online? Are you the master? No? No, no, no no, no, no, thank you for that. But lying in deceit is a very specific area and it's something that hurts people in so many ways. And so today I'm navigating narcissism. Lying is very much a part of narcissism, but it goes way deeper than that. And so can you tell us your experience of being duped? Yes, I can. The short version is that I was engaged to a who was a pathological liar and went to jail. That's

a short version. The longer version is that I am a journalist and I was writing an article for the New York Times that I needed to quote a doctor. It had to do with detox diets and I needed an expert, and I found this guy who worked at Cedars Sign I actually here in Los Angeles, and he was lovely and smart, and we had a conversation and that was the end of it, and I quoted him. And then the story didn't run for about a year. So I fact checked with him a year later and

he said, I'm not in LA anymore. I'm in Jacksonville at the Naval Hospital. And I said, okay. And he said I joined the Navy. I rejoined the Navy as a Navy doc. I had been years ago. I said okay. He said, I'm opening up a hospital for kids with cancer in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I said fantastic, keep me posted on that, because that's a story. And so he said, okay, and every so often he would write me these notes. They were very strange. They were just

filled with medical jargon. I didn't understand them. That was the end of it. Until the end of whatever year it was, he started writing to me more and it soon became clear that he had interest. So we met, and you know, it moved quickly. At the time, I was forty two and he was fifty eight. I thought he was ancient. Yeah right, right. As I get older, that doesn't seem so old. But he would tell me

stories that I couldn't verify. Like he told me he had met his ex wife when he rescued her when she was held hostage in Iran, and I was like, when were we in Ran, Like nineteen seventy that wouldn't have made any sense or seventy nine, sorry, and he said, yeah, it was a secret mission. You wouldn't heard about it. And so then he told me that he was held hostage in China and secret mission wouldn't heard about it,

and I was like, what, this is insane. But he had a kid, and his kid who was twelve at the time, seemed to know all of his father's stories, like he knew him, and I thought to myself, well, if he's lying to his kid about that, that's like child abuse. Like one day, his kid looked out the window and said, Oh, there's a black sedan outside. Is that one of your guys following us? Because he had told his kid that, like the bad guys hated him so much that he had secret service following him to

make sure that all of his people were okay. So his son knew this, and I would overhear these conversations. Yeah, so I thought it's weird. But you know what, why do I know? I am from the suburbs of Boston. This is not my beat. Because he told me he'd been to the CIA and all the stuff, I could not verify it. Yeah, but it drove me mad because I need to get answers and I don't like not

having information. And I remember friends of mine said, you know, this is the lesson you're going to have to learn, that there's so much information and you can't know everything, and I was like, yeah, but that doesn't work for me. I gotta know everything. I need to know how everything lines up. So I would ask him questions and he would yell at me. He would say, you interrogate me. You have to trust, and you're mistrusting and that's your problem and that's why you have had bad relationships in

the past. And so I really thought there was something wrong with me, and so he proposed within six months and I said, okay, sure, And I was going to school at Johns Hopkins at the time to get it green international relations one. He was working at the Pentagon for Real, opening up this hospital for kids with cancer. And we lived in the Watergate, which makes me very happy because that's like round zero for deception. So I just love that. Yeah, I mean, it really makes me happy.

But eventually I left him because I couldn't verify things. And the final straw, we went out with my parents and he talked with the Brussels sprouts and he said they were like the best Brussel spreads ever. And then we left the restaurant and my parents were gone. He said, God, that was the worst meal I've ever eaten. I said, why did you lie? Like nobody cared they didn't cook it. He said, I didn't want to hurt their feelings. And I thought to myself, he's lying about that. He can

lie about anything. And I said, you know what, I'm out. I'm done. So it was within a year I left. I said some things were on hear him out. A year later, I got a phone call from NCIS, which is Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and they're real, who knew, not my garment, but they're real, and they said, there's a doctor who's writing prescriptions for narcotics and he's using all these people's names and you're one of them. Do you have a prescription for Vikadin percoset and do you

know this doctor? And I said, well, I know this doctor, but no because I prefer valium. And so they said, okay, well come down and make a statement, and so that's what I did. And then I kicked into journalist mode and began investigating him and found out that the majority of stuff he told me wasn't not true. But what he did, which was so brilliant, is he mixed fact

with fiction. And that's what they do. So you really don't know what's up, but good liars are going to do that because if they can root it in something that sounds factual, especially if it's not verifiable, then you know. So he went to jail. I wrote a book, and so I found out he had proposed to another woman when he proposed to me, like he had been engaged to this other woman, and told her I have to go off on a secret mission. I'll see when I

come back. And the secret mission was operational Abbey. She didn't know what happened to her. He was lying to his son, he was lying to his daughter, he was lying to his actual, he was lying to his family, all of these people. He was lying to people he worked with at the Pentagon, because he really did work there. I mean, it was very weird, and he went to jail. I have not spoken to him since since and twenty

and ten my book has come out. I did a podcast about it called Imposters the Commander because I called him the Commander as a nickname. Once it became clear the depth and the breath of the lies with the Commander, how did you feel initially elated after ncis called. I was elated. I was excited because it was like, I'm not crazy. I knew something was off because I thought to myself, you know, forty two years old, it's not

old anymore. I mean, it's the end of really when you want to think about having kids, and it's you know, and I had wanted to adopt, and I really was interested in that idea. So at that point I thought, okay, I just found somebody in the nick of time. And I wasn't madly in love with him. It wasn't one of those passionate, youthful you know, you want to go off together into the sunset and have sex all day long. It wasn't that. It was. It was really I thought it was a good dude. So in a way it

was worse. It was a worse betrayal because I can't blame my hormones, you know. Well, so I really felt elated when Special Agent pulled me up. I was really happy. And my mother kept saying to me, investigate this guy. He had been in private practice in Beverly Hills. The whole time is with him, she said, who gives up a lucrative position in Beverly Hills in private practice. I wish you could call them, And I thought, yeah, but I can't. That's not like a loving way to go

into relationship. As soon as I got the call from NCA, Yes, I was like calling Beverly Hill I mean, I was thrilled, So that was how I felt at first. I was really really happy. And it makes sense because in a way, you felt whole again. That's what I'm hearing right that in these narcissistic relationships or deceitful, betraying relationships, people feel chopped up into pieces, right, and anything that helps that integration.

People will say, my heart was devastated by an affair they had, But when I realized that they'd had multiple affairs, I actually started to feel a little better and that it wasn't me. Well, that's it. And when I found out that he had this other woman with whom he was living in Jacksonville. When we moved into the Watergate, he still had bags that he needed to move from Jacksonville to Washington, and I said, let's drive down and pick them up, but he said, now I'm going to

have them shipped. Reason was because he had been living with a woman whom he had proposed to, so he didn't want me to find that out. And you know, it's very hard to parse out the person and the woman and the journalist in me because I knew there was a story there. On some level, there was going to be a story, and I knew I was going to uncover it on some level. And I think in retrospect, and this is a whole other issue, but I think I wanted a career more than I wanted the guy.

And this is looking back on it, you know, it kind of makes me wonder what my own agenda was. You know, I want to run with that. Yeah, what you were saying that I wanted the career more than the guy. Are you saying that because you stuck in the relationship. You know, he promised these big things. I wanted to change my life at the time, so I went back to school for this what I call my second useless masters, you know, in international relations at Johns Hopkins.

I wanted to really cover different kinds of things that I was writing about. I had written a book at that point about childhood obesity, and I didn't want to do that kind of health stuff anymore. And he promised me a big life, and you know, we were going to go to the embassies and we were gonna, you know, do all of these big things in Washington, and of course the White House was always calling for his expertise, and you know, we're going to go there soon the

Obamas are going to have us over. Of course, they weren't going to have us over because they didn't know who the guy was. I mean, you know, and in my head, I always thought, you're lying. I know you're lying to me. I mean, I told friends, this guy's mastering with me, but I don't know what it is. So I wanted a bigger life. And the truth is I didn't want a guy to give me a bigger life.

I wanted to get the bigger life myself. And I got the bigger life on the back of a guy because I got to tell this story that has resonated with so many people and happened to be very timely. And how do you feel about that that you got the bigger life on the back of a guy. How does that affect you. I'm happy about that. I wanted that,

you know, I get to meet you. I didn't know what my next career move was going to be at the time, so this is going back ten years already twelve years, so it really gave me what I wanted. It opened up many doors in terms of you know, I did a podcast, I did a documentary about other things. I'm working in other spaces, so I'm happy about that. Would I like to have a pride that life. Would I like to have a partner who I really adored and Doug? Yeah sure, Okay, that hasn't happened. Okay, that

hasn't happened. That hasn't happened. What I think an existentialist might argue that you turned your pain into opportunity growth, monetized suffering. And I joke, that's not like I got rich in the slightest, but I mean, that's my joke. It's just like when life gives you lemons, you make lemon ring pie. Right, that's much more aspiration, much more emanation. Yeah I like that. Yeah, I like that. So yes,

I want to take a step backwards. So, because we talked about how you felt when you found out from NCIS contacts you, which I didn't even know that was the thing. I thought that was a TV show to abimal investigative service totally, the real NCIS calls you, you're okay, this, I see, this is what I suspected. There's an elation you have. How did you feel while you were in the relationship and all these lies in this gas lighting were happened. I didn't know which way was up. I

had written a birthday cart to my friend's kid. I asked the commander if he would mail it. He said sure, my friends never got it. And I was like, I don't understand you didn't. He said, you said you did it. You said you did it, Like, why are you lying to me? He said, I really did it, And it turned out I had forgotten to put a stamp on it, so but I was couldn't. I was like, not knowing if I could trust him about anything. I didn't know if I could trust myself. I didn't know. I was

really felt like I was Ingrid Bergman, you know. In Gaslight, I felt like somebody was flickering the lights on me, and I'm telling me I was making him up. Just to clarify on why nobody would want to be ingrid Bergman in a relationship. Ingrid Bergman played the role of Paula, who was gaslighted in the film that Started It All, Gaslight.

She is the og survivor of narcissistic abuse. The film gets its name from the flickering gaslights that Paula kept noticing, but that her gaslighting partner told her weren't flickering and that she was paranoid and unstable, and I thought this might be my last chance at finding a partner, at doing that thing, you know. And he's a good guy, and I thought I was blowing it by being so suspicious. So right there, right took that that's my gift. So

but that's the narcissistic relationship right there? What is it about me? I've got it's all here, And the problem is in these relationships the above the line, stuff looks great, doctor, Jewish, successful embassies, white house like it all looks good. It's the below the line that teaches us the narcissism of it all. We feel it. I don't know which your ways up. I don't feel comfortable. Those are the things you're saying, Ingrid Bergman. Yeah right, No one should ever

feel like Ingrid Bergman in a relationship. Well maybe because yes, right, maybe because of all But even then that didn't quite didn't Well, so all of that's happen best below the line. Above the line is this looks great, and so you call yourself suspicious? Yeah, I thought I was suspicious. And again what he would always do is malign his ex wife.

Of course, it's always the ex wife's problem. I didn't know he had been married twice before I found the XX wife, you know, and then I found out, of course he never met the second ex wife in Iran. He'd never been to Iran, she had never been to Iran. They met in medical school, and he left his first wife for this. You know. So all these things an NCIS contacts you. So now you're feeling a good more whole. You talked about feeling happy, okay, and elated. What other

feelings where you have relief? Okay? Relief I believed. I was just like, Okay, I'm not crazy, I'm not imagining things. I didn't just blow the best thing that ever happened to me. Because this is not a reliable person. This is not a reliable narrator. This is really screwed up individual. In that way, you got a gift that a lot of survivors of these relationships don't get into. That they live in regret for years. Did I make a mistake? Is this new person getting the better version of it?

Did I give up on whatever was? In your case? It might have been embas seasons someone else is just did I give up on the secure home? To this? To that? And so they don't get the NCIS moment. I know they don't, and I think that's one of the reasons that I was able to write a book. And I don't feel like a victim. I don't even feel like a survivor, you know, And I feel like a sufferer. I feel like I suffered something. I don't use the words survivor just my own pet thing, and

I certainly don't use victim. I suffered through this experience, and then I stopped suffering about it because I learned about it. I mean, the way to deal with it was I had to learn about this and what struck me. With so many people who had been in these kind of relationships, nobody wanted to talk about it, or at least certainly not publicly. And I was telling my Gammy, I was telling everybody because it was a story, it was a good story, but everybody felt so ashamed, and

I thought, well, what's the worst thing you did? You trust it and somebody lied to you, Like that's not a crime. That sound stupid. That's actually the way the world works. We have to trust because if we don't trust, the society will not function. What do you think is holding survivors back? What's the source of shame. They think that they missed something. They think, why was I so gullible? They you know, they think that they should have been

able to see something in advance. I mean studies have been done actually that the smarter you are, the more likely you are to have been duped or to be duped because you think that you'll spot it. So you are your vulnerable to your vulnerability. You have no idea, you know just how susceptible you are. And in my instance, I'll tell you something else. He told me he had been held hostage. I told you, in a lot of hostage, a lot of hostage kaship. And actually he was taking

other women hostage, right at least mentally. How's that for nice theraps? But he would sleep with the lights on, and he would sleep with the TV on, and in the middle of the night he had nightmares, screaming nightmares. And this is all for real. I was next to him, and I remember thinking, well, there's our evidence right there. You don't scream bloody murder in the middle of the night unless something bad happened, you know. I still don't know his ex wife and I who became friendly the

second one. She said, what was that, Like, what do you think happened? And she said, I guess he just had nightmares. You know, I don't know why. I don't know what his background was. I don't know, but it was really interesting. And so that again people think, I don't know, if you watch the Tinder Swindler. Yeah, so

they thought they had evidence this guy they met. I mean so when you so, then you do your due diligence and you think, okay, I'm looking at all the ducks and they're all seeming to be lined up, and then you realize they're not. You think, well, well, how do I trust anything? You know? But in a way that makes it much easier for you, doesn't it, Because if the ducks line up, you're looking around, you're seeing

everything seems to make sense, then you're absolutely absolved. It's really not your fault, right, And I'm going to make the argument it never was your fault in the first place. You know that that's you know, I think that that the challenges is that people are looking for that fault to get lifted well, and I think there's also people, you know, why people feel such shame because nobody wants to be taken for a ride. No, I didn't lose any money. In fact, we're living for free, so you

know I did. Okay, people who've lost a lot of money, yeah, I mean that's really heartbreaking. But what's interesting is that the people I know who've been emotionally betrayed and didn't lose money in a way feel worse because you understand somebody doing it for money, but you don't understand somebody messing with you for absolutely no reason, just because they're playing chess with your life. It doesn't make sense. You know,

what did this guy get from me? If I was going to try and to see if somebody, I mean I could go to like some heiress, I could go to like some supermodel, Not that he would have gotten one, but you know, I mean there was other people than like, you know, a loud mouth journalist who is going to research the hell out of you. So it was not smart on his part. What do you think he got? He got something he didn't know. I think I can

be fun I can be funny. I think I think there's a part of him that was intrigued by me. I'm you know, I think I'm pathologically independent. Maybe he was felt that was a challenge to try and rein that in Who knows. Did you ever stop to think though that you are a journalist, you are an investigator, that you are a bigger fish to land if he could deceive you. Yes, I think that's right. I think that's right. What happened when you were in the relationship and you called him out on a lie? He would

attack me. You don't trust he would you interrogate me. In fact, I once called his brother in law and said, I don't know how to talk to him. He said, you gotta go easy on him. You know, he's got a really important job. He's doing really important things. So it's my fault. It gets us into this tricky territory of a lie versus a gaslight, right, because that's one

of the big debates out there. What's the difference? And you had both right, So the lie is sort of how the person walks in the door for anything, from jobs he had to CIA to hostage situations. Right, that's a lie. It is a twist of fact. It's completely untrue. You're suspicious, you don't trust. What's wrong with you? That's

a gaslight? Right, that's right. And I think that people get confused by that, And I think it's a really important distinction, because a liar caught in a lie, when they're given an evidence space, they will gaslight you or no, a liar when caught in a lie, who's not a gaslighter? What might cop to it? Like the right? Right? But it's the conversion to gas lighting is when you give them the evidence you're the paranoid, untrusting, suspicious, whatever you

were being called. Then now the conversation shifted away from the evidence onto you. Right, you're the problem. That's right. Well, it's what Lance Armstrong did, wasn't it. Everybody else has a problem. All you people investigate me? You know you're at fault. That's right, exactly what it was. And that deflection is every one of these liar slash gas sliders. So I think that that's an important element here. And I know a lot of people are are so confused.

When he was with you, I just wanted to be clear he was engaged to someone else. He was engaged. It's just someone else whom he left. They were living together in Jacksonville. He actually left a bunch of his belongings there. She sold them. He never came back for him. Okay, she didn't know what happened to him. He's living with his brother and sister in law in Georgetown. I then moved to DC and we moved into the Watergate and ostensibly were going to get married in November. And it

was very quick. I mean, at that point, it would have been maybe eight months that we were seeing each other. But again, I was forty two, he was fifty eight. My parents met, you know, at the Catskills at Grossingers, you know, and they're like sixty years later, they're still together. They were married within three months. So I mean, I'm not saying that's a relationship, love them both, not saying it's a relationship I want to emulate, ever, But you know,

it's possible. It's possible to have it again when you're older. And you know when people say when you know, you know. And I wasn't a kid, like I said. It wasn't like this hormonal response. It was I thought he was a good person, he was solid, you know. And then once I start hearing him screaming at the middle of the night, and all these things don't make sense to me, and I don't understand why. Is when I began thinking, did you ever ask him why he screamed in the

middle of the night. Yeah, he was so tortured. He was tortured. He had nightmares about being tortured in China. Duh, he would they would beat him in the middle of the night. And thank God that he had been a runner, long distance runner in college, because that's how he escaped. Okay, So something happened to this dude. Clear screaming tantrums, Clearly an adult male. That's not an unusual post traumatic stress. Clearly, So I'm not crazy. Okay, So that tracks and compartmentalization

is associated with trauma. He was compartmentalizing having relationships multiple simultaneous like keeping not only simultaneous relationships going, but hundreds of simultaneous lies going. And while he was with me, just so you know, after I kind of left him, I guess he had reached out to an old girlfriend from thirty years ago, and after he and I officially broke up, he started hanging out with her. She had cancer. She died of cancer, but he was actually there for

the last year of her life. And I talked to her after I found it all out about you know, what had gone on, and ants called me and she actually helped nail him. She helped nail him because he lied to her so badly and about so many things, and she ended up wearing a wire And it's all on my podcast Imbosters the Commander. But anyway, you know, to me, that was like he was predatory. You're praying on a woman who's dying of breast cancer. I mean

that to me is criminal. You've now talked to all these people because you did your research for your book. What I'm hearing is he lied to every single one, every single one, every single one his ex wife's kids, girlfriends in laws. How did this relationship affect you in the long term, you know, in a good way? Okay. I have always been told you're too fast, you think too quickly, you speak too quickly, you do things too quickly, you're spontaneous and impulsive, and I am. And it really

made me slow down with relationships. That made me slow down with what I was kind of really had to stop and look at what my own responsibility was here. So as six years after that, after him, I met another guy who told me that he was separated from his wife. And the joke is that they were separated the way you and I are separated like by a microphone. They were not separated. They were just living together. And you know, but like technically I'm in the bathroom, she's

in the badroom. We're separate. And it was awful. I mean, it was such a cliche. It was like, I'm lying to you about being married. That's not that's not psychopathic. I don't think that's you know, that's just being an asshole, right. The clinical diagnosis is asshole. But I understood why that happened. I get it, like he wanted to hang out with me, and I get it. The other one I didn't get. I didn't understand that. And again, why not an eirass?

Why do you have to give me a ring? I mean, it was a shitty ring, But why do you have to do that? You know, why do you have to propose that? It didn't make sense to me? And what I realize is that, you know what, as I get older, there are things that I might not understand and I think that's okay. And the other thing it made me realize, in addition to slowing down, was that I don't say this. People don't know themselves. I used to think people understood themselves.

I used to think people really knew why they did things, and they don't. I'd be out of a job if they did well, right right right, you would, you would. But I really thought people had much more self awareness because I have a pretty good self since that, and they don't. And I also thought people are really one thing, and they're not at all. They're very complicated. And that's a good thing to know because it actually has helped me like hypocrites. I understand. I used to really I

don't like hypocrites. I think most people don't, but I actually have a little bit more tolerance because I understand why people that does some degree we tell them. I mean, actually I don't think they know. I think I think there's because of this lack of awareness. I think one part of the brain doesn't really know what or they compartmentalize so much, you know that they just part A is not talking to part BE in the you know, So that's what I think. I don't know, you're the expert.

Does that make sense? It does make sense, It absolutely does make sense. I think that's it gets into complicated place right. This idea of self awareness is if anything we could use self awareness is sort of the antidote to these antagonistic personality styles like narcissism. Right by definition, these are not self aware styles. There's no self awareness

of how is my behavior affecting someone else? What is the downstream effect of my behavior that's gone, and very little awareness of how what I'm doing could be hurting and affecting another person. That's the core conflict. So, which is to say when someone lies about being not married and they have a wife at home, or they're leading a double life, or your spouse or whatever, that's narcissistic behavior, is it not? There are people out there who have

double lives for lots of reasons. Some people have double lives. Honestly, it wouldn't be unusual to see in a post traumatic presentation that person is that successful at compartmentalizing to such a level that they're doing these things and are just not thinking about like they've locked these things up separately with a little regard for how this would be found out. I think narcissism is definitely high on the list of

differentials because there's a real lack of empathy. If his wife found out that he was walking around saying he wasn't married, there's a complete you know, no empathic awareness or a tunement to what his wife would want. Psychopathies in the mix because they can outlie a narcissism all day, all night. Well at narcissist. I think the other thing is, you know, you don't lie to the mistress. That's just stupid. The reason you're the mistress is so you don't get

lied to. By definition, I'd say the mistress does get lied to a lot, because already this is a person who has entered the deceit club. That's right. So now from that point forward, it's all lies all the time, because this lie is working, and you've done more research on this than I have. Does lying beget lying on? You know, because you have to keep all the stories straight. And then when you get caught on something, it's it's like, but I don't this doesn't make sense. Why? Well, and

then you tell another lie. You know. For example, I was driving by the Watergate one night and I see the light on and so I called him. I was like, and he had said, oh, I have to move out of the water Gate because the Navy needs the apartment, and the Navy was paying for the apartment, and he really was a Navy dock, I mean for real, but he said, so I'm going to move out. That's why I'm sending all your stuff away. And so the light was on and I emailed him and I said, are

you back in the apartment. He said yeah. It was a comedy errors he said. I packed everything and I moved it out into storage and then the Navy said, you know what, you gotta come back. I said really, I said, well, you know what, My cookbooks are there and I'd like to pick them up, which is the biggest lie of all because I don't cook and I

don't like to cook. But I did have these cookbooks because I thought, you know, well i'm going to be in this relationship, maybe we'll cook and you know, that's what we'll do on winter nights, will make soup, you know. So he's like all right. And so I went one afternoon just just poke around at the watergate and I said, I want to go up to the apartment. I did not have a key, and the guy at the front desk said, you're not allowed up. Specifically, you are not

allowed up. Abbiellen is not allowed up. So I said why, he said, I don't know. That's all I had here. So I called the guy up, the commander. I said, what's up with that? He said, oh, there was an attack in the building and they're cracking down on who

they will let up. Okay, so this speaks about lying be getting lying, And I thought what so I said, okay, fine, right, So he finally lets me into the apartment so I can pick up the cookbooks, and I go there and everything is exactly as it was when I left, down to a slaver of soap in the soap dish. I mean, it was exactly The dude didn't move out. He didn't, I mean, he didn't even wash it, you know. And I said, you never moved out, and he looked at me straight in the eye and he said, oh, yes

I did. And that's when I thought, there is no discussion. So, yes, this line begets lying. It is. This is my story, and I'm sticking to it. Except when I heard the left and I make something else up. It was just confounding. Okay. I'm going to say one thing here though, because I want people to understand, is that you said something really interesting in your book. A line that jumped out at me is what no one realized. What I didn't realize then was that I was in an abusive relationship, was

not physically but emotionally. For there was one hundreds abusive and I think those relationships can be harder on some level because, at least to other people, they see when you have a black eye, nobody understands. And let's be clear about something we were talking about, shame and why people feel such shame. The rest of the world condemns you. If you've been duped? What did you do? How could you be such an idio? How could you have not known that? How did you not know? Why would you

believe that they were held hostage in China? Why would you know? Why didn't you know that they had another family around the corner. I mean all of these things in story after story to that point, when we've had people who have been in these sort of con situations on this podcast, that came up over and over again, and as we'd researched the stories, it was always so striking to me was it wasn't even like a few people were blaming them. I'm almost going with majority they do.

We're saying, well, I wouldn't have been played like that, And I want to say you know that means you are going to be That's what I'm saying. The smarter you are, the more convinced you are that you can be taken for a ride, the more likely you will be. And that was why I didn't. You know, so many people want to know about their psychology. That's where you come in, and that's what we're going to talk about next. My session with Abby will continue after this break. The

psychology of lying, well, the psychology of lying again. I was more interested in the victims, but the liars are fascinating. This is what I know. They lie because they have bad self esteem. They lie because there's something wrong with their brain. They lie because they like stories. They lie because they think they can get away with it. They lie because they can get away with it. Here's a question. Do you think lying to that degree is a symptom

or its own diagnosis? You know how I approached this. To me, When I look at lying, I come at it as a behaviorist wood. Human beings do things because they're rewarded. They're rewarded for the lie, and the more popular kids are the kids who tell lies. And that's something you wrote about. Could you talk about that, because actually that was actually a killer fascinating, right, because they're fun and they have good stories and people like to

be around them, and they know how to charm people. Right. These people are charming. I mean the guy who was with was not really good looking, but he was charming and fun and he knew what interested people, and he knew how to talk to them. I think there's also something else, which is that these people believe it themselves eventually, which is why there's you know, I always talk to

people about polygraphs. There's no such thing as a lie detector's and it measures anxiety, It measures the way your heartbeats. It measures that. So if you don't believe you've lied, you're going to pass a test. And this is where we get into the reasons people lie. I felt like your story of the commander. I don't know him, I've never seen him. I could not render a meaningful clinical opinion.

But the patterns you laid out in your story of the commander, that depth and breath and consistency and sweep of lying feels more like it's in the psychopathy neighborhood. I thought he was a psychopath. His wife, his ex wife, thought he was a narcissist. Narcissistic people lie, but like I said, they cannot lie as well psychopathic people. Here's why you did something in your book. You wrote down every lie you told for six months. Okay, talk about that for a minutes, and I'm going to bring it

back to what we're talking about. I created a lie log because I wanted to see just how much I lied, and I found that I tell lies. I mean mostly they're white lies, though, and research shows that women lie to make other people feel good and men lie to make themselves feel good and look good. And that's exactly what mi I did. I mean, he was, you know, James Bonstein. But I have lied to make people feel good and I don't have a problem with that. What do you think of that? I want you to tell

me this was the boat's fascinating interview you've ever done. Yea, I will believe you. I won't, but I'll like it. And I don't want you to tell me this is my color. So yes, So I completely agree with you. And I think that one thing is that lies, like narcissism, like everything in the world, is on a continue on correct right. And if I told everyone what I honestly thought of their dress, what they look like, and who they are. Nobody had left in my life. You have

no friends. I know that we've had movies about that. There was that Jim Carrey movie, right, and then it wasn't liar, liar? What was the Ricky Gervais one? He did one? I don't remember the name of it, but I know what you're talking about, the theory of I don't know. You cannot tell people to truth all the time, but yet we have to trust the car is gonna stop at the red light and not bash into us. And I actually have been thinking about more and more.

I'm a terrible jaywalker in New York. Not in Los Angeles. I know it's legal, but in New York, I'm like, I'm stupid. Why do I assume these cars are going to stop for me? Again, going back to yes, we need to be able to trust, but why do people lie? And psychopathic lying, narcissistic lying, and then the lying we all do the commander situation, depth breath, all of it. That felt more like psychopathy, right, And I think he

really really had terrible self esteem. I really believe that, no, no, no, he did, and he needed to pup himself okay, which is a very obvious response, but I think it's true, and the self esteem issue now pulls me back more into a narcissistic place. Right. So psychopathy is interesting because it has a really strong biological piece to it. It's a downregulated, autonomic nervous system. So when I tell a lie, it is so clear my face turns red, I sweat.

I couldn't even play poker if I wanted to. And if you hooked a lie detector up to me now, it would just go off like it was the fourth of July. Because I can't lie, you know, I can like, I can tell you can tell me, I can tell me that this is my color. Well, I wasn't like, but I did tell a friend the other day like I liked the dress and I thought the dress absolute hideous. So I can tell those pro social lies right right right, which made the world go around. Correct. But what you're

talking about this is a different animal. Narcissistic people will often lie to save face, to look good, to get validation, to get supply. Psychopathic people don't need supply, They need power and dominance, so the lie allows them to maintain control, but they go together. Can you be a psychopathic narcissist? Sure you can. No, No, No, I mean I do think that they're separate entities. I really do. Appy. I

think that psychopathy is a very rarefied space. It is heaven above, thank you that it is rare, because it's dangerous because when a person's not getting that kind of hmm, this doesn't feel good to do this, it's a disincentive to do something bad. For a narcissistic person, they do actually think that, I don't want to be a bad person, and they'll often look guilty and sweaty and all of that. They'll still lie to be able to cheat on a spouse.

They may still lie to cook the books. But the psychopathic liar is a much more successful liar because they don't have a tell and they don't have empathy, and they don't have empathy, but nor do the narcissi. And well, and then the question from everything I've read is that psychopaths really cannot be treated. I think that what we've seen is that you know, I'm not going to give

the long academic version here, is that it's not convincing. Hey, they're not going to go into therapy unless they're court ordered. If they are court ordered, they're often going to outwit the therapist. Right. There has been some interesting work where they've attempted to simulate empathy, like want you to imagine someone La La la and going through a sad situation, And some imaging studies have shown that when you can force empathy by them reacting to a situation, areas of

the brain will light up. That are empathy areas of the brain, which ordinarily don't automatically light up the way they would for someone else. And what about with narcissists, they have actually more of a capacity for empathy. It's not fair to say a narcissistic person doesn't have empathy. They use it transactionally. It's quite performative. It tends to be more cognitive. So I understand why you're sad versus having that Oh my gosh, my friend is sad. I want to be with her. I need to sit with

that person and hold that space with them. There's a different game. And when the narcissistic person feel safe, well regulated, secure in a good place, actually they can be quite empathic. It's almost like they're not hungry. You know, they're good. And when they're in that place. They're not missing the chip,

and psychopathy you're talking about something missing a chip. But in narcissism, the chip is just an old, slow processor and it's a selfish processor, and so everything in their life has to be perfect, and then they can bring empathy. But that can actually meant narcissistic people lie. They're just not as successful. So we were talking about George Santos,

Is he a psychopath? I would say that Again, I've never met and treated Jarge Santos giving that, but I'd say somebody who's able to successfully pursue a political office, a political office, and not some local small town council. We're talking a federal political office, successfully run a campaign, fundraise, win the race, and go in despite all of this being found out and never breaking gays. I know it's I know, that's definitely more in this advanced you know,

like we'd think of it more in the psychopathy. Yeah, and then some people say, are all these states delusional? I mean, do they believe their own hype? But the fact is they're able to pull this off. George Santos was sworn in officially as a member of Congress in twenty twenty two, but on the back of multiple fabrications, which he met with quote, my sins here are embellishing my resume. I'm sorry. Embellishing is an under a statement.

His exaggerations include not being truthful about working at two prominent Wall Street banks, that he had obtained degrees in finance and economics from two New York colleges, that he was Jewish, and that four employees of his company were killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in June of twenty sixteen, and even more lies. None of these things were true, and yet that did not stop him from being elected to higher office. I think it

is delusional. I think it is psychopathic, and I think it's were they born this way? Where they made? I don't know the answer. Nobody seems to know the end. I mean, there was a point where people were distinguishing between sesiopaths and psychopaths. Everything I had read said that, actually some people seem to use them interchangeably. Other people said not the same. So some people say the sasiopaths were made and the psychopaths were born that way. I

don't know which is which. What we see is that psychopathy does have it. There appears to be something in that autonomic nervous system thing. There seems to be something genetic there. So work in progress, right, we're figuring this out. The fact is a person who might have the genetics may also be coming into a home where there's a psychopathic parent. So how much of this is modeled, how

much it is the chaos that can ensue. There's definitely a stronger evidence space for psychopathy and genetics, narcissism not nearly as much. Narcissism definitely seems to be a social and developmental kind of an issue around attachment and early relationships and all of that. So theopathy an entirely different beasts. Psychopathic people cool, calm collected. Sociopathic people not so calm and collected. They tend to be a bit more reactive,

and that speaks then to probably more of a traumatic origin. Interesting. Interesting because that's I don't know what page, but somewhere in there I talked about how it was used interchangeably, because that's they're not interchanged. You're interesting, Yeah, no, I don't think correct. So in terms of another thing that you talked about in your book, and I think it's

really worth mentioning, um, I'm going to read. I'm going to read to you, and it's interesting you talk Harold Sackheim, which talk about a little bit of Jungni and synchronicity. Harold Sackheim was one of my professors when I started a PhD program at NYU fifty two million years ago and dinosaurs still around the earth, and I ended up transferring from NYU to UCLA, and Harold Sackheim also worked up at New York State Psychiatric Institute, where I had

done some of my research internships. So it was like this whole Harold Sackheim universe. So when you interviewed, my tremendous respect for his work, and you talk here about self deception and this piece from Harold Szackheim's work, the people who were the happiest were the ones who were lying to themselves more. And then someone else talks about

the realists. According to Joanna Staric, a clinical psychologist, said the realists tend to be slightly more depressed than others, and Zackheim says they see how horrible people are, what their weaknesses are, and the problem is they're right. I remember reading this and laughing. I'm like oh yeah, as a miserable realist, I got you so talk about self deceptions. I thought that was really interesting. Who do we deceive the most? And again I believe that we have to

deceive ourselves. Unfortunately. I have this favorite story, which is that I was walking by a window in New York City and I saw my reflection and I thought, damn, I look good. Then I realized I was looking at someone else, and I thought, you know, this is good. I should I wish I hadn't realized that, because it would be nice. It's like when you go and you look in the mirror and it's one of those tall, skinny mirrors, and you think, I really look hot. You don't need to know that. So I wish I was

able to be fooled more. I really do. Had I not open my mouth, I could have been married to this guy. I really could have been. Thank god I opened my mouth, but I could have really gone, you know, a long way. And I remember I remember actually right after I got engaged to him, I own my apartment in New York and I called a lawyer and I said, can this guy get his hands on my apartment? And they said, no, not unless you give it over to him. I said, what about debt? What if he has debt?

Do I incurred that. They said, whatever he comes into the marriage with you don't, but whatever after it's yours, And I remember thinking that's gonna be a problem. So yeah, I think people who live in the state of denial are a lot happier. Yes, and yeah, However you could also see the danger for entering and staying in a narcissistic relationship or the psychopathic or toxic relationship. Okay, so figure this out. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power, right, Okay, Okay, yeah, great,

so let's break that down. Okay, ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power. So the question is do you what do you want more bliss or power? I think that change is depending on where you are in your life. And I don't actually think that ignorance is bliss because I look at survivors and I do use the word survivor because I actually think you are a survived I don't think you're a sufferer. I think you suffer. I don't think myself as a sufferer. Now I was a sufferer. However,

you suffered and you came out of it. I suffered. I suffered, You did suffer and ship. Yes, people in these relationships suffer, Okay, I think that the narrative is and then people say, and now I'm broken, right, and so they stay and suffer and might not. You got out of this. You survived it, right, as much as one could survive graduate school, one could survive recession. You know,

you're still standing on the other side. Right. So that language said ignorance wasn't bliss for them, and they tried. They tried, ignorance was bliss until it became known. You don't know what you don't know. I'm going to push back on that, Okay, it's not that you don't know what you don't know. They're suffering. In your case, it

was deceit, gas, sliding, manipulation, heavy relationship. I hear that for other people, it's a push pull between really good days and really bad days and blaming themselves for that. It's the being compared to other people. It's dealing with the angel at the dinner party and the monster in the car and the ride home. It could be betrayals, it could be infidelities. All of that they're suffering. Okay. They're often trivialized, their goals are laughed at, they're mocked,

they're held in contempt. It's suffering, right, And so this is all happening to them, and they are suffering, but they don't have a name for the suffering, and they don't know what, they don't know why. All they know is I am so unhappy. I'm not supposed to be. Everyone said, we looked really good at the dinner party. I am miserable. Maybe, And this is how I hear this from survivors every time I talk to them. I think,

you know, what am I complaining about? There's people who are homeless, there are people are suffering, where there are people getting beaten up? What am I complaining about? When I'm thinking, you're being emotionally devastated on the daily, you're being emotionally manipulated and betrayed. And yeah, So the ignorance in that case is that they're actually having an experience, a physical psychological experience that doesn't happen name. I appreciate that.

What about the people who live in these marriages and they're totally happy and they do not suspect their husband has another family around the corner, like a Stepford kind of a thing or just really yeah, just like really so ignorant. They're they're living their best life, They're doing what they do and they have no idea. I guess there that's actually a really really good questioning. Is that somebody that somebody would be And we've all known people

like that. I've had friends who were in relationships that were just riddled with deceit and then there was the moment somehow something got found out. And I think with Internet and the digital Adrian, it's a lot harder to keep alike covered up right, But then I have to say that the devastation at that point, it's a different like in other words, now the blast site, the blast

phone is going to be that much larger. And folks in those situations where they manage to not see it sometimes feel when it's all when after it all blows up, that they're complicit. Well sure, because and then all of a sudden they're like, what did I miss? What did I not see? What did I willingly not see? Right? Yes? Right? And it wasn't even willingly like maybe I mean again,

unconscious processes aren't willing processes. And then we start getting we curve into interesting territory around things like culture abbey that when there's no option, divorce is simply not an option. Breaking up a family is simply not an option. That kind of denial on seeing this is survival and safety, because to see it and have to stay in it is a very specific kind of hell on earth. Okay, you know, I do think that those things are all operating in terms of how people get stuck. When we

have had guests on here. We had one guests in particular, gen vas On from Betrayed, who perfect life and the one day comes home to a search warrant on her door and they watched her husband be taken away and that was the last time she ever saw. I did a piece about white collar wives and it ran in the Times, and it was about these women whose husbands

were white collar offenders. And the women had no idea, they say, and yet then you uncover the layers a little bit and they're like, well, I had a reason not to know. And the reason I had to not know or ask questions was because I liked the life we lived, Yes, and I liked the money made, and

I liked the car I had. And you know, there was and I think in that sense, there's a sense of complicity because they were I hear that, and I think that they still don't think it's a sense of complicity because ultimately they weren't committing the wrongdoings, right, I mean, well, they weren't committing the wrongdoing. It's so it's so interesting because Bernie Madoff's wife, Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah. I think she knew maybe something was not kosher, but

she didn't listen. I can barely add. So if I had been married to Bernie Madoff, I wouldn't know what he was doing. But I might say something might not be right here. But I don't really want to know. What I don't know doesn't hurt me. So am I complicit? I mean that's like a question for the rabbis. I don't know. Yeah, maybe maybe it's a tough one, you know. I An analogy I've often used is around magic tricks and magicians, right, because even adults like going to magicians,

it's not kids. And I hate going to magicians because I need to know how they do it. Bingo. On course, here's the thing. A lot of people go to a magician and they're content to not know how the trick was done, because once you show how the trick is done, it's not magic anymore. It's right, And I think that we're complicit, right, are you complicite? I refuse to believe I was complicit with the guy at Magic Castle. I

think you were. That's the contract between the audience. The audience has to be willing to be disputed, and I wanted to believe there everybody was closed about you. Oh no, I mean, but the emperor has no clothes. The audience is complicit, then the city whatever it was, the village, right, right. It's an interesting one because then once we know how the trick is done again, the magic is gone. The charade is over, and that's tricky, and you become the

miserable depressive who is no longer living in denial. Harold Sackeim's realist, right, and so that that's tricky. We will be right back with my conversation with Abby. When we talk about narcissism and toxic relationships, we often don't deconstruct like we are right now, because we're really focusing on a pattern that characterizes the relationships. But it's not all of it. And yet you see it kind of is all of it because if you lie systemically, lie not

you look good in that dress. Lie systematically lie. You're entitled because you feel like you can hold the monopoly on truth. You lack empathy because you don't care about what your deceit is doing to the other person. You're arrogant because you think you're above all of us. You're grandiose because at some level you must believe your own hype that you are the great trickster of our time

and you hold the power. That's right. So all of that, even though we're talking about a behavior that all of that behavior pings into all of these elements of the bigger pictures antagonism. But then we could boil that down to narcissism and psychopathy. When you were in the relationship, did you ever stop to think, I'm in a relationship with the narcissist, I'm in a relationship with the psychopath. You did, he said to me at one point, I'm

not a psychopath. I said, yeah, you are, Okay, I did, and that, you know, for whatever reason, and that's a whole other podcast. I was never in this thing one hundred percent and always had to foot out the door. You know, I've been freelanced my whole life as as okay, so there's definitely there's a connection there. So I think I kept a foot out because I knew it wasn't going to work out on some level in my gut. I just knew it. And that's why I say I

wanted the career, I wanted the story. I had to stick it out until I had concrete, concrete proof this person was a liar instead of these fantastical things I couldn't verify. I had to get out for my self esteem. But it was just like I knew there was going to be some story there, so you know, that's yeah. My shrink accused me of the same thing once. She's like, I think you keep getting into narcissistic relationships for a material like that's insensitive, and I'm like maybe, but it's well,

it's true. Everything is copy, you know, But if you're not doing anything, if you're not in with anybody, you're just hanging out by yourself eating bonbonds, what's the copy? You know? I ate a bad bombon, right or not that interesting to teach me how to live a bonbon life because I'd actually been interesting antidote tell Well, yeah,

that's true. There's that you do talk about, though, and I'd imagine this was a quality that might have been quite attractive in the commander is that intelligent people tend to lie more, and we value intelligence, and I think there's something else. We don't want to be the one person who's that kids says the Emperor's naked. Everybody thinks we're talking about complicity. Everybody, all those people in that village said, God, the guy looks naked. But maybe I'm

not saying it right, Maybe I'm making a mistake. Nobody wants to be the one person who says, you know, called it out. And in your research, did you figure out why nobody wants to be the person who wants to call it Because I think it's what I call the Lemming effect. Nobody wants to be the odd person out, because nobody wants to look wrong. And to bring it all full circle, no one wants to look stupid, right,

And we also are shaped by other people. If you look at Solomon Ash's work, if you remember that, you might have learned that anyone listening in psychology, there would be three lines. One was clearly longer than the rest of them, and there would be a group of nine people. They were confederates. People working alongside the researchers were sort

of like liars, stuck in the group. And then a person would say I think line B is the longest, line B, and then the confederate saying line A, and then other people they would start responding the clearly shorter line was the longest because they were affected by other people. A lot of this research actually came out of post World War two and people are trying to understand what happened. How could such horrors happen? How could people just have

gone along like that? Do you remember The Wave? That was an after school special, The Wave? It was about, you know, the kids in the school and it was based on a real experiment. Some were guards, some were prisoners. Wow, you mean the it wasn't it wasn't no, not the Zimbardo Zimbardo expects, right, And they did a show called The Wave, and it was all about basically following the crowd, right. Other people were doing this. I mean, that wasn't the

whole point of that. But the guards were abusing the prisoners, and everybody was doing it, and so everybody continued to do it. The Sara for prison experiments actually interesting because it really speaks to once we're placed into a role, how we take on that role. Because I remember it was Zimbardo randomly assigned. Yes, he listeners and guards, so they I think he shifted it and then and so what happened was though he had to end experiment early

because the guards became so abusive. But they were He's just a coin flip on which group you were assigned to be, right, that's right. But when we get to this stuff on conformity, they were all doing it because even though some people thought Guard A is doing it, GUARDB is doing it, guards said, why that's really bad. I shouldn't do it, but amb are doing it, so I'm going to do it too. Yes, yes, yes, yes, but see all of this relates again to Solomon Ash's

work on conformity. And we are a tribal species, right, so the human beings live in small social groups, and so to be ostracized for a human being is actually to die. If you go to our primal sort of state as human beings. You can't make it alone. We can now because of the Internet, but that's pretty ray, but it's also made it that much easier to get caught. It's made it hard. Or Two, I think we've always lied.

I don't think we're lying more. I think that what we're seeing is there's more evidence of the line because because there's a public e trail. Yeah, there's an e trail, and the public is the media now a right. So now we're seeing the person in another country is lying, like we'll caught you out in that lie. It makes it seem ubiquitous. I'm not convinced in your research, did

it seem like rates of lying have gone up? People were talking about it more, and the reason was because back in the old days, to have your double lives, you'd have to walk to the farm twenty miles away. Ye. Now you click on the button on the internet, you know, or you have a burner phone, or you can call up a website to get a person who will pretend to be your boss. You know. You can pay them to and they will give you a recommendation for a job you never had. You can get the sounds of

airplanes taking off, you can. I mean, there's so much opportunity for deception. There is so much opportunity for deception. There's not much opportunity to get caught. But that's why I think we're talking about it more. But I think that you know, if George Santa stays in office and nothing happened to him, it's really going to be interesting to see what happens in the world because people are going to say, well, why should I bother telling the truth?

If this guy is being rewarded for lyne we know he's making shit up and yet and my counterpoint to that is going to be because most of us are wired to tell the truth? Are we? I believe? So it's the red light you said, if if we don't follow these rules on red lights and honesty creates tighter social bonds, which is still the name of the game. Okay, but do you think I used to think about this a lot the Holocaust, World War Two, people had to lie to save their lives, Stissy did so. Is everybody

capable of that? Are there some people who are? Not? Everybody's capable of it? To a point, I think some people though they maintaining the lie would become too much of a mental stretch for that to sur They needed to to survive. Not everyone was able to do then survived, right, So I think that under survival circumstances, human beings can do things right. But in general people prefer or the truth because they don't have that commander like capacity to

compartmentalize and keep it all straight. Well, it's just it's easier to tell the truth. It is easier to tell the truth. It is, but there's consequences, and I think that's that's the other piece. Do you think after the experience you've been through, and even some dating experiences you said that you went through years later and still were deceived, and everything you've learned about lying, do you feel that the only way forward is that everyone just has to

keep their guard up all the time. You know, I say this all the time, Reagan, trust, verify, right, trust but verify, and I go trust but verify, but still don't trust. I don't know how I could be involved with somebody very seriously without really checking into their past and really like, you know, hiring a private eye. And I say that half facetiously, but really have not. I don't know that I could. I don't know that I could,

and I don't know if that's so bad. I don't even know if I want to be involved with anybody seriously. I feel like, God, what an emotional, exhausting experience, mostly exhausting experience that would be to go through somebody's Michigans. And I don't know. Do you trust other people in your life? Oh? Well, who? Friends? Yes, family members? Yeah, okay.

But it's very different when there's romance involved. It's very different when there's love involved, very different when there's hormones involved. It's very different when there's DNA involved. It's very different when there's you know, there's so much there. It's different from a friendship. It is different. I have a lot of really good friends, and I take those relationships seriously.

But you know, I don't have to live with them, right, And have you had the experience with being significantly lied to in anything outside of an intimate relationship? I have, And it's very easy to say, you're nuts, I'm out of here. Okay. So it's a different buy in. It's a different buy in. It's a different buy in. Your I got no reason, you know. Yeah, And I tell folks your stories that my stories, that your relationship with trust will change. That's exactly right. And I think I

said this earlier. I don't necessarily need to know everything, Like, I don't need to know if it's all what it is, but I also need to know what I can accept and what untrusts I cannot accept. YEA, you know, I totally agree, and I think that it gets very, very complicated.

So now that you've done what you've done, what steps do you suggest that people could take to protect themselves from being deceived in romance if you're really serious about I don't think there's a problem in hiring somebody to check out the records, and you know, is this person lying about their income or they're lying about their position. I get a story a day, mostly women, but from men too. I didn't know they were lying about it. You know, their income, they were lying about their position,

they were lying about where they were from. They were lying with this their research that. I mean, there are websites you can do online, right, there's like what is it dark verify whatever they have to trustify Verify, what's it called. I don't know one of those things you can go online. But yeah, I would think if you need to get hard facts, you hire somebody to do it for you. I think that's smart. I think that's savvy. I think you also need to know what your tolerance

level is and what you're happy to be. You know what you're okay being misled about and what you're okay not being missing. You know. The unsophisticated version of what you're saying, if check someone out is to google them. Yeah, but I'm saying taking a step from take it from because I was seeing a guy last year and he didn't have a Google profile, and I was like, I

can't do this. I mean, and I did all the things, I got background records from whatever that website is that I can't remember, but at the end of the day, I couldn't do it. And he wouldn't quite tell me what his story was, and I thought, I can't do this. So in essence, what you're really in telling he was do some homework before, especially here, and this is in an intimate relational space. Let's expand this out. Okay, friends, what place other people you're going to run into? Would

you give the same guidance? Yes? You would? Okay, do you know that? What is it? Like? Fifty five percent of people line in the resume? Wow? Wow, they santos it. We're gonna use them as a verb. I mean, they you know, but there were people in the book that I talked about who you know they were. Let go for making things I'm making if they degrees making of all the stuff. You know, part of the problem that I have with them is that they're stupid because they

realize they can be checked. Except the complicity piece is that people don't often do they don't check right? How much can fear of consequences do you think keep a liar in line? It depends what the consequences are, because here we are looking at this country, we have had liars, and for better for worse. If you are a Democrat, you will think that Joe Biden hiding up his documents or forgetting his documents is not a big deal. If you like Trump, you're gonna say it's not a big deal.

Same thing. But if we see somebody we clearly know fabricated like at George Santos, and nothing happens to them, what is that going to do? What consequences are there? Why should anybody then tell the truth other than the hard wired other than the hard wiredness, which actually goes farther than you possibly think. In your book, you focus on the lying what happens to people, and we read it.

We understand what the motivations around lying are, but what we are often our tendency is and there's a proverb I've used on this podcast before is you know, the tale of the hunt is always told by the hunter, not the lion. You know, So, which is we're so focused on the perpetrator, on the wrong doer, right, So then we try to come up with interventions like how can we change them? How can we make people not lie? And you're saying, that's the wrong tree to bark up.

That's right, that's what you're saying to you. That's exactly what I'm saying. And that's what your book is doing, is saying, let's talk about what happens when a person is lied to. That's right. I never confronted this guy, I told you in the beginning. I didn't. I haven't seen him in twelve and I thought about it because I thought, well, it would be a good copy, you know, it could have been tier for a book. And I thought,

what's he gonna say. He's gonna say I didn't do anything wrong, or else he's gonna say I don't know why you know, or you're crazy, you're a bitch, whatever, he's gonna say, and I thought, what is the point here? So I never got a response because I didn't need that closure. It wasn't going to do anything right. And I think there's something very valid in that. And that was also something that I because everybody said, wow, you're

going to talk to him, there was no need. And that's a good place to get to because you have to realize again you're taking care of yourself. You're putting on not your own oxygen mask, but your own pandemic mask. You are protecting yourself. At the end of the day, that's who has to protect you. And that's so important. It's unsettling too because people said, I want to be taken care of. It's the child and all of us that is saying, can't someone like make it so I

don't always have to be on it. But unfortunately part of the work is to say I need to, in whatever form, need to do my due diligence, whatever that looks like. The fact is people are going to do that in different ways. But this is about you. And because you're never ever going to make a liar, stop lying. And the very last thing I would say is if anybody is asking you for money, especially someone you've never met, are you met on the internet and all of a

sudden they tell you they're your boyfriend or whatever. Don't give them any money. Seriously. Yeah, and that's something. It's sad, but it needs to be said. No, it does need to be said. And I think that when we look at the various ms out there, they do prey upon the lonely people. Lonely people and a very very human need, yes, to want to be loved, to want to be loved. That's it, Abby, Thank you so much for coming on. Just as we wrap up here, Where can people find

you and connect with your work? They can find me. They can go to my website abbe Ellen dot com. I'm on Instagram vaguely at Abbey Underscore Ellen Underscore author. You know you can buy my book on all your local wherever you buy your books. Duped, Double Lives, False Identities, and the con Men I Almost Married, And you can listen to the podcast I did based on the book called Impostors The Commander Season two and that is on Spotify.

In my first takeaway, many survivors feel foolish for getting duped, and this can happen whether it is a long term, committed relationship, or even a short term relationship that ends in a scam. None of us want to believe we fell for a con or we're taken for a ride. But there is a danger to this mindset because it can leave survivors isolated, less likely to get help, and more likely to get lost in self blame and shame.

It doesn't feel good, but seeking out help and talking it out when you are caught in a confusing place of deceit can be absolutely crucial to healing. In this next takeaway, all liars are not narcissistic, but all narcissistic people are liars. People lie for lots of different reasons, as we have learned, and even narcissistic people tell lies for a wide range of reasons. We are often wanting simple black and white tools to be able to organize the people in our lives. Sadly, lying is a little

bit too complicated to allow us to do that. Odds are that most of us don't really want people to tell us the truth about how we look in this dress, but we don't want to be lied to about big ticket issues. For our next takeaway, while Abbey raised the issue of people being complicit and how they may engage with a lie or other deceit. I take a slightly different stance. Denial often plays a role, but it is an unconscious process and it is designed to protect us

from information we don't feel able to hear. Complicity implies something more active, of being an aware player in someone else's deceit. For many survivors of toxic relationships, I don't see this complicity, but rather as a complex mix of denial, confusion, and hope to see what is happening clearly in these relationships. To be neither in denial or complicit means jumping into the unknown, and that can feel very unsettling. Sometimes we don't see things right away that may simply be self

protective at a primitive level. So in this takeaway, when Abby finally understood the depth of the lies and got confirmation, although she was elated, she also learned that there is no such thing as a clean slate. These relationships do change us. Our slates have some marks on them that just don't disappear. After someone you love and trust perpetrates repeated and elaborate lies that reflect no empathy or awareness of the pain caused by these lies, your relationship with

trust changes forever. While there is no clean slate, perhaps those marks that linger our teachers that may make us more circumspect and yeah suspicious in the future. A little suspicion can go a long way. And in our last takeaway for Abby, I ask, and she asked, why do we do what we do? Abby was surprised as she went through her process and her research on lying that people are not that self aware. Lack of self awareness is a hallmark of narcissistic personalities, but it's not just

antagonistic folks that lack self awareness. Most of us could do with a deeper dive into ourselves, and when we do this, we become clearer not only on our own motivations, but also become more aware of how our words and our actions affect other people. Self awareness connects us into our worlds more profoundly, and that not only connects us to other people, but it also allows us to keep our eyes more clear and wide open to what is happening around us, good, bad, or indifferent.