lied about illness to break up – how to confront?

mostly a gut feeling but also, why did it take him 3 weeks to tell me if this is truly the reason? Also, i did respond with my condolences as a test. he didnt respond back. not even a thank you. this is not how a sick person acts. I mainly want to respond because I dont want him to remember me as some dumb girl that believed a lie this obvious. Like i keep picturing him sitting with his friends and laughing about it and the thought of that really grinds my gears if you know what i mean. Even if he doesnt respond to me calling him out at least i will know he knows that I am not as gullible as he clearly seems to think i am.

LOL. That’s pathetic. Be grateful he showed you right up front who he really is. Laugh about it and say, NEXT!

Karma is a b**ch and will respond for you in many, many ways towards him if he lied about having cancer. People will not think what he did is funny if he brags about it. You don’t have to do a thing to bring his behavior to light. Do you think someone who would lie about having cancer has only told one lie in his life and only to you? Nope. This type of person doesn’t care who he lies to or about what. He will do himself in. Why interfere when he will destroy himself?

I’m not sure he is lying. I would say thank you and probably call him an idiot (depends on how long dating and how into him I was).

How are people supposed to act when they are sick? I have 2 very, very close friends that both have different types of cancers. Both are very different individuals and responded to the news in different ways. One shut the world out and started pushing people away so they wouldn’t see her sick. Her husband with colon cancer embraced a love everybody attitude and a live life to the fullest mentality.

I’m giving this guy the benefit of the doubt. If I’d been sick, back and forth to doctors, and then got diagnosed with cancer it might take me about 3 weeks to process and figure out what to tell the person I’m dating. I can’t even say he broke up with you as you were only together 6 weeks. If it was 6 months that’s different. But it was a month and a half!

Also, just my opinion, but you show yourself to be a stronger woman when you don’t resort to petty ways to get someone to feel shame. You can’t control other peoples actions but you can control your responses to them.

Kara, get on your white horse, leave the guy alone and find someone else. Also, next time you are not exclusive, lower your expectations and let them lead and no trips till someone is your boyfriend. You would have saved yourself a lot of over investment.

Him knowing you know will not do anything except make you look over invested and shrill. Those are not bad things, but why give him the satisfaction. Your value has nothing to do with him or his validation. Until you know that, dating will be difficult.

mama,

if you re-read my message you will see that my question wasn’t whether or not to confront him, my question was actually HOW to confront him meaning what are the best things to say to make my point. I wish nothing more then to just stop caring or thinking about this every waking minute but truth be told its been almost 2 weeks since i gave my condolences without even a thank you in response and as time passes i feel worse about it not better. i dont know how/if i will feel better about it without saying my piece out of principle more then anything.

There is nothing you can say to make him realize anything. That’s what people are trying to tell you. Anything you say to him at this point will come off as confrontational and petty and shrill (like Tallspicy said), and make you look like the smaller person. Smaller than him, even, and he lied about having cancer. Do you really want to go lower than that?

If it’s still burning you up 2 weeks after the fact, take that as a sign that you need to work on yourself. Give that energy to yourself, not to him.

lane,

i respectfully disagree with a lot of what you said. Just because you chose to engage in something that is voluntary doesnt mean that there arent certain social responsibilities that you DO owe another person even if they are a stranger. for ex. if someone has a date set up tonight and decide they no longer want to attend, a half decent person would let the other person know and dont just stand them up. the line “I don’t see a future with you, and no longer wish to date you.” is perfect and something that is 100% acceptable because it lets the other person know exactly what happened without going into too much uncomfortable detail and is much less upsetting then To write a whole novel about how he had every intention of continuing our relationship and that the only thing stopping him is this colong/gastric cancer is cruel and uncalled for. While we were seeing each other he did tell me he had stomach issues, then he deletes his dating profile, and then liked something on social media related to cancer all to support his lie to me is a malicious and intentional way of trying to hurt me more then necessary.

Why are you insistent that he is lying? It sounds like he had issues, then got diagnosed, now is dealing with the follow through. And it makes perfect sense that he wouldn’t want to drag a basic stranger into the treatment process to see him at his weakest when he’d still be in the mindset of impressing you.

Express yourself… write about your feelings, talk to a girlfriend, create art, talk to a therapist etc. There is no need to bottle up your emotions but there is a much healthier way of expressing them.

Since your not going to listen though-
Find him when he has a good moment. Stalk him until you find him at a place he frequents. Confront him angrily, emotionally, and look extremely crazy while giving him a piece of your mind. Throw a drink in his face. Do it like the movies. (*said tongue in cheek, please don’t do this)

But don’t be surprised when you get labeled as the bat sh*t crazy woman who he only went out with a few times and then couldn’t understand why he broke it off when he was dealing with cancer. You have no proof to be this angry and everything you’ve said in your latest posts seems to confirm the man may actually be processing that he has cancer and is telling the truth.

There is a much deeper issue going on with you than this guy breaking up with you, obviously, based on your reaction.

A better solution is to not get your nightie in such a knot over what someone else does that is not about you.

Your reaction is over the top. You need to examine why you’re so upset after just 6 weeks and a few dates with him and why you need so badly to prove to him you’re not gullible, not have him laughing at you behind your back, get back at him, etc.

I’m in a leadership class and we recently studied venting. Much of the research shows venting is NOT HELPFUL. Google it. Here’s part of an article in Psychology Today:

“As sensible as venting at first appears, a new study published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology suggests that people aren’t all that much like potatoes after all. Verbalizing your anger, this research shows, doesn’t dissipate it. Instead, complaining just makes us feel worse.

To figure out just how venting really affects professionals, the research team behind the new research asked 112 employees in a variety of industries to keep detailed diaries of their workdays, recording negative events that happened and rating their severity, as well as writing down their moods, how much they complained, and whether they’d exaggerated the seriousness of any negative incidents.

A clear pattern emerged — the more a person vented, the worse they felt their days had gone. Complaining also took a toll on people’s mood, and not just during the day when they engaged in it.
“They not only reported lower momentary mood and less satisfaction and pride with the work they’d been doing that same day, but they also tended to experience lower mood the next morning, measured in a separate diary entry, and lower pride in next-day accomplishments,” reports the British Psychological Society Research Digest blog write-up of the results.”

Kara, you appear to be young, and don’t have a clue how the ‘real world’ works.

There is no such rule, or law regarding “social responsibilities.” Each person gets to decide how they want to live, act, or behave when dealing with society, as long as they aren’t breaking the law (codes, statues, etc). If you think the way you want to deal with it will snap him to attention, and follow ‘your rules’ then you will be sorely let down when he blows you off or gets even meaner because you want to fight like a bear. We older ladies are trying to get you off the ledge, back you up, and try to keep you from engaging with an a-hole.

In a nutshell, he doesn’t OWE you anything. He spent some time with you, on a purely voluntary basis, as you did him; whereas either one of you are allowed to stop at any time, for any reason, with or without notice. Unfortunately there are a lot of these guys out there, so you need to get smarter on judging a man’s character before you jump head first into more shallow pools, and thicker skin if you want to survive the dating world.

I suggest reading Dr. Phil’s “Life Code, New Rules for the Real World” as it may help guide you, not only in dating but life as well. Good luck.

Whoaaaa, he spent 7 thousand dollars on you to go on a trip after knowing you a few weeks, and you’re afraid you look like the gullible one??? That’s totally crazy of him! He sounds like an unstable love bomber. Look up love bombing and avoid it like the plague in the future. Most men who do it burn bright and intensely and soon can’t follow through, leaving trash in their wake. But because it’s their issues that lead them to do it, I assure you they don’t think the same way you do and therefore don’t care about being called out. And that’s good that you cannot identify with his bad behavior, it means you’re not a total jerk.

Hell, just take your trip memories and presents and chalk this one up as a win. You went on a great vacation, got gifts, didn’t pay, didn’t sleep with him, and got rid of a pathological liar who could never be a good partner.

In terms of the venting side conversation, I agree with the other posters. Venting as a primary way to cope with stress doesn’t help because it’s a way to unload your emotions elsewhere instead of processing them. Bottling up emotions or getting defensive about having them instead of accepting them and processing them is bad. You said yourself, “i just plan to let the poison out and onto him.” Closure only comes from inside you. You can’t change him as much as he can’t change you, because no one changes unless they want to do it themselves already. I used to want to make sure everything was on a fair playing field and tell guys off for being jerks, and it never once changed anything nor made me feel better. I was stuck not fully processing emotions when I did this, and respond to you because I do not wish that for others.