GG, it's L-I-A-R-S. (I get mind freeze regularly on spelling that one!)

Beat-down, GG is right that once you recognize her as a habitual liar it gets easier. You don't need to knwo why, you just need to knwo that she tells stories. Konwing this makes it easier to stop listening to her. Sadly, I've watched as my stepkids have listened less and less to thier mothre, because they know what a liar she is. Sadly, they have come to these conclusions on thier own beause we have very carefully tried not to talk about her (because to talk about what is going on would be to say something that's clearly in opposition to something she has told them, so since we don't want to come right out and tell them that thier mother is a liar, we simply don't talk about her or the stuff she says)... but they are not stupid, they ahve open eyes.

Sadly, the upshot of the lying is NOT the stuff like that she is here when she's really THERE... or that she's working when she's not or she's taking a day off when she's actually AT work. These lies... it's just telling us whatever she thinks we need to hear in order to be willing to do what she wants us to do... if lying and saying she's at the office will get us to do her carpool for her, she'll lie and it doesn't much matter to her that when we show up to pick up the kids, her car is right there in the driveway... who cares if we catch her in a lie as long as we've done what she wanted us to do... isthe way she thinks.

The real danger of the lies is their skewed vision of the world. One example is in career planning. She has them convinced that she (an engineer earning nearly $100,000 a year) can barely make ends meet... and she has them convinced that being a teacher or private coach (their coaches earn $30,000 each, with ZERO benefits) would be a WONDERFUL career plan. She has them convinced somehow that engineers in her career path are lower class and everything would be so much better if she had just started out life as a teacher.

It's insidious, a brainwashing effect. They live with this as thier world view, so thier career counselors in school can show them charts and fact sheets and they will somehow think ... well, I don't know what they think... they simply don't believe it.

Not that there's anything bad or wrong about being a teacher or professional sports coach for hopefully promising kids (or kids where you can convince the parents that it's promising)... but these are children who have been brought up to believe that an income of $100K a year is not enough to make ends meet.

That's just one tangled little example.

The liars get everyone all tangled up... skew impressions and brainwash the ones who have to spend a significant amount of time with them. Spend enough time with a habitual liar and you'll start to think that EVERYONE drinks & drives... EVERYONE cheats... ALL marriages are full of arguing. THey convince you that this is simply the right way to be... and if you're not a person who regularly commits DUI, maybe you're a boring person who is no fun to hang out with. THIS is how the liars live...

Whatever is thier view of the world is the one that's right... no matter that the facts will say otherwise... no matter that a JUDGe will say otherwise... they believe it, they are convinced, and they believe that all they need to do is convince others that they're telling the truth and it will suddenly BE true.

It's not, but kids are in a vulnerable position.

But I really stopped worrying about the harmless lies a long time ago. The lie that she is too busy to pick up the kids on time. THe lie that she is at work so we need to do the carpool. The lie that she can't afford to buy socks for the kids... The lie that she's got an out of town trip for work.

The lies that HURT are the ones that she does NOT have an out of town trip (where she has left the kids home alone for the night rather than offering babysitting opportunity)... and the lies she ahs told the kids about how the world works... of course.

The rest of it... once you know that's how she is, it's REAL easy to just tune it out and not let it worry you any more. She clearly does not care that she gets caught, red-handed, in lies, REGULARLY... it doesn't matter to her... so who cares.