'My life is a mess as I'm lying to my new man about who I am'

'My life is a mess as I'm lying to my new man about who I am' Agony aunt Coleen Nolan advises a reader who has fabricating her life to her new partner - and is now worried her lies have gone too far and won't ever be able to introduce him to her family and friends Dear Coleen I’ve got myself into a mess of my own making and I’m really hoping you can help. I’m a woman aged 30 and a few months ago, I connected with a lovely man online. We don’t live near each other, so most of the relationship has developed via messaging and video calls. We have met once in a hotel halfway between where we both live and had a special weekend The problem is, I’ve told him a lot of lies about myself and my background, and now things are getting serious between us, all I do is panic about it all. I didn’t take it that seriously when we first connected, so I made things up that made my life sound more interesting and glamorous than it is. It’s embarrassing and now I can’t invite him to my place or introduce him to people because my life bears no resemblance to the one I’ve told him about! I made up jobs and stories about friends and family that aren’t true. What do I do? If I admit what I’ve done, he’s going to think I’m crazy and dump me, but I can’t keep living this lie. I’m losing track of what I’ve told him, so I know I’m going to give the game away at some stage. I’ve been such an idiot. Please help. Coleen says I think honesty is the best policy. You’re right – you can’t keep holding in these lies and, the longer it goes on, the harder it’ll be to say something. The way to approach it is to explain that when you first started dating, you didn’t think you’d fall for him, so you treated it as a bit of fun and made a few things up and exaggerated other things because you thought your life seemed a bit boring. It’s a risk, but so is saying nothing and getting deeper into the relationship because he’ll start to unpick the lies himself. It’s sad that you felt you had to make things up because, if someone genuinely likes you, it shouldn’t matter what your circumstance are. Hopefully, he’ll try to understand your reasons, but he might feel that if you’ve lied about these things, what else have you lied about? It’s breaking trust right from the start. But look, these lies aren’t awful lies, and I get it because dating is hard and you might not have expected this relationship to turn into anything real. But if you end up going your separate ways, I hope you’ve learned that someone needs to love you for who you are. You will date again and meet someone else, so learn from this. You’ll never win by lying or trying to be someone you’re not. Coleen’s words of wisdom When it comes to self-care, you can hit the gym, do Pilates, eat healthily, stay hydrated, but you won’t make real progress unless you also pay attention to what’s going on in your mind and in your heart.