I haven't posted on here for so long because things have been going so well, me and my OH sorted all of our issues out and have been happier than ever. Any problems we have had were only because of SS (well, for me anyway.) 

So SS (9) has had a habit of lying and attention seeking for years now but until recently it had improved a lot. At age 6 he told school that his dad hit him (his dad would never dream of laying a finger on him) and it caused so much trouble until he finally admitted he had made it all up. At 7/8 he then told the school that his mum hits him, the same thing happened until he eventually admitted he had lied about it. And after that he would tell white lies here and there, making up fantastical stories of things that had happened to him which we would always call out and say we know that didn't happen. It got better, until a few weeks ago he told school that 'if he died when he had covid no one would miss him' 'no one cares about him' 'no one loves him' and this infuriated me because he is the most loved and doted over child by his parents and everyone on both sides of the family. I knew he had said this for attention seeking, but had to let OH and BM deal with it how they chose, which was to give him all the attention he was trying to get from it, crying and talking to him about it all. So the school have now been giving him daily 'feelings sessions.' Which is where they take him out of class to ask how he's feeling and talk with him about it. Now I know damn well that this child sees this as an opportunity to get more attention and make more things up, which was totally confirmed to us this week when the school called again to tell us that in his 'feelings session' he told his teacher that he 'hears voices in his head' and when they asked if they have a name he said two names of the 'voices' and when asked what they do he said 'they just talk to me and tell me to do stuff.' Now let me tell you, I was SO beyond angry when I heard about this and I still am, I went ballistic and told OH he 'doesn't f****ing hear voices, he's not lonely or depressed he is an ATTENTION SEEKER!!! He has had his last lot of attention die down from what he said last week and now he's had to come up with something more extreme to get more of a reaction. BM addressed this with him and he admitted that 'he was just saying what he knew the teachers wanted to hear' and 'what the most worrying answer was to them' which to me is absolutely psychotic- why does he feel the need to do this?! And we know damn well this voices in his head thing is a total lie because he used to say this about a year ago as an excuse for not going to sleep, then told us it was all a lie, and even about 6 weeks ago out of nowhere said 'do you remember when I used to say I heard voices in my head?' And I said 'yes, of course we remember that because it was creepy as hell' and he said 'haha yeah that was never real' and that was SIX WEEKS AGO!!!! He's already a stressful child and this just seems to be getting worse, he's been told off, he's told us that he understands that lying is wrong and he can't say things like that but I just don't believe a word of it because he's said all of this before after other lies. I wouldn't put it past him to start hurting himself/faking injuries/lying more now because he can't get the attention from this anymore. I just don't know what to do, I'm only 24 and I feel like I'm wasting my life waiting on this child's behaviour to improve and a bond to form that just isn't ever going to happen. I love my OH so much, he is amazing and as I said without he problems from his son we would have no problems at all, but I can't spend my life stressing over this child anymore. Is there any way we can tackle this? What can I/we do to make sure the lying doesn't continue or get worse?! Honestly I am so angry about it all I can't even be around him at the moment.