Lying, Marriage, and Counseling

May 11

By Jay Slupesky

Liar, Liar

Recently I’ve been counseling a larger-than-usual number of couples who have issues with lying in their relationship. Yes, that’s right: husbands and wives who lie to one another! I think most people would agree that lying is a sign of dysfunction in the relationship. If you can’t be honest with your life partner, something is very wrong,

Psychologists who study dishonesty say that a person who is lying is undergoing strain just by being dishonest. This stress can usually be measured by skin and heart sensors, as in a lie detector. Besides the stress of telling the lie, it can be mentally tough to continue the deception, as sometimes more lies must be told to cover up the fact of the original lie.

So why do spouses lie to one another? I’ve noticed three reasons:

To avoid an argument. The dishonest individual is afraid to tell the truth because it is not what the other person wants to hear, and therefore, being honest could result in conflict. What is the solution to this? Learn how to communicate so that you can talk about things you disagree about without arguing. This includes being respectful of your partner’s position even if you disagree with it.
To defend against low self-esteem. In this case, the dishonest person doesn’t like himself/herself too well, and believes the partner feels the same way (Freud called this defense mechanism projection.) This is hard to accept, of course, so the lying person inflates accomplishments and denies things that would make him/her look bad. The liar wants to convince others that he/she is not so bad after all. What is the solution to this type of lying? Individual work to increase self-esteem.
To cover up cheating.This is the big one, of course. All kinds of cheating, including physical affairs, emotional affairs, and porn addictions, must be covered up. Solution? Stop cheating on your spouse.

One final thought. When a spouse gets caught lying, he/she sometimes will only confess to as little of the truth as possible, and continue lying about the rest. I see this happen over and over again in marriage counseling, and I have found that it is not a good idea. When the rest of the truth comes out at some point in the future, the damage is just as great as when the original disclosure occurred. It’s best to come clean and admit everything.

Tags: argument, cheating, emotional affair, lying, porn addiction, self-esteem

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Marriage Dynamics.

2 Responses to “Lying, Marriage, and Counseling”

Keeping Couples’ Fragment at Bay |My Pink Notes Says:
May 31st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
[...] work it out because they cannot handle the situation all by themselves. And that’s when a good marriage counselor is needed. It is not really a last resort to save the relationship but a hope to give the [...]
ML Says:
March 17th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
awesome advice, # 1 really applies to out situation, my partner lies to avoid and argument and then I become upset when I find out !

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