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I’ve had a dilemma that has bothered me for a couple of weeks now, and wanted some feedback.

Since my wife’s A I have learned so much more (or maybe was forced to notice more) about her behavior patterns that I find off putting.

A couple of weeks ago I walked in when she was on the phone with her mother, and I overheard her telling her mother something that was a lie. A rather innocuous lie, no big deal, but a lie, nonetheless. She spun the story into a narrative that told part of the truth but in a way to save her from embarrassment. The parts that were a lie were effortlessly woven in to sound like a completely plausible story.

I didn’t say anything, but it triggered some feeling in me.
I know my W has felt my MIL was judgmental all her life and she always wanted her to be proud of her, so I now understand that is where her people pleasing ways began. Yet I am also of the opinion that you should be able to not have to lie to her over minor things in your 50s. Also, it disturbed me how easy it was for her to do it. I began to think back on how many times I noticed her lying to her bosses, or professors etc.

Her first instinct is to lie when faced with a problem that may lead to a confrontation or her being in trouble. So of course she would lie in the immediate aftermath of D day. She has tried to change that, and I have seen some real progress, but I guess it is hard to change life long patterns. Yet the thought occurred to me and I was disturbed by the idea of how many lies is she still holding about things which she never told the truth and will carry to her grave.

In our counseling sessions in the year after dday, our MC, in an effort to show us how our behavior patterns led to marriage problems, got her to talking about a story that she had previously told me years earlier… but this time the most important details were added that made me see things in a different light.

Before we started dating, she was involved with a real loser…the kind or POS that took her to hell and back….cheating, lying, using her for money, having other girls trying to fight her. that type of stuff.

During this time, she was in a car accident, had a fractured knee cap and shin and broke her ankle. I knew about the accident when we first started dating as she was about three years removed from it. During the MC session though she added details. Turns out the POS was the one driving. Her mother absolutely hated the guy. I mean REALLY HATED the guy….to the point of pulling a pistol on him and threatening him to get him to leave her daughter alone.
Of course my W was in LURVVEE! So she snuck and stayed with him. She was in college at the time so it was easy to hide from mom. Anyway he was high when he hit the other car. And this POS, who apparently had a warrant already, left her at the scene and told her he would go for help and come back. Of course, he didnt come back. So She acted like she was the driver and fell asleep at the wheel. The other driver was injured and unconscious so could not provide any info though they were not as severely injured as W. So she went to the hospital, lied to the police and ambulance driver and everyone else so as to not have her mother know that she was still involved with POS. TIl this day her mother still believes she fell asleep at the wheel because she was so diligent in her studies. There is no way in hell that her mother will ever hear the truth as she is still embarrassed by how stupid she was with this POS. Did I mentioned she continued to have a relationship with this POS?

Understanding this now and her behavior patterns, is it normal for me to be slightly fearful of her propensity to lie?
I am a very staunch proponent of being authentic and letting the chips fall where they may. However I understand how a person who’s whole childhood and early adult life was based on lying in order to keep people from not being mad at you, and not seeing the nasty underbelly of the parts of you that you are ashamed of.

On the other hand, I am not sure how this effects my ability to believe in R and believe in the person I am in R with.

Is some level of lying normal in all humans based on circumstances? Can you trust a person who lies, not to lie to you?

Are some lies ok? Or Am I being too rigid in my desire to see authenticity in every area?

Unless she truly addresses her lying and works to become radically honest, she will lie to you. People who lie, they lie to everyone not just select others.

This is my WH to a tee and honestly it really pisses me off. He just lies (or would lie) about anything that makes him look bad or know would cause a confrontation. Or just omits parts if stories that would do the same.

It’s been the biggest issue for us to overcome. You can see in some of my previous posts that him telling me stupid lies or omissions of truth is what has nearly broken us even more so than the A. To me when the WS can lie so easily how the hell do we know when they are telling the truth???

Whilst my WH is far from perfect he has improved a lot. He now tells me things he knows what cause us to have conflict or makes him feel uncomfortable. I was also lucky in that I didn’t seem to have the trickle truth a lot of others experience. BUT he has gone to therapy, read books, read articles from psychiatrists to get down to why he lies. He says he wants to be a better person so fingers crossed.

I hope your WS can see her issues and how they can effect you because I really do understand how triggering even the littlest of lies can be.

So your wife - She lies to her mother about things.

But do you believe she is lying to you as well?

Different relationships = different behaviors sometimes.

I just broke up with my business partner due to lying and job performance and other things. When questioned about projects, simple non-important stuff resorted to lies. We could no longer work together b/c trust was broken (and I found out the work was being done 90% by me).

People will lie to some people but not others. Just wondering if your wife lies to you as well.

This was me. The constant pattern of lies to avoid conflict, great and small, was a daily pattern in my life. I had no idea how constant and prevalent it was until I committed to not lying at all, about anything. Prior to that, I lied about things that didn't matter. I prepped lies in case things didn't go the way I planned. I lied to myself. The only way to break the habit was to break it completely, because the world looked entirely different through an uncompromising lens.

These days, I try to be absolutely honest, but it was easier when I was a SAHM and had only my personal life to consider. I struggle professionally with the fact that radical honesty is not a career builder. I don't mean serious lies (which are and should be fatal to professional credibility), but the common practice of smoothing over small hiccups with plausible excuses. In that environment, a person who discloses every mistake ends up looking incompetent and/or is treated as a liability for inclusion in sensitive issues. Spin is an important part of doing business. I'm not sure how well I would have fared with radical honesty if I had to compartmentalize between home and work.

Old timer here.

I'm sorry but the first and last rule of R Is No more lies ever of any kind. Brutal honesty is what heals a relationship a partner that is obviously lying to others is dishonoring you.
Are you calling her out on the dishonesty or just letting it roll?
I think part.of what made our R work and allowed us to heal our relationship and become better stronger People was holding each other accountable for behaviors that we deemed unacceptable. Lying was high on that list. We called each other out on the smallest dumbest of any half truth, white lie etc. Not with punity but really just saying hey that's not true and then figuring out what made us choose that path vs honesty.

So I have a different weigh in.

I am against lying in my intimate relationship with my husband. In fact we agree if one of us lies to the other it could result in divorce. And I like being completely open with him anyway, so it’s not the punitive part that keeps me in check, it’s the results of being vulnerable and experiencing the intimacy and safety it provides. Besides I have never been a liar toward him outside of the period of my affair.

I am not against telling my work I am sick once in a while when I am not.

And my relationship with my mother is very complicated. I don’t allow her to know much other than my daily activities. I still foster a relationship with her because I know she could not handle being completely cut off. Also I don’t want to have regrets.

But she has no boundaries. Most of my "lies" to her are of omission. I am not sure that’s even fair to call them lies by omission because I don’t particularly agree with her on how much of my business is her business. But if she asks a direct question that I do not want to answer, sometimes I will lie. Normally, it’s "I am not sure" or "I don’t know". I just really try and avoid making up stuff. But I do lie directly to her if needed. Why?

1. Everyone will know my business. She has no respect for confidentially. She told some very sentive info once to my sister about my daughters pregnancy that I did not want to discuss with people. My sister sent me a text then asking me questions that I felt was being used for fodder rather than true concern.

2. She won’t leave things be and worried incessantly and it is overbearing. I can’t tell her when something is going wrong or if I am doing one of the many things she doesn’t approve of because she will ask for so much information and pick through details and give me unhelpful unsolicited advice.

And I could go on. Lying is needed to keep a surface relationship with her. But I guess I justify it by it’s truly not her business. I can’t trust her to be sensitive or supportive. So I keep it very much about my flower garden, things we are doing to the house, kids accomplishments, and very little else.

She was the type of mom growing up where she read my notes to and from my classmates, regularly went through my stuff, would follow me to where I said I was going to make sure I was there. I was a strait laced kid, all A student, didn’t drink or party, held a part time job after school, etc. When I went through my divorce she called all my friends and tried to talk to them about it. She had aunts call me to try and talk me out of it. She would check my underwear to make sure there were no signs I was being sexually active. I could go on.

Now, back in my days of people pleasing, I would have told her whatever she wanted to know and just dealt with the outcome of that silently. So to me, deciding what she can know about my life comfortably and occasionally shutting down her questions with something that isn’t completely honest is the trade off. I try and still apply honesty when I can. I don’t lie randomly or invite her to know part of something without knowing the rest.

She simply has unwittingly weaponized any private info she ever has gotten about me. I don’t think it’s in purpose, it’s her very strong control issues and emotional insecurities.

Lying or keeping things from my mom is the easiest way I have been able to enforce boundaries with her because she never respects any that I am straightforward with. The only way that I could still have a relationship with her is keeping her out of things. I have done the that’s none of your business route. All she does is fills in the blanks wrong and then asks other people what they think. She also has these manipulative fits if she knows you won’t tell her the answer. It’s exhausting.

All this to say, yes it could be a problem. It also might not be. I think for sure it’s a problem if you catch her lying to you. And I 100 percent think it’s natural and normal for this to bother you. Talk to her about hearing it and tell her your concerns. This is probably the best way to gauge what’s going on.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:09 PM, Thursday, May 22nd]