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My wife has agreed to a polygraph. I'd like everyone's feedback on their experiences with doing one:

Did you get the answers you were looking for?

Did it create more questions?

Issues with possible false positives or negatives?

If you got the answers you needed, did it create resentment that it took going to these lengths to get those answers?

If you had a parking lot confession, did that create resentment that it took having to schedule a polygraph to get the confession?

Did anyone's spouse react poorly after taking one?

How did you feel after getting the results, pass or fail?

Has anyone successfully reconciled after going through these lengths?

[This message edited by TrashPanda7 at 3:54 PM, Wednesday, December 24th]

TrashPanda7:

There is/are several posts in SI regarding the polygraph.

Most important is you must accept that is is not going to set your mind at ease. ??
She passes - then folks will remind you that the test is not perfectly correct all the time.

She fails - then you wonder if the fail is due to 'the 20%' -

I'm saying pass or fail - should not be the DECIDING factor in how to move forward with your relationship.

I firmly believe in how the test works (80% of the time!) but also I figured, in my situation, If I needed a polygraph to help decide whether to stay or go (marriage) was just not going to work for me.

If my trust was 'so low' that I would have her submit to a polygraph test, then "screw it" - we are getting divorced.

Also, I HATE euphemisms. One of them I hate is "Asking for a divorce." Bovine Scatology - want a divorce?
Go get a lawyer or paralegal or JUST GO TO THE COURTHOUSE and get the paperwork needed, fill it out and file.

My 1st wife got a lawyer and was floored with my reaction. OK? I'm gone. See Ya! end of story. Someone dislikes you enough to divorce - don't bother trying to swim UP a waterfall!!!!!!

In my career, I was involved in over 3,000 polygraphs.

Generally speaking, I noticed that there are trends. One thing is that there is a subset of people who can lie and completely pass. This is a small number, and in my experience we ultimately were able to pick most of them out through the use of other tools we had.

Another group was people who thought they could beat it. Some of them tried different methods, like breath control, muscle tension, etc. Most didn’t succeed, mainly because we had other information and the confrontation with it would often result in truth coming out.

A subset of people confessed openly, usually immediately prior to the test. This would be the "parking lot" or "lobby" confession.

But most people who took the test and wanted to pass were open and honest. Most were nervous, but eager to pass.

And most did pass. The failure rate wasn’t high, but there were definitely failures among our subjects.

When people failed, they usually blamed "nerves", or said things about the polygrapher being biased, or bad, or cheating.

But of the many, many tests performed, not a single person who failed ever came back to "prove" themselves honest, nor did any of them sue our entity over the results.

(I am not able to disclose the entity I speak of, sorry.)

There’s a reason this tool is used by countless government agencies and corporations. Ask her one last time just before the poly whether she has anything else to disclose. Tell her you might be willing to try and work through things if she confesses right now, but if she clearly indicates deception on the test, you are done.

Just get through this critical step and DO NOT BACK DOWN. Stop overthinking things! And I say that as one who’s been guilty of exactly that - and it only wrecks you with more anxiety and cortisol pumping through your veins.

I asked my wife to do a poly about a month after D-day. She was very against it. She said she was afraid of false positives. Turns out she was continuing to lie and was concealing periodic contact with her AP. She finally took the test after I discovered this contact on my own, and it nearly destroyed our already heavily damaged relationship.

I insisted on the test because I couldn't attempt reconciliation without knowing the scope of the treachery. I had to know if she had been lying the entire relationship, with multiple affairs, or she had trickle truthed me about this affair. I understand they are not 100%, but 80% likely to know is better than zero IMHO. I don't understand how someone could have enough trust left after being cheated on to not want something like that.

The test mostly put my mind at ease that she had at least told me everything, though sometimes doubts crop in. Like what if she were one of those really good liars? Anyway. Nothings perfect.

The test she did was a computer based test that looks at the eyes. She filled out a sexual history questionnaire, and answered questions I added at the end. The test asks about the entire document together. Took about 30 minutes. She passed. The therapist seemed surprised we hadn't talked about the consequences of a failed test. Part of my discombobulated mind after such a big betrayal i guess. I recommend deciding what you will do if she fails the test.

I can already tell that you’re going into this prepared to second guess the results. If that’s the case, then I don’t think you should bother with it.

If you’re committed to doing it, then you should be asking yourself what your next course of action should be if she passes, fails, or the results are inconclusive.

These are not the sort of decisions you can crowdsource.

Good points. Thank you

Opinions here, not facts.

1) I see no point in a poly unless a fail means D and a pass means a commitment to R that is conditioned on continued work by both partners to heal and to R. What else can a fail mean other than that your WS has failed in the primary, sine qua non aspect of remorse/contrition?

2) That means, IMO, that a poly is appropriate only when the D/R choice comes down to 2-3 questions that can be answered only by 'yes' or no'.

3) Usually BSes have too many questions to be asked in a poly, and IMO, the important questions can't be answered with a 'yes' or a 'no'.

IOW, if you need 2-3 answers that must be yes or no, and if you're willing to D your WS if she fails the poly, do the poly now. Otherwise, wait.

I believe most human beings are better lie detectors than any machine is, especially if we have time to calibrate to a person under test. My reco is to wait until you reestablish the measure of your W.

I understand your impatience. Why else do you think 'soon' is part of my ID here? It took me seconds to realize I wanted R. Waiting to find out if I could actually get R was excruciating ... on top of the excruciating pain of knowing my W betrayed me.

But the only way I could speed up my M's resolution was to choose D, and that was certainly a potential outcome of my R actions - but D was the opposite of what I wanted.

You can't expect fast, cheap, and good in a product or in a reconciliation. In fact, when it comes to R, 'good' is necessarily slow and expensive.

*****

WRT 'reestablishing the measure of your WS', my guess is: sometime between 6 months and 2 years from d-day, maybe even sooner, the vast majority of BSes will again know when their WS is truthful and when they're lying. I agree with those who trust their guts more than their brains in this.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:42 PM, Thursday, December 25th]