Is your partner keep lying to you but you don’t want to leave him/her? First, know that there’s a difference between that kind of lie which is not really a big deal, versus those really big lies that can affect your relationship and your partner is keeping them from you.
Join relationship expert Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com as they talk about what to do, if your partner lies to you repeatedly.
Cathy: “My partner keeps lying to me”, someone wrote in, “and I want to stay with him. What do I do?” Reid, what advice can we give her?
Reid: Wow. I’m Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Cathy: I’m Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: What do you think I’m going to say?
Cathy: I’d say probably say “pull the plug.”
Reid: Pull the plug. That’s right. I’m the pessimist. Get out of that relationship. My question is “Why do you want to stay with somebody who’s a liar in the relationship. If you’re like, “But Reid I really want to stay” there’s two things. One, if you’re like “But I love them” I’m going to say that well, enjoy the next six months to five years because once your love chemistry runs dry you’re going to end the relationship anyway. So just enjoy it. It’s going to end. So the other thing is, what might be happening is, their lying isn’t actually a bottom line for you. Because whatever they’re doing, those types of lies happen to be in your wiggle room space so it’s like they’re lying about …. There’s a big difference between you know, “Honey, we’re on a diet together” and half of the jar of peanut butter is gone.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: And they’re like “I didn’t eat the peanut butter.”
Cathy: It wasn’t the cat.
Reid: Yeah. There’s a difference between that kind of lie which is not really a big deal, although for some people that kind of stuff is a bottom line too, versus you know, they’ve been embezzling money from your shared account and you know, going to Vegas or something. And keeping it from you.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: So take a look there because for this person it could be like “They lie to me but I still want to be with them.” And if it’s the peanut butter kind of lie, that’s why you don’t have a problem. You’re just pissed off because they won’t tell you the truth about the peanut butter. Well, if they continue to do that you know you have a peanut butter liar on your hands. So either don’t ever buy peanut butter again, or stay with them and it’s not that big of a deal.
Cathy: Another thing you can do is look at how you’re responding if and when they do come clean. Because people do lie sometimes. They’re caught by surprise, they’re scared. People will just blurt out a lie and not mean to. But if we can make sure that if someone comes to us and comes clean that we give them space to share and encourage them to come clean as quickly as possible, that might help reverse the trend. And talking to the person about what is … how am I reacting or what is …. It’s not putting that it’s on the person that isn’t lying but identifying ways to help them feel more comfortable to tell the truth. What happened? Do they have a history with their parents just coming down on them too hard or what are they afraid of that they’re not telling you the truth? And the difficult conversation formula might be a really good way, just practicing that on little things so they have a mechanism to tell you the things that they’re afraid to tell you, might reduce that as well.
Reid: Mmhmm, and we have the difficult conversation formula, is a video that we have here or you can to to ReidAboutSex.com, type in difficult conversation formula, and there are a couple posts and some download-able PDF’s that you can use to practice.
Cathy: Yeah it’s really powerful. It’s made so many conversations that I’ve had so much easier.
Reid: Yep.
Cathy: So if you’re staying with someone because you think you don’t deserve anyone better, get some help. Realize that everybody deserves to have relationships that have a lot of integrity in them. You deserve to have wonderful relationships.
Reid: Yep. Leave your comments, let us know how it goes. Good luck.