Like all relationship
therapists, I’ve faced the ethical dilemma of a spouse saying
“Don’t tell (my partner) this…” The client needs to vent, and have me help
keep something secret. The
something is usually socially shameful or illegal, like an
an
undisclosed prior child, an
abortion, being fired, crime,
pornography,
homosexuality, or thoughts of
or divorce.
between mates imply
lying, and range from silly to maritally toxic. The toxic ones always
indicate (a) major
(b) ignorance of effective
communication
and
(c) the secret-keeper (vs. liar)
feeling
to tell their truth.
Their anxiety can be fear of high
discomfort from guilt, shame, spousal scorn, ridicule, punishment, and
rejection; or all of these. Secondary fears can include loss of a job
(security) and/or loss of respect or trust of kids, relatives,
neighbors, and key friends.
Marital secrets and lying
are surface problems. The real problems are (a) what causes the
need for secrecy, (b) how this need is being managed, and (c) the impacts of
secrecy on personal self-respect and marital
trust and
intimacy. Typical
relationship self-help books and programs urge partners to have “open and
honest communications.” In
29 years' study, I’ve found few resources that examine what
promotes
“closed and dishonest” communications, and what to do about it.
# Status check: To make this more
relevant, learn about yourself. “On a scale of 1 (never honest) to 10
(always honest), I’d rank…
My recent honesty with my
partner as a ___.
My mate’s recent honesty with
me as a ___.
My recent honesty with
myself as a ___.
My mate’s recent self-honesty is a ___.
Answer these with True, False, or “not sure” (?):
My partner and I have no serious problems with shading or
withholding the truth from each other. (T F ?)
When either of us doubts the other’s honesty, we have an
effective way of resolving that now. (T F ?)
I feel totally safe
disclosing my most personal
feelings, dreams, fantasies, and behaviors to my partner now. I can be
exactly who I am with her/him. (T F ?)
I’m not doing anything that makes my partner fear to tell me
her or his most intimate truths. (T F ?)
Neither of us needs to deny or repress anything important at
this time; or if we do, we have an effective way of resolving that. (T F
?)
I’m comfortable (a) showing my answers here to my mate, and
(b)
asking my mate to answer these items, and discussing her/his
responses with me now. (T F ?)
I feel a mix of calm,
centered, energized, light, focused, resilient,
up,
grounded, relaxed, alert, aware, serene, purposeful, and
clear, so
is probably leading my
other
subselves. (T F ?)
Pause and notice what your
are
now, and what you feel. If you just learned
anything, can you describe it?
Perspective
All adults and kids lie
occasionally. Our lies range from "shading the truth" to protect someone's
feelings (“white lies”), to withholding information ("lying by omission"),
to intentional major deceptions. We lie with words and/or with our
faces, bodies, voice tones, and silences. We (our agitated, distrustful
subselves) also tell ourselves small to major lies, from delusions
and distortions, through denials and repressions, to hallucinations and
paranoias.
In my clinical experience
since 1981, many American adults and kids come from
childhoods. That often means we have excessive
and
which combine to promote local or chronic dishonesty with
ourselves (e.g.
and others. A common protective self-lie is “I’m not
and
I don’t lie (or "My lies don't hurt anyone.")
As anxious kids,
we adults learned to intentionally withhold, shade, or distort our truth when we
felt it wasn't safe to be honest. Our experience has taught us that if
we're completely truthful, someone will probably cause us significant pain. The
someone can be...
-
our own
who generates acid thoughts
like "You worthless, pitiful, scumbag!"
-
someone who's approval
matters, and/or...
-
someone we depend on to fill key current
From this view,
lying is not a character defect, "weakness," or a
despicable moral "failing." It's a symptom of the normal human need for
security and comfort. So if you want people (including kids) to
tell you their truth, take responsibility for making it safe enough for them
to do so. If they don't feel safe enough internally (from
self-generated shame, guilt, and fear), that's beyond your
You
can
control how you react to them.
Safe from what? From the
discomforts
of disrespectful criticism or disagreement, disdain, discount-ing,
interruption, scorn, threats, scoffs, smirks, jeers, ridicule, rejection,
labels, and the many other ways we cause ourselves and each other pain and
anxiety.
# Reality
check: think of the last person you lied to, and identify the
discomfort you wanted to avoid ["If I had told the truth, then... (what
bad thing might have happened?)"]. Now recall the last person who lied to you,
including a child: what discomfort did they (probably) fear? Do you respect
their right to protect themselves from pain as much as
your right?
Protecting
another from "hurt feelings" (discomfort) can be caring and/or self-serving. Do you agree? If
you tell the truth and see that it hurts your listener, I doubt
that your Inner Critic praises you as a wonderful person.
Protecting others from honesty's hurt or fear is often self-serving: it
helps us avoid guilt, shame, anxiety, and remorse!
is hindering someone from facing a self-harmful condition
like addiction, self-neglect, or a disabled true Self, by not confronting
them respectfully. The line between short-term compassion and long-term
enabling can be hard to see. Has anyone ever impeded your growth by
withholding some important feedback about you?
A related problem
happens to kids raised by caregivers that model, condone, or encourage
dishonesty - specially if they preach truth-telling and don't always do it.
Most families have local and ancestral
secrets, ranging from harmless to
toxic. How you partners handle your families' secrets can significantly
affect the emotional climate of your home and relationships by fostering
trust, pride, and security; or distrust, anxiety, doubt, and even dread.
Did
the way your ancestors handled family secrets ("We don't tell strangers
our family business!”) affect you and any siblings or cousins? If you're
choosing to pass the secrets on, what
and/or
control you?
I assume you're reading this
because you feel that you and/or your mate have a significant
dishonesty problem like one of these:
You're afraid to tell your mate something important, and feel
guilty, ashamed, and anxious about the deception; or...
You fear telling someone else the truth, because of how you
imagine that would affect your mate (e.g. significant fear, embarrassment,
guilt, anger, loss,...); or...
You're vaguely or clearly afraid to realize and act on your own
truth (denial or repression), or...
You're stressed because you feel that your mate is lying to you
and/or themselves, a child, or a relative, about something
important; or...
Your partner accuses you of lying when you're really speaking
your truth.
See if this vignette sounds
familiar...
Marital Dishonesty in Action
A 30-something stepmom told me of her
hurt and anger when her husband denied visiting the home of his former wife
and their daughter. My client had accidentally (?) seen her husband's car
outside his ex's home while taking a different route home from work.
I had been working with this
couple to help resolve a major
From that, it appeared to me that one of this stepmom’s subselves distrusted
and scorned men, or fathers of daughters. Her father was a flamboyant,
troubled professional who had admitted chemical dependence and a number of
when she was an
early teen. It seemed as an adult, she was carrying the pain, distrust, and
disparaging outrage that her mother had never fully expressed to her
unfaithful
husband before divorcing him.
"Mysteriously," the
(childless) woman married an exceptionally wounded, divorced father of a
rebellious daughter. This was the stepmom’s first marriage. She really loved
this burly, soft-spoken man, and paradoxically said she also scorned and
distrusted him. As with many co-parents, her stepfamily relationships activated opposing subselves in
her.
During their three years of
re/marriage, delicious courtship romance and idealism was replaced by her
growing resentment that her husband was still emotionally
with his
late-teen daughter, and his aggressive, hostile, derisive ex wife who worked
for him.
I felt that all three adults were survivors of low childhood
often ruled by
well-meaning
One result was that
the man felt unsafe
revealing contacts with his ex, because his wife would ridicule, blame, and
lecture him. He was intimidated by her fervor, her higher (medical-school)
education, and her superior vocabulary.
My tormented client was
unaware of lying to herself. Her subselves’ excessive shame and guilt
blocked her from accepting that she often sent her wounded husband shaming
"You’re 1-down"
He was lying to himself, too,
by denying (a) his toxic enmeshment (weak boundaries) with his daughter, and
(b)
his significant
from painful
childhood neglect. I sensed that he had never
the agonizing losses
from his father's leaving him at age four, and the unintended emotional
neglect of his
(wounded) mother before and after that.
When they divorced, his wife
didn't contest his gaining custody of their little daughter. The girl had
grown up as a surrogate companion to her father, and was used to that status
and freedom. His new wife’s need for primacy and “normalcy” forced a
and showdown.
Overwhelmed by three aggressive, antagonistic females, the tormented man
reluctantly agreed to his daughter's going to live with her (single) mother.
His new wife said "If you don't agree, I'll leave you." I believe his false
self made the decision largely from fear, not calm, balanced reasoning.
Because his wife’s
was
often disabled, the husband got confusing
from her. Both
were genuine: her
subself said "I really love
you." Her
snapped "You're a lousy husband, an
inept father, mentally ill, and a weak (inadequate) man (just as my father
was)." As in childhood, his subselves reacted protectively by (a)
(b) repressing his subselves' roiling hurt, shame, guilt, confusion, and anger; and
(c) withdrawing emotionally and physically.
That left his wife's needs for
primacy, security, and emotional communion and intimacy unfilled. That
increased her anxiety, frustration, disrespect, anger, and attempts to
change her husband. His “stubborn,” inarticulate resistance to submitting to
her 1-up
amplified her Inner Critic’s scathing
disdain.
Because he was ruled by a
false self (wounded) too, the stepmom was getting two contradictory messages
from him: "I love and choose you," and "I often need to put
my relationship with my daughter first, though it hurts you and I say I
won't."
She kept getting these
messages from his behavior despite almost manic attempts to get him
to change. This inability to change him and get her needs met "drove her
(dominant subselves)
crazy." Her
manifested as increasingly severe headaches, sleep disruptions, anger
outbursts and guilts, and stomach cramps.
When he periodically blew up
at her ("Nothing I do pleases you!”), her Inner Critic
took charge and sarcastically labeled him as defensive, over-reacting,
childish, and immature. Neither of these college-educated people knew the
seven
communication
leaving them snarled in a corrosive, escalating [ blame > defend >
counterattack and withdraw ] cycle that was corroding their re/marriage
and courtship dreams.
The surface issues here
were the husband’s denying some contacts with his ex mate, and his
preference for his daughter. His wife viewed this as intentional lying.
In case these issues apply to your “dishonesty” problem, let's look at…
The Primary Problems
The self and mutual deception in this
true story are symptoms of significant psychological
+ unmet
+
communication
+ unrealistic stepfamily expectations +
of all these.
If "dishonesty" is stressing your
primary relationship, some or all of these common real factors are probably
contributing:
Neither of you
is aware that your relationship is significantly shaped by short-sighted subselves
– specially in conflicts. Your
are controlled by
dedicated to avoiding
pain from
and
of agonizing conflict, rejection and
abandonment, the unknown, and fear of overwhelm from intense emotions. Your
wise, empathic true Selves are often
paralyzed and overwhelmed, and neither of you knows that. Added to this…
One
or both of you
that their critical or shaming
behavior causes the other
to feel too unsafe to tell the truth. If the blamer admits their critical
attitude, s/he may declare "Your irresponsibility (or something)
makes me blame you (so it's not my fault!)" Denials like
this protect your
against the familiar agony of being
inept and wrong (i.e. bad). Avoiding this pain blocks your awareness
of the real problem: a disabled true Self, and significant
Neither of
you knows how to
internal or mutual conflicts effectively. You’re each
unaware of...
Your combined ignorances leave your subselves dissatisfied (“upset”).
That causes your subselves to deny, explain, argue or fight, squabble,
and/or withdraw and avoid, rather than resolving disputes effectively as
respected colleagues.
One or both of you are
of your
(a) attitudes and
(b) inner and mutual rules
(shoulds, oughts and musts), and (c) habitual coping strategies to manage fear
of pain. You also don't know that you can help each other safely learn these
things, and how to befriend your fears and learn from them.
If either of you fear
telling the truth to your mate, you may feel increasing guilt, shame, and
resignation or resentment, as your deceptions and denials accumulate and
erode your integrity. You may also feel powerless and hopeless, discounted,
and enraged, or all of
these. And/or...
One or both of you
may withhold some truth because you feel your mate is too fragile to hear
it. This often promotes
not personal growth, and is
inherently disrespectful and distrustful. As such, your subselves’ real
motives are usually self-protection from guilt, reality, and abandonment, costumed as “kindness.”
The blaming
partner's false self (the wife, above) interprets all feedback about their behavior
as “excuses” and/or unjustified counter-blame. S/He denies,
defends ("explains"), and counterattacks, vs. asking
"How can I make it safer for
you to tell me the truth?" If s/he does ask this, the
response may be (a) biased criticism (blame) from their partner's false self,
or (b) respectful honesty, misinterpreted as disapproval or “defensiveness”
Pause and notice with interest
(a) if what you just read makes sense, and (b) what you’re (subselves are)
thinking and feeling now. Are any of these common factors promoting
significant dishonesty in your relationship? If a false self responds, expect
a skewed answer.
For options on improving the honesty between you
and your mate, see this page about ex
mates.
Note the guidebook
for Project 8:
The Remarriage Book
- master common stressors together." It integrates many articles and
resources in this Solutions series and non-profit Web site.
Pause, breathe, and recall
why you read this article. Did you get what you needed? If so, what do you
need now? If not - what
you need? Is there anyone you want to discuss these ideas with? Who's
answering these questions - your wise resident
or
+ + +
