Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

I like watching Dr. Phil with my wife. We tape it on the dvr and can watch over dinner or after dinner, and it sparks all kinds of dialogue and opportunities for new understanding, or just the catty fun of picking apart the dysfunctional and hopelessly deluded guests. Two days ago there was a pathetic woman, 50, with a face lift and a boob job and a 28-year-old son and 32-year-old boyfriend, in desperate denial over the fact that like everyone else she will grow old. She is clinging to a narrow window and a shallow dim guy she can lead around by the nose, while her son agonizes about the sure hurt that is in her future. So often our grown kids can see what we are deliberately blind to. The misunderstanding on all sides can become very painful.

Yesterday's topic was lying. Lies hurt. Lies, even the little ones, accumulate in our souls and destroy trust. Because on some level deep within ourselves we know when we are being lied to, and the lies create mistrust and fear that slowly destroy our hopes. It hurts to be lied to, and to know the other person is discarding the hope and opportunity to grow and build understanding in our lives. Statistically, men lie three times more often than woman, and typically men lie out of a desire to make themselves look better and women lie most often out of a desire to spare someone hurt. But lies do more damage than good, and they last longer and burrow deeper into our hearts.

One of the guests had lied to her husband about stopping her birth control pills. She deeply wanted children and he didn't, and she had stopped taking them for a year, and told him only in the heat of an argument. He was devastated. She had concealed other things from him and made decisions behind his back, buying an expensive new car while he was out of town, a cat, an exercise machine. She lied out of a fear to negotiate and in an immature shortcut to getting what she wanted, and it ended up costing her her marriage. The couple is in counseling and trying to reconcile, but it's a tough road: it takes far longer to rebuild trust than it does to destroy it.

A man in the audience lied to get out of a date, and his grandmother sitting next to him admitted she had faked an orgasm during sex just to get it over with. Why would anyone admit that on national TV? Unfortunately Dr. Phil and the audience treated this as a laugh line, a Jay Leno moment of sophomoric tittering and self indulgence. I thought that was a terrible shame, because sexual lies are the most damaging of all. We are most vulnerable to each other in our sexuality, and the hurt of being rejected or unpleasing to someone we hunger to connect with is awful to live with. I would give anything to please my wife and be pleasing to her. It hurts to not have the opportunity to really know her, to truly grow closer. Behind every lie is a lost opportunity to build hope. A callus begins to form in a tender place, until the tenderness is lost forever.

I wish we could begin again without the damaging lies. I wish they had never happened, and we had never turned away from each other and deceived each other and not trusted the strength and worth of each other. What was once hopeful and joyous and spontaneous is now guarded and fraught with hidden difficulty and painful traps of memory and regret. We reach for each other tentatively at times, and pull back quickly and sometimes with anger and new hurt. We have to be careful and patient, and sometimes the care and patience comes off as disinterest or unwillingness. We are hedging our bets. A part of our hearts are kept hidden from the other.

I love my wife. I want her to be happy. I like her and love spending time with her. Beginning again is hard and takes a lot of faith. I wish she loved me like she used to. I wish I could rebuild my worthiness in her eyes, and I could see the admiration and desire I once found there. A part of us has grown cold and careful, and it hurts to the core to feel the difference.

The hopeful part is, when we stop lying to one another in a relationship, and turn to one another in hope and new commitment, and begin a transparent and earnest dialogue, understanding grows. Forgiveness can begin. The lies that imprisoned us lose their power, and we can begin to discover joy worth living for and love worth trusting. That is the hopeful part. I cling to that with all my heart. I love my wife. And I want to be happy too.

Blog update:

I finished the bed. It took me five hours and a couple of fairly quiet cuss sentences, but it's done and sturdy and looks just right. I had a half dozen screws left over but it's solid and holding together. Austin came home when I was nearly finished, and as I assembled the mattress slats I told her, "If you had any idea how much I hate projects like this you would have a new-found respect for how much I like you." I said this quietly and without looking up from my work, and I meant it. She seemed genuinely happy to have the bed assembled, and it looks wonderful in her room. She thanked me three times, and her tone and demeanor are noticeably warmer over the last two days. I feel she is starting to relax a little and feel more comfortable at home, more at home at home. I never felt at home growing up, and I know what a terror that can be. A lot of energy goes into hiding your fear and hurt, particularly when you go out into the world. It made me such a guarded person. I put a facade of good cheer and was voted the friendliest person in my senior class. Deep inside, I rarely trusted anyone, and the anxious, nervous, uncertain, pained heart of me poisoned every relationship and every choice I ever made. I was a refugee from the cold country of hurt, a terrible lie to bear in the center of your being.

Many of us have lived our lives that way, and hidden our secrets in a hundred ways. We dig shallow graves or build our prisons and live in them, whether drinking or acting out or flying into rage or just plain hiding and living guarded, disappointing lives. There's a new beginning awaiting us all. It starts when we stop lying and turn to someone in honest vulnerability: I need you. This is where I want to take my stand. Yesterday Marie told me that she wanted to be married to me and she couldn't be married to anyone better for her. They were the most hopeful and healing words I have ever heard. I've been off the last two days, and they've been good ones, full of quiet tenderness and little affections. She made me dinner and folded my laundry. We held each over the kitchen sink. We took a long nap with cuddling included, watched our shows and ate. We held our new granddaughter, fed her a bottle and changed her and sang her to sleep. She is so beautiful and pink and perfect. We have five amazing grandchildren, with another one on the way. I don't understand people who say, "Don't call me Grandpa." Why would anyone be afraid of something so rewarding and full of hope?

They were good days, free of anger or recrimination or loud words. If we can string enough good days together the pain of the bad ones will lose their hold, especially if we talk about them honestly and demonstrate a change of heart. I truly love her. This is where I want to be.

During the show Dr. Phil offered some tremendous, concrete, practical advice on "Changing Your Relationship with a Liar":

Remember that You Teach People How to Treat You
You’ve got to have your eyes wide open. See people for who they are, not who you want them to be. Don't teach somebody that they can get away with lying to you.

You Can’t Change What You Don’t Acknowledge
You have to be honest with yourself about whether somebody is abusing you, using you or misrepresenting things to you.

Be Real with Yourself and Your Partner
If you lie to yourself, you’re the filter. You’re the way the world gets to see you, so if you’re distorting, then you’re totally lost.

Be as Forthcoming as You Can Be Before You Enter into a Commitment
If something is not right about you — you think you’ve got a bad trait or characteristic — it’s going to come out eventually. You might as well be honest from the beginning.

Hear Your Partner
Listen to what your mate is saying. Don't hear what you want to hear.

Ask Yourself if You’re Willing to Settle for What You’re Doing Are you happy with the circumstances you're in? If not, demand the truth from others and yourself.

People in relationships that are poisoned by lies have to begin with the commitment that the lies have to stop. This means the lies they tell each other and the lies they are telling themselves. And leaving out an important part of the truth is the worst kind of lie. Secrets destroy the way water erodes a rock. With enough time there is nothing left but sand, or a hollowed-out shell that has no strength.

Love and tenderness are the most precious things. They are worth fighting for, worth preserving, and worth taking the risk of being honest and letting go of our lies. I want to do some more counseling this year. Each year my work allows six new visits, although six are probably not enough. There's a lot of ground to cover within me. I'll have to supplant them with prayer and spiritual growth, and a renewed commitment to the work of these pages. Thank you for taking today's journey with me, and supporting me along the way.