Working with affairs, I’ve learned many lessons about human nature. I’ve learned about lies, trust, denial, deception, sex without love, sex without responsibility, narcissism and a host of other items.
One of the insights I’ve gained is that ‘lying and hiding are two sides of the same coin’.
In each case, the purpose is deceiving. While lies are driven by a purposeful goal directed choice, hiding attempts deceiving you as well.
Instead of purposefully pointing you in the wrong direction, they hide aspects of what occurred, hoping you make wrong choices. Either way, you are making wrong choices. There are some cheaters using a combination of the two, hiding key information, while lying about the rest.
When you’re given wrong information and key facts are hidden from you, it’s only natural feeling lost and confused. Since the purpose of lies is to deceive, when you are experiencing that confusion, lies and hiding are working. You don’t know what or who to believe.
Part of the problem is that once the deception happens, it can’t be controlled. You may start not believing anything you are told. You may also start distrusting yourself.
One of the consequences of lies and hiding is that it brings distrust. Once the distrust kicks in, your relationship looses direction.
Lies/Hiding –> Distrust –> Loss of direction/purpose
Lies and hiding are a sure way to destroy relationships. They always weaken your marriage.
They always do more damage than was intended. That is because trust builds on top of trust. Trust is a foundational issue.
When lies and hiding are used in a relationship, the foundation becomes shaky. The trust on which other trust is built is now uncertain. You do not know what to believe or who to believe.
For a marriage to have purpose and direction, you need the certainty that comes with trust. Lies and hiding destroys trust, since you are no longer sure who you married or if you can believe what they tell you.
Cheaters don’t understand the damage that their lying is doing to the marriage. They assume that it is limited to the affair. The damage is not limited to just the affair. The affair is merely where all the damage showed up.
This means that repairing the damage of lies and hiding will take longer and be more extensive than just the affair. Since trust is foundational, you will need to repair the foundation FIRST, then build on top of that.
A good start on repairing that damage is the video ‘How Can I Trust You Again?”. The video guides you in understanding trust and how you can rebuild it in your marriage.
Best Regards,
Jeff
