“Don’t you lie to me!”

When you are dealing with the cheater, have you ever remarked, “Don’t you lie to me!” Many of you probably have made that remark, or one like it. You want to know what happened and you are tired of the cheater lying to you about things.

Are you sabotaging your own marriage without realizing it?

Although that remark seems innocent enough, by the time it reaches the mind of the cheater, the message you intended is not what comes across. Since I know that much of the miscommunication that happens with couples happens in the brain, I emphasize using techniques in my approach that bypasses the noise that interferes with your communication.

You want your message to be heard. It is a simple message, yet it is not the message the cheater hears. The message the cheater hears is “LIE!” so when they are pressed for an answer, the first thing that comes to mind is to lie. Their brain latches onto the command that you gave them.

The brain focuses on the main message. It filters out all the “don’ts,” “always,” or other frilly words. It hears the main focus. This is one reason why you want to tell them, or your children (yes, this works with children and the elderly as well), what it is that you want. If you want truth, tell them that.

For this reason, you will instead want to say to them, “Tell me the truth!”

This means that many of you will need to get out of the habit of telling your spouse what you don’t want. In telling them what you don’t want, you may be sabotaging your marriage and communication without realizing it.

Statements like “Don’t sleep with that slut!” or “Don’t you dare call your lover!” are communicating some strong messages that are undermining your marriage. You may even be wrecking your home more than the “identified” homewrecker. It is easier to blame the lover for problems and identify them as the homewrecker than it is to examine HOW you are communicating with your spouse.

There is truth in the saying “If you keep doing what you have always been doing, you will keep getting what you always got!” This also applies to communication. If you keep talking to your spouse the way you have been, you are going to get the same old song and dance.

There are ways to change how you talk to your spouse. There are ways of changing the patterns in your marriage, which I go over in greater detail in the Affair Recovery Workshop.

This means that recovery from the affair is going to take more than just confessing and forgiving. If you are assuming that all it will take to fix things is for the cheater to confess and you to forgive, it will only be a matter of time before the two of you are back into the same patterns you have now.

If you ever wondered about affair relapse, the time to start reducing the risk of that is now—instead of trying to clean things up on the back end. When you change the patterns of your marriage relationship, you change the relationship itself. Breaking patterns of poor communication and dysfunctional ways of interacting with each other is what will transform your marriage, much more than new sexual positions or weekend escapes.

The day-to-day way that the two of you talk to each other and treat each other is where REAL change happens. The excitement of big event weekend retreats often wears off within days. You want lasting change. You want real change. One place to start making that change is in how you talk to each other. Start by telling them what you want, rather than what you don’t want.

Best Regards,

Jeff Murrah

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4 Responses

  1. He has me well trained. When I know he is lying, I just say to myself, “duly noted” If I even hint that I think he is lying he gets nasty. Basically I have to pretend that he is a faithful husband or I am punished with crying, yelling and threatening to kick me out of the house.

    1. Sara,

      Wow! He definitely does have you trained, albeit in a negative way. From what you said, he makes it so uncomfortable it becomes discouraging to even bring it up. The way you describe it makes it sound like a temper tantrum. The threatening to kick you out of the house almost sounds like a little boy wanting to take his toys and go home. It is good that you have picked up on knowing when he is lying, although confronting him on it is an unpleasant experience.

  2. Yes, I can tell when my husband is lying. When I point out inconsistencies, I get told that relationships are not mathematical algorithms, that I can’t logic out everything and to stop being so argumentative. It doesn’t matter that what I am being told makes absolutely no sense to anyone with any sense. Makes it hard to bring anything up because the issues never get dealt with, they just get passed off as my fault for bringing them up in the first place.

    1. Paige,

      It is good hearing from you. Being able to tell when your husband is lying puts you ahead of many wives who are still trying to figure it out. He is doing his best to discount what you bring up. He first dismisses it using references to math and logic, then proceeds trying to dismiss it with emotion-based ploys. His secondary dismissal is a variation of saying “you are just being hysterical”. With his ploys, he shuts off logic and emotion. He effectively shuts all doors of access that take him out of his comfort zone.

      Although he is avoiding emotions, what is not clear is whether he is avoiding your emotions or the emotional reactions he is experiencing.

      His claiming that what you are telling him ‘makes absolutely no sense’ is telling. He is totally avoiding logic and common sense. When he resorts to this claim, he is doing his best to dismiss what you are bringing up probably due to emotions associated with it. It is pure projection on his part. He projects onto you the very issues that he is struggling with.

      One way of dealing with this is to talk about how you feel when you are lied to or do the lying. It will be important to do this without accusing him of the same. As you begin discussing your emotional reactions, it will ‘resonate’ on a level inside of him and start opening up the door. Once the feelings are triggered, all you need to do is sit back and let them do their work. You have to discuss and let him simmer.

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