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Honesty, especially rigorous honesty is a challenge to achieve. Although it is a challenge, the rewards of such honesty is well worth the effort. One of the barriers that prevents couples from obtaining the healing and recovery from an affair or sexual addiction is the reluctance to have such honesty in the relationship.
In many cases people become comfortable living a lie. They even allow their spouses to believe the same lies thinking that if they are honest with them, then their spouse will leave them. The possibility of them leaving is always a risk. If the relationship is so fragile that honesty will cause them to leave, there are even more serious problems in the relationship that need attention. When you are marreid to someone, you want them to love you for who you are, not the image you project onto the wall or onto their lives. We all need genuine companionship, genuine connection with our spouses. This is not possible if you are still living a lie.
The truth may hurt, but living a lie hurts worse than the truth. There may be peace with the lie, but at what cost? What have you sacrificed to obtain a peace based on lies?
If you want such honesty, the time to begin is now. It may start with little things, but eventually you will arrive if you continue living honestly. Living one lie, will lead to more lies and even greater lies, until you find that you have lost your own self.
Honesty is worth the effort.
Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
adultery, affairs, honesty and infidelity, infidelity, lying, Rebuilding the relationship, relationships, Sexual addictionIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
After my post yesterday on the effects of lying on children, further insights came to me. When change happens, there are the initial or primary effects and there are the secondary effects. The idea of primary and secondary effects is well established. These ideas also apply human behavior such as lying.
Some of the secondary effects are that when parents lie about their own behavior, it will continue spreading to where they lie about the behavior of others. This also includes their own children. You will often find such parents lying or distorting the facts about what their children do. This is easily seen when the child acts out. The parents report of what happened will either be distorted or lied about in order to make it more acceptable. What is saddening is that when parents develp a pattern of lying, they will find themselves doing so as ’second nature’. They will be able to do it without thinking. Lying will have become as natural as breathing. Children growing up in such a world will find that their misbehaviors are often ignored or treated as ’something they can’t help. The idea of children being held responsible for their misbehaviors is no longer the standard used in the home. In order to allow the affair to continue, people are expected to keep secrets and maintain loyalty to only certain members of their group. There will be an ‘insiders’ group and an ‘outsiders’ group. Being raised in such an environment is unhealthy for children.
If you are in such a situation, it is important to begin taking steps to undo what has been done. Start by being honest with yourself and your family. Set up some accountability. Set up consistent structures that will add stability to the family.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
adultery, affairs, Affairs and Children, effect of affairs on children, effect of lying on children, families and affairs, infidelity, lyingIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
In Italy, a judge ruled that a married woman can lie to the police about her sexual activity in order to retain her honor. It raises questions about whether or not husbands can lie about their affairs to the police as well.
affairs, Affairs in the News, cheating, honor, infidelity, Italy, lying, philanderingIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
One of the questions that arises in dealing with affairs is that of denial. I have written about whether one is dealing with denial or lying on my hub page. The aspect of denial that I will address today is how strong can denial be? There are many levels of denial. At it’s strongest, denial can distort reality. Since the person is not aware they are distorting matters, they do not consider it lying. Since affairs often involve behavior that is unacceptable to the adulterer, there may be a total denial of what occurred. In such cases, they will need to be confronted with hard evidence of their actions. Although long term psychotherapy can break through some some denial, the time required is often more that is available.
When you are dealing with denial, the adulterer may even see the hard evidence and claim that it is someone else. Since they sincerely believe that it was not them, they will be convincing. It is possible that the recent Roger Clemens story is a case of denial as well.
There are also cases where there is a partial denial. This occurs where the adulterer does not recall portions of what they did. It is as if there are portions of their memory wiped clean rather than recollection of the whole matter. There may be denial concerning the facts, their emotions or their thinking. Since many adulterers often go into a trance-like state during the affair, they often do not recall the full details of what they did and said. It may be years before they recall fully what they were a part of.
There are often tell tale signs of lying. These can include poor eye contact, avoidance of the issues, scratching or rubbing the nose. It is my assumption that you know your spouse well enough to know their unique tell tale signals. If you do not know when they are lying, then that is an area needing improvement.
To sum it up, denial can be so strong it denies reality. It can be full or partial. Denial and lying are two distinctly different things that each require a different way of dealing with them.
Best Regards,
J Murrah
affairs, cheating, denial, infidelity, lying, philandering, relationship, Understanding AffairsIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
