A recent comment left on the blog started me thinking about what cheaters mean when they say they are “living a lie”. What they mean about living a lie is very different from what you mean when you say “living a lie”.
Lies look very different depending on whether you are the cheater or the betrayed.
The cheater lives life with a foot in two separate worlds. They live in your marriage and in the la-la land of the affair. Each world has its own values.
Few people can handle living in both worlds effectively. Eventually they have to choose one of those worlds to live in.
From your perspective, being honest means honoring the oldest commitment first. To you that means honoring the commitment to your marriage. For the cheater, ‘being honest’ means living consistently with the most recent commitment, which is often the ‘affair relationship’.
What this means for you is that terms like ‘living a lie’ or you need to get ‘honest’ with yourself. What is rarely clarified is “which life is the truth.”
For this reason, you need to be clear on “which truth” and “which lie”. That may sound like hair-splitting.
Let me assure you, being clear on your terms can make a world of difference. Otherwise in your talks about the need to be honest, you may be very persuasive in talking your spouse into being honest, yet the relationship they are choosing to be honest about may not be the one you thought it was.
In cheater-speak, being ‘honest’ = living consistently. You need to realize this definition. Honesty for them is not about being truthful or moral, chaste, upright or committed to any kind of righteousness.
For them, it’s about seeking a consistent mindset. Even cheaters need some kind of consistency. In their mind, if they are being consistent, they are being honest.
Cheaters use a different dictionary than you do. The sooner you realize that, the better. So when you have talks about ‘commitment’, ‘honesty’, and ‘doing the right thing’, the conversation you think you are having is not the one that the cheater hears.
Although you operate with the mindset that honesty=truthfulness, they don’t. If you assume your definition of honesty is what they are using, you’re mistaken.
For this reason, using simple questions like “Which truth are you talking about?” and “Which lie are you talking about?” can save you a lot of heartache.
This is why I devoted a whole section in the “Affair Recovery Workshop” to communication games and ways of dealing with them. If you struggle making it through the games, click the link and order the workshop today. The information can save you hours of turmoil and avoid unnecessary arguments over “What is the truth?”
Best Regards,
Jeff
