There are times in discussing the affair that you demand your spouse “Take a polygraph!” They may even say “I’ll take a polygraph to prove it.”
Either way, the assumption is that taking a polygraph will make a difference. In some cases, you may want it to find out what you consider to be the ‘truth’. In other cases, it’s used as a way of uncovering secrets or proving a spouse’s ‘trustworthiness’.
The polygraph is a tool. Like other tools, it’s usefulness lies in the skill of the user. In the hands of a skilled user, it can provide an objective ‘scientific’ measure of one persons bodily reactions. You can use the objective measure as a way of verifying your spouse’s reactions.
You can see whether your spouse’s breathing and heart rate increased in response to certain questions. If they feel guilt or remorse over what they did, these reactions are useful.
What you obtain is your spouse’s bodily reactions to questions, which is VERY different from any kind of objective ‘truth’. Although it doesn’t give you absolute ‘truth’ it looks scientific and is therefore deemed trustworthy.
In today’s society, you are trained to trust ‘science’, even to the point of distrusting your own experiences. You trust scientific weather forecasts, and computer models. School teaches you that scientific instruments equate with truth. You’re trained to trust ‘scientific’ data.
What if the ‘scientific’ data is wrong? What if the computer models are based on misleading information? Remember those instruments are only as good as the humans who designed them and operate them.
I have two concerns with polygraphs.
If your spouse does not have a good poker face and has not mastered psychophysiological responses, then your polygraph is useful. The challenge then is ‘what is it useful for?’
If, on the other hand, they have experience controlling their responses, are familiar with yoga, or relaxation techniques, the results aren’t useful. They have the tools to trick the system. Sites like wikihow and lifehacker can show you ways of beating a polygraph.
The polygraph measures the responses of the subject’s body. If you can can control your body’s reaction, you can ‘fool’ the polygraph. There is a reason that polygraph data is not used in court room testimonies.
When you’re dealing with a hardcore narcissist, you have some potential problems. They may sincerely believe that something did or didn’t happen so strongly that their bodily reactions reflect what they believe.
They believe it so strongly that their own body conforms to what they believe. So a narcissist will give you a reading, yet the reading is what ‘they’ believe more than an absolute or objective truth.
When you use a polygraph as a tool, it gives you a starting point. At best if confirms some information. Once the information is confirmed, you still have to take action on it.
In my “Trust Formula“, I address the ingredients needed in rebuilding trust, which include MORE than a read out on your spouse’s physiological state. In rebuilding your marriage you’ll need more than the read-out form a machine.
Knowing their pulse, breathing and bodily tension in response to certain questions is of limited usefulness. At first, it helps a great deal. Over time will you be running to a polygrapher every time you have a disagreement?
If you didn’t pick up on their physiological reactions when the affair started, how can you be sure to pick up on them now?
If you’re relying on a scientific tool in rebuilding trust, you need to know what you’re basing your trust on. If the trust in your marriage is based solely on the readings of a scientific instrument and a few well asked questions, it does provide a foundation, albeit a shaky one at best.
That’s why the “Trust Formula” lays out each of the four key ingredients along with ways of improving each.
Instead of relying on sweat, blood pressure, and breathing patterns, you learn other foundations for lasting trust.
Your marriage needs a solid foundation for trust to rest on. Your faith in the machine shows that you have faith. Should your faith be in the machine or in your spouse? Faith in the machine read out gives you something tangible to believe in. The tangible read out provides a false security.
The kind of trust needed in your marriage requires more than a machine read out. Take action on rebuilding the foundation of trust in your marriage. The intangibles in the “Trust Formula” eventually produces tangibles as well.
Shaky foundations make for shaky structures. The strength of the structure is only as strong as its foundation.
Best Regards,
Jeff
6 Responses
Did you write this because I asked your opinion?
David,
Thank you for writing. No, I did not write the post based on you asking my opinion. My inspiration was a podcast I listened to on the topic of polygraphs with affairs on Soundcloud. The person doing it presented polygraphs as a sure way to start building trust in your marriage after an affair.
Having spent six years working with biofeedback machines and other measures of bodily sensations, I learned their inner workings, including what they can do and can’t do. I used them in treating disorders ranging from shingles, stress, neuromusculure re-education, to emphysema.
From those experiences, I developed a skepticism toward unquestioned faith in such devices and an awareness of their limitations. We tend to trust the machines without ever asking “What does this mean?” or “What is the information actually telling me?” Polygraphs definitely tell you something, and there are times it is not the truth serum the public believes it is.
Although a polygraph can be used to “prime the pump” and get things started, it has some limitations. Both polygraphs and private investigators can be used in starting up trust again. With each, there are cautions couples need to be aware of. Those limitations, which I have shared with you, become dangerous when it is the sole foundation for trust.
Polygraphs are another tool. Each tool has its purpose, uses and limitations. Problems come when the tools are misused. The Polygraph may reveal answers you are looking for, yet after attaining the answers, then what? More is needed than just a polygraph in building up and nurturing a healthy sense of trust.
I know you can not base a long term relationship on a poly. But when details are/were being withheld, and lied about, then its a measure of whether you can start to believe what they say is true today. There is no way I will move forward until that standard is met. Once she proves she no longer lying, then one can look forwards.
David,
I understand that you need a place to start believing. A polygraph is one way of “priming the pump” to move your relationship forward. Another is using a private investigator. These ways of testing truthfulness or ‘proving’ truthfulness each have their own risk. With most people, you can have some faith in the results. My article brings up those where you can’t have faith in the results. In your situation the benefits outweigh the risks. The test and what it reveals may give you what you need to ‘meet the standard’.
There’s always a cost to each tool used, even a polygraph. Is the detail being withheld or lied about a marriage deal breaker? If yes, then you must do what you must do. If not, you can focus on finding new ways of improving trust (like those in the Trust Formula) rather than focusing on the facts concerning past deeds. That choice is never an easy one to consider.
You may need the polygraph done for your own peace of mind. Once it’s done, you will still have to consider “Now what?” in terms of what can be done to improve trust in the here and now.
Jeff
The way I look at it is, if you were given the opportunity to be honest but chose to still lie, then you owe me this one. There has to be a starting point. I believe the spouse who cheated should give whatever is asked. One already knows they have truth issues. Today when she refuses, it leads me to believe there remains facts she does not want to be known. Puts us at a stopping point. Should have been honest when the questions were asked.
David,
That helps clarify matters in terms of your motivation and the meaning attached to the polygraph. For you it was an important test of commitment. Her refusal is at the same time a rejection of finding the truth, of choosing not ‘trusting’ your judgement as a husband, a rejection of your leadership and refusal to make a commitment. Each of these alone are concerns. To recap:
-rejection/avoidance of truth
-not trusting you as her husband
-rejecting your leadership
-refusing commitment/show of good faith
It definitely stops progress toward working together in a meaningful way. Her actions show that she is wanting more talk than action.