A few moments ago I finished reading a rant from a betrayed wife about the audacity of pathological liars. Her rant started me thinking about dealing with pathological liars.
Lying, like many habits, expands each day it remains unquestioned. The grow in size and frequency.
They start with ‘little white lies’ which remain lies, but in telling themselves that either no one was hurt or that they had good intentions, they excused it. They used a distorted view of the outcome in justifying what they did. They decided to lie in order to ‘avoid hurt’.
Although they excused the lie, those little white lies open the door to more lies.
One of the problems is that some liars believe what they tell you. They view the world in terms of what you’ve been told versus what you weren’t told.
This is very different than looking at the world in terms of what happened or didn’t happen. They don’t view the world in terms of actual facts. What matters to them is what they told you.
You could talk to your therapist about it, yet in many cases, they consider whether the liar is consistent in their story or not. Being consistent is viewed as being ‘truthful’, even if they are telling you a bald-face lie. They may even use the phrase “it’s their truth”, even though it’s a lie.
On top of that, liars don’t like when you tell them the truth. It’s as if they would prefer that you lie to them the way they lie to you. It’s at those moments they have their angriest reactions.
Years ago, I wrote a paper on “Is it lying or denial?” where I pointed how to tell which you’re dealing with. In the case of pathological lying, the habit has become dysfunctional for them.
They are continuing persisting in lying, even when there is no benefit or pay off for them doing so. At that point, the lying has grown so large, it’s taken over their lives.
What I can tell you is that being open and honest in your marriage is preferred to believing lies. The lies can get so strong it engulfs both of you.
There’s also a lack of role models in the media who don’t lie. They may be believable, but that doesn’t make them honest.
In recovering from the affair, it’s essential that the two of you are honest with each other. Honesty is one of the building blocks for trust.
Without honesty, there is little to no trust. You can choose to trust them, but that kind of trust lack a solid foundation. When there’s honesty, you have a key part of a healthy foundation for your marriage.
In my video “How Can I Trust You Again?“, I share with you ways of rebuilding trust in your marriage. You can move past the hiding and lying.
When you have honesty, you may not like what is said, but you can certainly believe it.
Order your copy of the video today and you can be working on improving your marriage relationship rather than believing a lie.
Just click and download.,
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
