Ask the Therapist
Habitual Lying
I'm out of strength and tired of trying to aid my husband any more, after our 22 years of marriage. I'm a 42 married woman with 3 beautiful children and overall a very loving and
sensitive husband. Though our marriage has had its ups and downs with mostly financial problems over these past 22years, we both can agree that overall we have had a strong and loving relationship. However, my husband has a bad problem of lying to me over, and has done so on and off over the course of our relationship. These lies are usually about nothing in
particular, have no set pattern, and sometimes when confronted, he will continue to lie. I could spend all day telling you different examples, however as I said before there are no set patterns. When we discuss it his reply is he doesn't know why he does it and says most of the time his lie is to protect me from bad news or because he doesn't like to see me get upset. I have repetitively discussed with him that I would rather be upset with the truth, then the eventual truth plus the added anger of the lie. As you could imagine, I am now feeling lost and now can not trust a word or statement of what he says. His lies are never concerning things such as drugs, drinking, extra marital affairs, more like everyday things. So do I end the marriage based on these some what minor situations? But now I find myself questioning, his love. Can I trust his feelings he supposedly says he has. Is that all a lie, and has it been for 22 years?
The profile your husband presents is typical of someone who is passive aggressive. Their sense of self is generally driven by a very poor self-image and/or low self-esteem and they lie to "make everything alright". It's not a disorder, as such (although Passive
Aggressive Personality Disorder is being reintroduced to the diagnostic lexicon in 2006) and it generally is not an indicator of a pervasive state of mind (i.e., "it's all a lie"), as you fear regards his feelings for you.
What it is (and it is very, very prevalent in males) is a habit that was borne in adolescence and that he never let go of. This behavior is very typical of teenage boys who are trying to individuate and separate from their caregivers. What often happens is that men get stuck and never finish the individuation process, so they continue using this defense mechanism of lying in order to assert themselves without simultaneously upsetting the apple cart into and through adulthood.
So, the issues here are two...one is that it is a communication style and two is that it is driven by your husband's post-modern angst, cultural depression, shame, guilt, blah, bah, blah. All he needs to do, in the first instance, is choose not to do it and be accountable for his actions. Clearly he can do that in other areas -- money, liquor, women, etc. -- ...why not about what he was doing while you were out? Second is to work through the background.
You should both read I
DONT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT: OVERCOMING THE SECRET LEGACY OF MALE DEPRESSION
by Terrence Real
and Iron John: A Book About Men by Robert Bly
to begin.
