The worst “bad habit” in a Relationship
Today, we want to talk about lying. Lying is the most ubiquitous and pervasive bad habit that virtually every couple we have ever worked with has fallen prey to in some way shape or form. Ironically, lying is also the biggest killer of intimate relationships, bar none. How is it the case then, that something that almost everybody does in intimacy, can also be the biggest killer of intimacy? Let’s unpack this.
Lying is a part of our survival instincts. Very early on in life we learn that lying can help us get what we want, and protect us from punishment. Even toddlers lie for those very same reasons. To avoid pain and increase the likelihood of pleasure. This very same instinct stays alive and intact well into adulthood, but instead of lying about eating that 2nd piece of candy, we lie about not flirting with our co-workers or not watching pornography or not spending money on that thing we wanted but agreed with our partner we wouldn’t buy. We lie to get what we want and to avoid getting in trouble. Most of us are taught at a young age that lying is “wrong” and being honest is “right,” but in intimate relationships, our childhood lessons on morality only go so far.
When it comes to intimacy, the concept of “right and wrong” doesn’t seem to play into our propensities to lie as much as we all might like to think that it does. And this is where it gets interesting because each person has a place on the spectrum of right and wrong where self-motivation and self-preservation trump morality. And for every individual this place on the spectrum is unique, and also will change and evolve over time. For instance, not hurting your partner's feelings might be that sweet spot on the spectrum that you feel justifies a lie, and for somebody else, that sweet spot might be omitting a casual illicit sexual encounter on a work trip because their partner would just “never understand.” The most important thing to take away from this notion is to get really curious and honest with yourself about where that sweet spot on the spectrum lies (no pun intended) for you. In other words, at what point and in what situation do you justify lying to your partner because in your mind there is no other viable alternative?
The reason to understand where this sweet spot is is so that when you land on it, through self awareness, you can choose to tell the truth instead. Why? Because as we said in the beginning of this column, lying is the biggest killer of relationships bar none. We’ve said this many times before in this column but the cap on the depth of your intimacy is directly related to the level of transparency that you both bring to the relationship. The degree to which you feel you have to lie really does represent the ceiling to how deep your love, trust and connection can go. Lying builds walls between intimate partners. The need to lie speaks to the subconscious mind of the person doing the lying saying that even though they are with their partner, they are actually really still alone. Their deepest needs, desires, secrets, fantasies, shame etc., still lives in the secret attic of their own mind. And the need to keep it secret only further solidifies those feelings, giving them more and more power the longer they are kept in the dark, creating a feedback loop that further entrenches their feelings of aloneness. Additionally, lying kills relationships because anybody that you get away with lying to, on some level you lose respect for because you know that they are capable of being duped. Lastly, if you are lying to your partner, you can never fully trust them because you know that they are just as capable of lying to you right back.
There are three types of lies. Outright lies, lying by manipulation and the most universal form of lying: lying by omission. Lying by omission is the most common form of lying in intimate relationships and also creates a “death by a thousand cuts.” Everything that you feel you can’t say to your partner ends up becoming magnified over time, and through the law of confirmation bias, whatever you can’t say starts to show up over and over and over again in your experience.
The best medicine for modern relationships is to create and live by a policy that virtually any conversation can be put on the table to be discussed. Even what feels like the most trivial of things. Especially what feels like the biggest, most unsayable beasts of burden that have up until now, solely taken space in your private upper rooms. Instead, put your trust and faith in the truth. Let it be your pilot light, your north star in your intimacy. Create relationships that can withstand the difficulty of any conversation and marvel at the trust and strength that gets built as a result of this way of living and loving.
