Catcher In The Lie

Posted by fxckfeelings on April 22, 2013

People who knowingly distort the truth seem to deserve more blame than those who truly believe what their mind makes up, but when you’re close to a liar, the issue isn’t who deserves more blame, but who is more dangerous to your welfare. Somebody who lies on purpose often does so out of a guilty conscience, while those who believe in their lies are more apt to see you as. the deceitful one who’s deserving of blame and punishment. So when lying is an issue, don’t waste time on how it makes you feel or whether the truth needs to be told. Instead, look at what happened when the liar was exposed in the past and do what’s necessary to protect yourself, even if it means leaving a liar behind, and as such, the truth unspoken.
–Dr. Lastname

My husband has a porn problem– problem because he hides it, lies about it, and blames it on others (as in, “Oh, my friend sent me some virus and that’s what opened the browser window to the helpful find-a-local-hooker site”). He also has a deadline and personal responsibility problem– lots of promises to accomplish tasks at home, precious little success. I still find benefits from being married to him. He works hard and his income is very useful. He has been sober for twenty years now, and if he is screwing around on me he is doing it discretely. He is vital to the childcare and child transportation scheme. He can be pleasant to be with and supportive, and our sex life is good. And I am 50, fat and tired and figure I would face a life of lonely celibacy without him. I can generally cope with the down side of things, but I persist in feeling angry and disappointed when he once again lets me down, and every once in awhile I find myself believing that someday he’ll change. I’m worried that I may have my thumb on the scale when I weigh the pros and cons of sticking with him. I also worry that our kids might be better off without the toxic atmosphere when I am once again disappointed. I need help finding ways to cope with the inevitability of being let down, and the serenity prayer just ain’t doing it.

It’s hard not to experience being lied to as a personal betrayal of trust, whether the liar is close to you, like a husband, or a stranger, like a politician with an unfortunately phallic last name. The reason liars can take any form, however, is that as personal as the act feels, it’s often nothing but a bad habit.

After all, nose-pickers aren’t trying to gross you out, nervous whistlers aren’t trying to annoy the shit out of you, and alcoholics aren’t getting shitfaced just to make your life more difficult. You feel like you’re in the crosshairs, but you’re just collateral damage.

If you care about the person who’s lying to you, it’s natural to want to straighten things out and restore a sense of trust. Trouble is, the more you make an issue of the problem, the more the liar feels threatened with humiliation and finds himself lying. It’s a nasty vicious circle, the same one that afflicts the three major As—alcoholics, addicts, and ADHD-types (not Assholes™, but their ability to believe in their own bullshit is a whole other issue).

Impulsive or ADD kids especially often get into the habit because they frequently fuck up without intending to and, instead of repeatedly, truthfully explaining they made a thoughtless mistake and getting an angry response, they get accustomed to saying “I don’t know” or “I didn’t do it” as an automatic reflex. Eventually, they can’t stop themselves, even when evidence of their crimes is obvious and lying will only make things worse.

So you’re absolutely right to judge your husband, not by the fact that he’s a compulsive cover-up artist, particularly when he is caught procrastinating, avoiding, or porn-gazing, but rather by how well he does as a father and family contributor. You can see that he brings many positive things to the marriage and his contribution also says positive things about his character. This ability to look at the big picture rather than being carried away by feelings of mistrust and betrayal is evidence of your own maturity and the priority you place on family stability.

You’ve already implemented the Serenity Prayer by defining what’s most important to have in a partner; putting aside your wish for him to become a totally trustworthy non-liar—that’s not going to happen—you require someone who has enough control of his lying to be a good father, do his share, and not pick up an STD, mistress, or other expensive habit (like politics).

Now that you’ve decided that he’s good enough, make his problem easier to discuss by talking about it as something this is acceptable but in need of improvement (even though your feelings aren’t accepting, talk as if they are). Let him know you think he’s a good guy who has a bad habit of doubling down on his relatively small fuck-ups by lying about them, and wouldn’t it be great if he could control this habit the way he stopped drinking. Whenever you catch him in a lie, give him a “there you go again” look, and counter that by acknowledging his truth-telling moments with a “wow, that was amazing” look. As usual, the better you stop yourself from expressing your negative feelings, the more effective you’ll be as trainer and coach.

Whether or not he can acknowledge his bad habit, and thus take the First of the Twelve Steps, you’ll have done yourself and the family a favor by defining the problem as his, not yours, and by protecting the value you place on his good contributions.

You’ll also know you’ve done your best to help him and that you can be proud of the partnership the two of you created, because in spite of his bad habits, he’s not a bad person. You can make it clear that he isn’t his habits and, if he can control them better, they won’t end up controlling your marriage.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t help feeling personally betrayed when I catch my husband in yet another lie, but I wouldn’t still be married to him if he didn’t act, in most ways, like a good, hard-working and loyal partner and father. I will remember his strengths as I try to help him improve his bad habits.”

My mother always lied about her drinking, and lied about her not drinking, and spread lies about me to my aunts and cousins whenever she felt like punishing me, which was most of the time. Still, I’ve always loved her, because she’s my mother, even if she’s a drunk and sometimes a monster. Besides, now that I’m an adult, she knows she can’t mess with me that bad anymore, so I’m not afraid of her. I’m just worried about her total inability to care for herself or my younger sister, so I’ve stayed at home and supported the two of them to make sure my mother didn’t burn down the house or forget to buy food or leave my sister home alone for three days on a bender. I wonder, though, if a professional intervention could get through my mother’s lying, push her into treatment, and allow me to leave home and get on with my life (I’ve tried so many times to get her into treatment before, but I can’t get her to cooperate). My goal is to figure out what to do with her.

Living with your nasty-drunk mom in order to protect her and your younger sister certainly reflects good values and a good heart, but maybe not a good, realistic assessment of how beneficial such a plan can actually be. The question is, will it do more good than harm after you add up the effects of your sacrifice on your mother’s problems, your sister’s safety, and your own future. Like the person above, you’re trying not to over-react to lying or punish the liar, just to do what’s best.

Your living with her may actually protect your mother from malnutrition and homelessness, but there may be other ways to protect her and your young sister that don’t require you to give up as much of your life and expose yourself to as much abuse. Sometimes people make a sacrifice because it’s the one they’re used to making and they assume there’s no other choice, but there are usually other possibilities that, though they may cause stress and change, will add up to a better compromise. Make sure you’ve checked out these other possibilities before giving up so much.

Don’t continue making yourself responsible for saving your mother from alcoholism. You were right to try hard to get her into treatment, but after she’s repeatedly shown you that she doesn’t see herself as having a problem, further efforts are far more likely to needlessly hurt you than help her. Remember, unfair as it is, treatment has no magic way of getting through to those hardcore “shut-up-and-leave-me-alone-little-man” nasty drunks.

You and your sister may well qualify for better public benefits if your mother was out of the house. While you shouldn’t kick her out to punish her, forcing her to live elsewhere might provide a more solid foundation for your sister and show her how not to let guilt interfere with self-protection and other self-responsibilities. Hopefully, it might also give your mother more incentive to stop drinking and get help. So check with a lawyer to see what the law will let you do and what your budget would look like afterward.

You should always respect your willingness to accept abuse in order to help others, but you can do a lot of harm to yourself and others if you aren’t careful about when and how you make your sacrifices. Instead of taking responsibility for things you can’t change, trying to cure your mother, and keeping your current family intact, look at the consequences of all major possibilities and add up their risks and benefits. In most cases, you will find a way to do more good for others while also honoring your responsibility to yourself.

STATEMENT:
“If feels like something terrible will happen if I’m not at home to take care of things when my mother drinks, threatens my sister, and passes out, but I can’t protect my mother from herself and I could probably do more for my sister if my mother wasn’t in the picture, so I will do whatever makes sense after I add up my resources, regardless of my fears.”