Do you lie?
Sure you do.
Pretty much everyone will admit they are guilty of a little white lie now and then.
The type that spares someone’s feelings or the one you tell when feeling overwhelmed and really not up to going out.
And then there are the growing up lies.
The party you just have to go to or the concert your parents are never going to sanction.
There is nothing good about a lie.
And there is no rationalizing them but the examples above lean towards the explainable.
No one wants to hurt the feelings of another person if they were somehow left out of something.
And all human beings have limits where they are just too tired or emotionally spent to make something and too proud or embarrassed to say so – thus the excuse, aka, the lie. Likewise, children and adolescents are evolving through the growing pains of life. However, even in youth, these lies should be few and far between. There should be a few stories not daily, weekly or monthly lies.
But what about a real lie?
A grown-up lie?
The kind there is simply no excuse for because it doesn’t fall into any innocent category.
I know what you are thinking.
The big, big lies like having an affair.
Nope, a lie is a lie even if outside the realm of cheaters.
When you lie to someone you love regarding what made you late, where you went, what you spent and more – you are doing two things.
- You are demonstrating selfish behavior: Yes, a lie is an attempt to protect yourself at the expense of another.
- You are making the relationship unpredictable: When someone lies you never know whether you can trust them.
And yes, I have heard the excuses.
I have to lie my spouse will get mad at me for being late, for spending the money, etc.
If that is the case and you are not habitually late or an over-spender you need to rethink your relationship. You should be married to an equal, not someone who parents you. Conversely, if you never address your own bad behavior of constantly doing something which annoys your spouse and is inconsiderate and/or not self-responsible you need to take accountability rather than lie.
What does that mean? Either change the bad behavior or tell the truth.
I was chatting with one of my children recently.
He said, “Aren’t you glad I told you the truth?”
In fact, I was.
Why? Even the somewhat expected and anticipated lies of youth albeit rare can instill a sense of anxiety.
Finding out someone you love lied to you even once is enough to disrupt a relationship.
It’s enough to turn a safe relationship into an unpredictable one.
And when it continues, there is a distinct selfishness to lying to someone you care about over and over again just to get your way.
Hence, there is rationalizing our bad behavior once or twice. We are human and flawed.
There is not; however, any solid reasoning to justifying our bad behavior over and over again.
Self-accountable adults don’t say I lie to avoid an outcome.
For example, even a teenager who sneaks out to that concert should not respond they lied because their parents wouldn’t let them go. That is blaming another person for their bad behavior. Instead, they should take responsibility and say they went because they still wanted to go even after hearing no.
Every individual deserves to be in a relationship which is unselfish and predictable.
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