White lies, omissions, major lies, bold lies – do lies affect relationships

Can lying affect your relationship negatively. Yes and definitely yes.

• You might lie on small things or big things.
• You might omit certain details deliberately and provide a partial truth which on the other side is a partial lie.
• You might say white lies to avoid hurting the other persons feelings.
• You might give vague answers or avoid answering to avoid telling the complete truth
• You might lie on the face confidently and boldly to save yourself from some fault or a mistake.

In any of these cases, you are bound to get caught at some time or the other. You might apologize for the lie and promise not to do so again. And then you might end up lying again. This becomes a behavior pattern.

What you need to know about the impact of lying and what can be done?

1. Relationship Trust get damaged or broken:

Your partner doesn’t know any more what to trust and what not to. This can cause them to be worried and feel insecure in the relationship. Your are putting your partner in a state of thoughts where they don’t know what to believe any more. This can cause them to start questioning every other important thing that you have told them, whether they were true or part true. If you had hidden something important from your partner, then they might start thinking, what more lies hidden from them and when will they come out in the open. Lying might make your partner second guess you at every step.

2. Lying hurts both the partners:

What they don’t know wont hurt them – this is a myth. Lying hurts both you and your partner. Your partner might feel devalued, unimportant and feel hurt. Your partner might feel that their trust on you and your words has been taken for granted. And even if your partner hasn’t figured out the lie, you any way know that you have lied or hidden the truth – this might make you feel guilty and that affects your openness and it can impact your relationship happiness negatively. It can impact your sense of integrity about yourself, lowering your self esteem.

3. You get stuck in a vicious cycle/maze of lies:

Once you start hiding something or lying about something you will feel the need to keep lying more and more to cover it up. And this might become a pattern of behavior. The vicious cycle keeps the lies coming and you might end up feeling trapped in it, unable to get out of it with out damaging yourself, your partner and your relationship. Some times when you tell a lie repeatedly, you might end up convincing yourself that it is the truth. Also if you are not caught telling one lie, it would encourage you to tell more lies with the confidence that you will not caught.

4. Your partner knows even if you are not caught / confronted:

Even if you are not caught lying and your partner has not confronted you about it, they will know that something is off. Unable to put a finger on it, they might become suspicious or distant, and some times even question their own worth in the relationship too.

5. It is possible to recover from the damage caused and to change your behavior pattern:

This requires fundamentally a commitment from your side to take ownership of your past lies, have a open conversation with your partner, a strong commitment to be honest with your partner in future. Rebuilding trust will be primarily your responsibility. This will also take involvement from your partner to allow trust to be rebuilt. Remember, during this process trust should not be broken with some other lies.

Talk to a Professional Relationship Counsellor, if you need support to stop the lying habit and to recover from the damages caused.