SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Someone on here recently asked why it wasn't enough, after 11+ years, that my H is not cheating and has committed himself to our M and our family. My answer was that he's still dishonest.

He doesn't lie maliciously. He doesn't lie about anything related to infidelity. He lies about his feelings. He still denies it when something I've done upsets him. He still lies about little things that he's afraid will get him in trouble, like forgetting to take out the trash, as if I'm an authoritarian parent. To be clear, I don't act like that. That comes from his foo.

I've been talking a lot about trust with my IC. Specifically, why I still don't trust my H. (See above.) I have tried ignoring it. I have tried confronting him about it in a curious way, not angrily. I have told him many times that I want to know. I want him to tell me what he thinks and feels. I have even told him that I want radical honesty. He doesn't seem capable. He says he doesn't think any of it is dishonest or deceitful. My IC and I have decided there's nothing more I can do until he starts to open up.

Our MC says we're stuck in patterns established in childhood. We've been over them ad nauseum in therapy. My H seems to understand during our sessions. He can't seem to overcome them in our daily lives.

The problem for me as it relates to infidelity is that these behaviors of my H are what led to him cheating. Rather than talk to me about his negative feelings towards me and our M, he found a GF to talk to. Now, he's not talking to anyone. My other big problem with it is that honesty and authenticity in all things are important to me. Little white lies are not ok with me. That's part of who I am.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I guess I want to put it out here to see if y'all can hash it out with me.

Your H and marriage are not entitled to R. A lie is a lie. It’s one thing to lie for like a surprise party or an anniversary gift, I personally think those are ok and do lack malice. But anything else, it’s to protect the lier which means it’s covering something that would hurt you, whip does mean malicious.

I also don’t think it’s too much to ask for him to be honest about his feelings, kind of bare minimum. Post affair It’s basically necessary to even attempt R. Hiding feelings is how he was able to cheat. It allowed him to risk your family, your heart, and your actual physical health. You are not being unreasonable in excepting no more lies, and no more hidden feelings.’

Where do you want to be the outcome?

In my opinion, some things are hard wired into every human being. My husband is guilty of those little white lies to avoid conflict too. I have pressed him on them and I’ve come to the conclusion that his brain processes things very differently. He doesn’t see them as a lie. If he lies claiming he didn’t forget to take the trash out he’d say "I didn’t forget, I just haven’t done it yet". Or "I thought the trash pick up is delayed a day due to a holiday" or etc… when I continue to press him on it he will "concede" that it looks like a lie, but he technically didn’t forget yet the outcome "the trash not being out" is still the same. We’ve been to therapy. He still goes to IC. Honestly, I’ve figured what’s good for the goose is good for the gander and play his game now too. He may ask "how much did that dress cost?" I can reply "about" 250" when it was actually 300 plus tax. When pressed I say "I told you about and I wasn’t that off" 😂 "about" is subjective and everyone’s thoughts on what is "about 250" can differ. By his standards I didn’t lie. 👍🏼🤣Two separate counselors have explained that some things are just hardwired in to people and we all have different perspectives and use/understanding of the human language. He doesn’t see himself as lying and that’s not going to change. I do not like this about him, but I am sure there are many things in my character he wouldn’t choose. For me, as long as he doesn’t cross my firm boundary of further cheating or even female friends and he remains transparent with no red flags in that area I am okay. I eventually had to say to myself "this is who he is. Does the good in him outweigh the bad? Am I better off emotionally, physically, financially, and do I still want him around in my life or not?" The answer has always been yes. If that ever changes to no, I’d leave. At some point I think two people have to accept who each other are and who they are not or any relationship is doomed to fail. As long as he isn’t cheating, has learned to handle his emotions in other healthy ways, then I am happy. If I had any desire to trade him in on a "better model" (I don’t) I know that even a non former cheater would have issues that I didn’t understand or like. There is no one that I like everything about, including myself. And the things I don’t like about myself I am always working on, but internally they never go away. I have a terrible temper that I’ve learned to control (mostly), but I’d be lying if I said even under control that my brain isn’t ripping the subject of my anger apart quietly and imagining revenge antics. I am who I am. That’s not changing. I can only change my behavior. My husband changed his behavior off attention seeking and cheating. Does he still crave acceptance and admiration? Maybe. I don’t really know, but I do know that he hasn’t sought it out inappropriately and that’s good enough for me.

[This message edited by OnTheOtherSideOfHell at 8:37 PM, Thursday, January 22nd]

I want the outcome to be that he is honest and authentic. I want him to be who he is, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Otherwise, I can't make an informed decision about anything else.

He is trying to protect himself. His lies don't hurt me. His truth wouldn't hurt me, either. He's afraid his truth will hurt him.

Ontheotherside,

I thought like you before he cheated. They were silly little lies about stuff that wasn't important, until ot became important. It's not ok with me now.

As far as hardwiring, I disagree. People aren't hardwired to lie. They learn to lie to protect themselves. They learn that withholding information and covering up their mistakes isn't bad from their foo/parents. It can be unlearned.

I see your point about unlearning bad behavior. I think people can change to some degree, but a lot of it is hardwired, in my opinion. And for any change at all, the one changing has to believe he/she has a problem and want to change. Does your husband admit he has this problem? He may not agree with you on that and if so you might need to decide what that means to you now and in the future. I don’t think my husband sees himself as lying and I can’t "prove" him wrong. It’s his understanding or perspective vs mine. I don’t think he can unlearn that and I know for a fact he isn’t interested in changing that aspect of his character. And truth be told I think most people tell white lies or stretch the truth to protect themselves. When I’ve been stopped by an officer and he asks me if I know the speed limit and how fast I was going I knowingly rounded up the limit by 5 and lowered my speed by 5. When my kid asked if I enjoyed her performance that actually bored me to tears I answered "it was breathtaking. I am so happy I saw it". I just don’t see all lies as harmful. I believe it’s the material they are lying about that is unacceptable. Cheating would fall in that category. I may be the only one on this site that feels that way though. 😂

[This message edited by OnTheOtherSideOfHell at 11:49 PM, Thursday, January 22nd]

I get it. My wife has always had a complicated relationship with the truth. Usually nothing major, and I always overlooked it before, but since her affair I have a completely different view of it. We've had some talks about it and she acknowledges that she hasn't always been entirely honest with me in the past and has committed to a policy of radical honesty. She's been much, much better about it for the last several months since d day. She'll still slip here and there, but I can see the wheels spinning in her head when I ask questions, and she takes a second or 2 before replying in an effort to make sure what she's about to say is truthful and accurate. It's a pretty big change from her baseline of the last 28 years, so I appreciate that she's trying. If I catch something I call her out now, which is also a difference. She'll immediately own it, apologize, and correct whatever it might be on the spot.

But I get it. Now even the small stuff cane be a little triggery, but as long as it isn't anything major and she continues to make the effort I can live with it. She's actually been wonderful about just about everything else. I'm beginning to really think we're gonna make it.

Pogre,

My H is getting better. He will admit to things when I call him out on it. He actually admitted to behaving vengeful about something the other day. I was floored. So, I do see some progress. This has all happened in just the last year. We've been working on all of this for over 11 years now.

Ontheotherside,

I do agree that it's a matter of perspective to a degree. He knows he has a problem with talking to me about his true feelings. He wouldn't say he's dishonest, though.

I really don't lie, not even little white ones. Using your example of the child's performance, I will find something positive to say that is truthful rather than lying about how much I enjoyed it. I might say that I was glad I got to see said child in the thing.

My kids have played sports. I despise watching sports. They know this. I go to their sporting events. I tell them I was bored to tears and had no idea what was going on, and I'm glad they had fun and I got to see the goal they made or whatever.

Lies are like cockroaches… for each one you see, there are a 100 more hiding in the walls. You can just ignore them.

So no, you can’t just accept his "white lies" and dismiss his behavior as conflict avoidance. If he lies about taking out the trash because he’s afraid you’ll be angry with him, then he’s going to be dishonest about major things, too.

He is grown and he knows this is a complaint, and to me when you finally see something about yourself then you can integrate that knowledge by paying attention and making a different choice.

Nonetheless, I do deeply identify with him on this. I still catch myself making my husband an authoritarian, and I will recognize it and then realize I am being silly. But that narrative runs for a bit before I catch it. And I still can be a people pleaser, I have only really modified when it’s okay and when it’s not. And sometimes in the it’s not scenario I have to give myself a pep talk before I can say "you know what I am not doing that because I don’t want to"-which is a lot more often than I ever would have guessed when it was my standard mode of operation. I guess I am saying it takes a lot of vigilance over the idea it’s so insidiously harmful, but it was a lot easier. But even realizing that took more time than it should.

Honestly the only thing that saves me from the dishonesty part is that I have made that total commitment to no lies. But man that inclination of worrying about how he will feel, which is totally unfounded will creep in without me noticing at first. It’s very difficult for me to anticipate it, recognize it, it’s just automatic where it goes.

One day during holiday break, we were out and I realized I couldn’t make a debit purchase. And I was like what the heck? There should be plenty in here to cover that. Well, I usually deposit a check near the end of each month from his business that is basically his paycheck for the month. Most of our bills are due on the first, it was the second at this point.I just got my days mixed up and had forgotten to deposit it.

Realizing my mistake (which is really stupid we have many bank accounts and there was plenty in the one I needed to draw his salary from.) So it wasn’t like we were going to be without food or be able to pay our bills, I was just going to have to eat a 35 dollar over draft charge. And I am walking out of Lowe’s panicking because now I have to tell him. And then I stop and think wait a minute- why is this a problem? I made a mistake, it sucks, but I can fix it immediately by doing an online transfer. And he is always calm and doesn’t ever say cross things to me to me anyway. He would just say well that sucks and move on. We always roll with the punches together.

I think you understand him very well, I know you are right he should be honest.He should be able to control the lies, and if this was an earlier stage I would have you all to say he gets ten minutes to correct himself to start out and then remove that as a training wheel. But it’s been years, so I think that he has had time to get that commitment down. Why he hasn’t, maybe he will need to get to where that automatic compulsion is less intense. For me to get to the place I could lower that intensity, I had to work strongly on my shame that fueled my perfectionism to hide my inferiority complex.

I think if he follows through on therapy for him he may be able to gain enough confidence/shed enough of his shame that he ca amplify it enough when he is disappointing someone even if it’s the of the most trivial ways. And while the trivial sounds crazy, that’s exactly where it is for me too because that’s the types of battles my mom had. Generally she wasn’t actually as bad when something real was going on. That’s common in dysfunctional and chaotic home environments

For me this awareness has happened in layer after layer as I practiced (and failure has to be accepted as part of the process) I don’t know where it can end up but probably I am as close as I am going to get on it. And the automatic initial response is probably not ever going away. It’s not for lack of trying, being aware, wanting it not to go there. It’s simply the shadow of my mom following me around.

If he can get it down to no lying you may need to accept that the inclination of where that comes from may always be automatic at first. And you are absolutely right, it has nothing to do with you. I promise you if I could stay ahead of it all the time I would but it’s engrained in my nervous system somehow. I just have learned to take over the thoughts that go with it, after noticing the anxiety I am feeling. But even that took starting to feel safe in my body enough to be aware of how I am feeling.

And the other thing to expect is that anxiety he has will shift around and mess with him in other ways if he can address this. It’s like if it can’t succeed in getting you this way intensely anymore your brain will start monitoring for another danger because your body craves the feeling it is used to and its not sure what to do with the new calm. It was actually quite uncomfortable for me to be in periods of peace. And at times still is, the only difference is now I know why I am uncomfortable, I know the anxiety is going to look for another spot to land. And in that way it’s manageable, not removed.

I had to learn other coping skills to self soothe at that stage. I got a lot of those from Eckhardt Tolle’s book "the power of now". He made me very aware that what we resist persists and I now will say "it’s okay to feel anxious. This will pass" "it’s okay if I just embarrassed myself, other people will quickly forget it." "This won’t matter tomorrow, is it worth the energy I am giving it?" Or simply tuning into being safe in this exact moment, reminding myself of the present. A lot of times I feel better just after the accepting I feel anxious and it will pass.

I think he can get past the lying if he truly leans into therapy to truly try and work on himself. Or he will resist from a place of fragile ego and will convince the therapist the issue is you. I am not sure which one you can expect. I suspect you aren’t either and it’s valid. He is holding resentments, being vindictive, it would make trust be precarious even without infidelity. It’s hard to trust people pleasers once you know that’s what you have, especially when they let their mask slip and you can see the duality. And you are right to think that duality would have at least lessened over the last 11.Years

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:38 PM, Friday, January 23rd]

Men (me, some men, most men, all men?) are taught from childhood not to show emotion.

To do so is weakness. And men (me, some men, most men, all men?) believe weakness is very unattractive.

And being scared, frightened, is the most unattractive emotion. Or maybe it’s being needy.

So, men (me, some men, most men, all men?) don’t show/admit emotion because they want to get laid.

And btw, ladies, this should be the starting point for any analysis of male (me, some men, most men, all men?) behavior.

Why is he (me, some men, most men, all men?) doing/not doing that, whatever "that" is?

Because he (me, some men, most men, all men?) wants to get laid.

Do we (me, some men, most men, all men?) do a good job of maximizing the behaviors that will get us (me, some men, most men, all men?) laid?

No. We’re (ME, some men, most men, all men?) mostly idiots.

But part of the problem is that women (you, some women, most women, all women?) (naah, it’s all women) are a moving target.

You may hold your applause for these profound insights.

I have so much to say on this.

My husband is avoidant when it comes to anything he believes might remotely cause conflict with me. He is not this way with others, and is remarkably adept in handling conflicts in business.

He would not tell me anything that he thought was negative, and would not initiate any discussions regarding how he was feeling if it wasn’t anything good.

This led to decades of lies and cheating. And to a year of trickle truth after DDay in 2023. It’s exhausting and infuriating. It about made me crazy, and nearly ended the marriage. He finally confessed to everything on the day I decided to leave him because of the trickle truth. He says he did finally confess because he realized I was leaving and he had nothing left to lose. That made me angry, too.

It took another year after that confession to get him to open up and stop avoiding the conversations we needed to have in order to get me on a healing path.

I learned a lot about why he avoids. His father would criticize him horribly if he cried, or showed any emotions, calling him weak, a coward, and other names.

His parents divorced when he was about 8. His father married his affair partner. His mother had to be institutionalized because she lost control and was unable to function after DDay. He and his brother stayed with his grandparents for months while she was in treatment.

He said that the combination of all of that, he avoided anything he might do or say that involved emotions that might make him seem weak. Yet he was very vulnerable with the EA AP; he said it was like he could say anything to her, she accepted everything. At the same time, he says that he knew she wasn’t ever really listening, and in a way that made it easy to say a lot of things to her, both true and false. He said it was like he could just drone on and on, she would encourage and agree.

But OTOH, he said with me he felt like what he said MATTERED. He said this was very confusing. He wanted to be able to speak openly with me, but said the cost of the truth at this point was that his life as he knew it would end. Yet he wanted to talk…

It’s so confounding.

Basically he said there was no risk with her, he knew it wasn’t real. With me, the risk is everything.

Now that he has truly worked at this issue, he sees what he has done and why. He sees the roots of the avoidance and the outcome of avoiding.

He found a YouTube channel that has really helped him (Ask the Unfaithful), and actually began reading about this. He avoided even wanting to know his whys, instead just saying, "I am a bad person."

His shame was like clay, and he was stuck in it.

He had many behaviors you describe about your husband. It takes a lot of work to change this.

You say that your husband seems to be changing over the last year or so. Maybe it’s time to sit down, bring it up. Tell him what you told us.

Former people person.

I had a good laugh at your post because I do agree it’s usually that simple.

The only thing I can say in this instance is one would think that he would quit lying because he wants to get laid. LOL so I am not sure that as a motivator wins out every time. However I do know that the humor you imparted has some truth behind it.

The problem with male ws versus you is that they have chosen to do this outside of their relationship, another thing that’s not going to equal more sex in their primary relationship. So the have put themselves in a position that thay are now going to have to get vulnerable, introspective, and more emotionally safe and aware of themselves. And in that regard I do think (some, many) men are at a disadvantage due to this is not something the have even the remotest experience with because of the conditioning that you mentioned. They can still do it, but there are different obstacles they must work to cross.

And it’s a thing, often, not always, the male ws on here are much harder for me to give advice to because while the work is the same no matter which gender you are, but the context in which they see it is usually vastly different than a female ws. Not across the board I can think of two or three men, especially one that joined more recently who is very in tune. But it’s rare, very rare the come here ready to talk about feelings other than sad the are going to lose their wife.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:54 PM, Friday, January 23rd]

HO,

"one would think that he would quit lying because he wants to get laid"

See insight #5, above:

"Men are mostly idiots."

But imagine this question:

"Does this dress make me look fat?"

An honest answer might result in a long dry spell.

So see insight #7:

"Women are a moving target. "

FPP,

BTW, if I asked my H if something made me look fat, I would want the truth. If I look bad, tell me before I leave the house, please!

HO,

I agree that it is ingrained in his nervous system. (That's not the same as hardwired.) We all have automatic reactions. Like you said, the key is being aware and rerouting them.

My H doesn't realize he has anxiety. I think he's so used to his anxious state of being that he doesn't know it's not normal(?)/healthy.

Unfortunately, my past reactions to his lying have made the situation worse between us. I would get angry that he lied. He would interpret it as me being angry that he made a mistake, thus confirming his fears. Our MC has talked a lot about him setting up the precise situation that he was trying to avoid. The most glaring is his cheating. 🤦‍♀️

5Decades,

My H felt the same about the risks with me vs the OW. He started his relationship with her because he was avoiding the risk of conflict with me. He wasn't risking anything with her by talking to her because there was nothing to lose with her. Of course, by doing that, he created the worst conflict between us that he could have.

My H also defaults to, "I'm a bad person." It's way of shutting down the conflict, controlling it. I usually say something like, "Ok, if that's what you think. It doesn't address the problem."

I actually recently overheard him correct himself when he said he was stupid. I have been telling him for years to stop calling himself stupid, especially in front of our kids.

I can't remember if I brought this up in another thread recently.

In one of our recent MC sessions, we both said that we were guarded with each other because of past deep wounds we had inflicted on the other. I knew what my deep wound was. I had no idea what I had done to him that was so injurious. So, I asked him.

The short answer was that he thinks I'm overly critical. As we talked more, he said he feels like a failure if he makes even the smallest mistake. My response was to ask him why he would do that to himself. With all the times I fuck up, I don't feel like a failed. I don't even think in terms of failing. I told him that his mistakes don't affect his worth.

That's the opposite of the message he got as a child. He was only worthy when he did things right. Right was whatever his dad decided. He dad wouldn't tell him what was right. His dad would leave him to himself to try to figure it out. When he did the wrong thing, he was shamed.

The short answer was that he thinks I'm overly critical. As we talked more, he said he feels like a failure if he makes even the smallest mistake.

I don't know if you're overly critical or not, but the fact that you're trying to reconcile with him after cheating on you and have forgiven his myriad of lies throughout you relationship should quickly dispel that idea.

Assuming that he isn't full of shit and isn't trying blame shift-- and that's a big if-- then I think he's projecting his own negative self-talk on to you.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 7:32 PM, Friday, January 23rd]

Coco,

I was a severely abused child at the hands of my father. He was unpredictable moment to moment. He never praised that I got five A’s and one B, instead he would berate me for the B.

He beat me when I told him I got a scholarship to college. Called me a liar, didn’t believe the letter. He saw the story in the local paper and said, ‘oh look, she didn’t lie". No apology.

It was crazy-making. I never lied to him because the price was very high. Didn’t matter, because he would attack me for what the truth was, tell me that the truth was something else (something he liked better in the moment) and beat or berate me anyway. The next day, that "truth" of his would be completely different.

The truth was malleable. Whatever worked in the moment for him became the truth. My siblings would just agree with him, but I couldn’t do it. So I paid for that. My siblings had different outcomes.

Your husband sounds like one of my brothers. He would just agree, lie, move on. And the upshot was that he could never express his feelings verbally, never held hands with his wife. He built walls, and viewed lying as his main defense.

As we talked more, he said he feels like a failure if he makes even the smallest mistake.

Can't he understand that this is HIS problem, and only he can solve it?

The cure isn't for you to make sure you never say anything that can be interpreted as 'critical.' It's for him to hold himself to reasonable standards because he is as imperfect as the rest of us (perhaps a little more imperfect than may of us).

He needs to work with a good IC, I think.

I think he's projecting his own negative self-talk on to you.

Exactly. He takes any question or disagreement as a personal attack. I'm not attacking him. It's all in his head.

Can't he understand that this is HIS problem, and only he can solve it?

I think he's finally starting to understand that. We have talked many times in MC about the stories that run in his head that are probably not true.

I agree that he needs a good IC. That's the one thing I asked him to do from the beginning that he hasn't done. He says he has put in a request to start.