I’ve noticed a peculiar phenomena occurring in the midst of my wife’s affair that I’m sure you all recognize; the ability to lie as easily as take a breath. I realized that she’s now bi-lingual; lying has become a second language and they unravel like an endless spool of thread. I can face her with tangible proof, evidence to counter the lies she tells and she still insists on upholding her falsehoods. Absolutely unbelievable! The only way I can wrap my mind around it is to think that when she spins these tales, she actually believes them. As if her voicing the very words creates the reality behind what she’s saying, and in the immediate moment the lie is told, she thinks she’s telling the truth. Thing is, it actually confuses me. I’m made to question reality, even in the face of the facts. Can one crazy person make another crazy? Is it contagious? Anyone have anything to add to this?

away,

"" Thing is, it actually confuses me. I’m made to question reality, even in the face of the facts. Can one crazy person make another crazy? Is it contagious?""

Your words are like the definition found under the heading of GASLIGHTING. Basically YOU are the psycho for believing this of her.

Also related to FOGBABBLE. Stupid and false loquacious meanderings that bubble and foam out of the deceitful mouths of adulterous individuals.

kirk

EDITED TO SAY: Yes, it can be very contagious if the receiver does not recognize it for what it is.

There is also a guide to fogbabble (somewhere here) that can effectively counteract the idiocy and throw it back onto the babbler.

The sudden capacity to lie that waywards acquire is really amazing. I didn't figure this out as soon as I would have liked to. In our false recovery, my WW never stopped lying to me, except when she looked me in the eyes and told me something, I believed her.

Some of them were not things that she knew were not true, but I'm sure that what she did was tell herself enough lies that made it *okay* for her to lie to me. It's all justified. Plenty of the lies were for my own good, I expect. Once they cross the threshhold, it's amazing the things they're capable of.

Waywards lie. Count on it.

Oh my WH was the poster boy. I remember I confronted him once when his "decoy" phone bill came to the house. That was the phone he used in front of me - the one that NEVER rang. I think he thought that if he paid up front by cc, he wouldn't get a bill. Surprise - a bill came to the house. Anyway, even when confronted with the bill, he lied, and lied, and lied - said he didn't know anything about it, he was being framed, he would get to the bottom of it, blah, blah, blah. He almost had me fooled except for the ONE call on it. I called the number and it was a restaurant that we called one night to see if they were open. Had that number not been on there, he may have successfully gotten away with it. Unbelievable.....

Oh yes. They lie. No, they LIE.

The language of the lie...

"We're just friends..." = LIE

"Nothing ever happened..." = LIE

"I never felt this way about/with you..." = LIE

"Too much has happened for us to ever fix this..." = LIE

"I haven't been happy for _____ years..." = LIE

"We got married too young/for the wrong reasons/too soon/before I knew who I really was/before I knew who you really were/________(fill in the blank)..." = LIE

"If you would have just _____ this wouldn't be happening..." = LIE (At least most of the time)

A wayward lies about the time they spend away from home. He/she lies about phone calls, text messages, what he/she had for lunch, what perfume or aftershave was worn that day, where he/she met the affair partner, how often they got together, how many times they "did it," where they "did it," even how they "did it."

They lie about where they are going and when they will be back. They lie about what their plans are for the weekend. They lie about where they got the new shirt/tie/sweater/earrings. They lie about why the babysitter bill is suddenly double what it was last month. They lie about ending contact. They sit face to face with a counselor and lie about ending the affair. They lie about being willing to work on the marriage...

A betrayed spouse recognizes many of these lies. We see right through the majority of them. But when the wayward spouse says any of the things I began this post with, we believe them then...

We believe they are unhappy, the issues can't be resolved and that they might really have found "the one" because we want to believe. The alternative is to believe that our spouse is evil and is hurting us on purpose...

Waywards just lie. It is what they do. They are liars. It is who they are.

Believe this...

Somewhere in their is the real person you married...

The liar is who she is right now...

It is the language of the lie...

The language of the affair...

Because the affair is a lie...

Good post Mark.

They lie because they don't want to be caught in a lie (does that make sense?)

It is easy to tell when a wayward is lying. Their lips move.

This is one reason why I encourage Betrayed Spouses to snoop for the truth as the confrontations are really worthless and futile. If you are in Plan A, you don't have to convince them and confront them over the truth all time if you snoop. You know it and so do they. No sense bashing your head against the wall of denial and likely, making yourself appear weak and desperate plus you'll give up your source of information (which is all they really care about determining anyway).

Mr. Wondering

See, this is something I've wondered about and mentioned it in my longer post. Should you call out every contact- text, email, phone call, meeting, etc. Even when you know, have proof by snooping? Do you just let it slide and ignore it? This seems like condoning the affair by not saying anything, even when you know it's continuing....

My husband didn't lie too much - he just withdrew and got quieter and more solitary. He didn't want to spend time with me or his family because that way he might have to talk and then he'd have to lie. So it was easier to just keep his mouth shut and become a distant, miserable loner.

That happened to me as well. This past July, my WH just stopped talking to me as much. He stopped spending time with me. This was such a 180 because we used to spend all of our free time together and talk about everything. When I left for work, said good bye and asked if we could do dinner together, he simply nodded his head or said, "yeah, see you later" and smiled. He just withdrew. Then, he completely abandoned me (after I caught him with OW).

I don't know what is worse...lying or not saying anything???

How does one become such an experienced liar?

The wayward has to tell themselves such a pack of lies in order to justify that first step, every lie after that is a little bit easier.

How do they stop lying? And, better yet,....how will you know the difference when they actually start telling you the truth again?

Lying is one of the more fascinating behaviors that I have studied.


There are many reasons people lie. Basics remain the same, across cultures, and across languages.

1. To get out of trouble.
2. To make oneself appear grander as a person.
3. To cover shameful behavior.
4. To cause others to perform in a way that results in gain for one's self (either legal or illegal activities).
5. To obtain goods or services in less than standard or normal routes or means (i.e., blackmarket, underground, illicit and/or legal/illegal goods or services).


Those are kind of the basics. Of course, there are many other reasons for lying.

Lying includes lies of comission and omission. Deceptive speech, which is speech that purposely misleads but does not particularly "state" something, is also a fascinating area of study. There is one poster who used to be here who was very skilled in this area, and quite populer. Doesn't post here much anymore. But when that person did post, I always found it quite interesting, because the post often said NOTHING, and many people agreed!


Yet when analyzed, that person's post would be nonsense.

There are many politicians who do this, too!



You ask why your WS lies.

Fact is, it is instictive. Children who have just begun to speak have an instinctive lying response when they know they are in trouble. They are TERRIBLE liars, but do it anyway. Researchers have looked at this, and have found children as young as 20 months old who lie. For example, they will eat something when told not to, and then lie and say they did not eat it.

There is also the issue of lying due to self-deception. Self-deception is an interesting human behavior. Initially, when self-deception is happening, the person is actually not aware of it (otherwise, they could not deceive themselves). Once the person does become aware, they begin to lie because they are aware of the betrayal of their own conscience. This results in a human reaction to find someone to blame.

That person, in the case of an affair - is the spouse. Why, of course the spouse is to blame!!!! The spouse is, is, is,,,,,let's see.....that BS was NEVER what I wanted, that's it!

That's when the marital history begins to be rewritten. That point of realization of betrayal, the WS's brain goes into this mode of finding someone blameworthy. That's when the lies start, the blaming starts, and the justifying starts.

A person doesn't do things that are so wrong without some sort of justification happening inside the mentation system. And this system is well-defined and well-organized in humans.

For a good understanding of how we ALL do this, read:

Leadership and Self-Betrayal: Getting out of the Box
by The Arbinger Institute


It will also help you a great deal on your Plan A.


SB

There is only one reason to lie and that is power. Power over your spouse, your family, your friends and ESPECIALLY your enemies.

I don't see lying as serving the singular purpose of power garnering at all.

Frequently, lying actually is part of a very interesting psychological phenomenon called self-deception. We weave a sort of circle around ourselves - we actually deceive ourselves, which is a paradox, I know.

How can one deceive oneself? After all, doesn't one know when one is lying, therefore, wouldn't that person know not to believe the lie?

Paradox.

Self-deception: the paradox is that a person can tell himself something that is completely untrue about himself, and believe it.

Self-betrayal: when the person becomes aware of the self-deception, that is, becomes aware of the truth, and continues with the charade that the lie carried out in the phase of self-deception is in fact, true. This is the point at which most bad behavior toward others begins - this is the very point at which we begin blaming others, justifying our bad choices, pointing fingers at other people for being worse than we are, lying about what we are doing, covering up what we are doing, etc.

So lying can actually not involve power at all. It can just be a cover-up for shame, or for making lousy choices, or for being so blind or lacking insight as to find oneself caught up in a self-deception.

Schoolbus,
I love all the information you just posted on the subject of lying. Did you find most of that information in that book your recommended if in Plan A?

My husband has always, ALWAYS told little 'white lies' about dumb stuff such as how much he spent on a car part (he'll tell me $50 and it was $75. What's that about???? When confronted, he tells the truth) I just happen to be the kind of person who cannot STAND a liar, and I've been honest with him about that fact. But he has always kept it up. Suddenly, his lies grew large, his heart grew small, and his plans grew private. I should have seen it coming . . . but I trusted instead. He had an EA, bordering on PA. He denies it, of course. I am learning to really dislike him.
A lot.

T2L,

I do linguistic analyses for a living, and my degrees are in human communications fields and sciences. I work in a field where I analyze language, and as part of my specialty, have studied lying behavior and body language in both spoken and written communication.

I know a little about it.

Interesting stuff. The self-deception stuff is a area of the field of philosophy that is studied by lots of folks. The book I read is titled in self-deception, but the book is more about the self-betrayal notion.

The concept of self-betrayal is one that is much more readily addressed, because it is one that we are actually aware of. The self-deception idea is so difficult, because we are not aware of self-deceptions. Self-deceptions are beliefs we hold about ourselves that are simply untrue, but we operate under the idea that they ARE true.

Let's say you believe in your heart that you are a great runner. You love to run, and always have. You run every day, and you improve your time month after month. So you enter the marathon that you have trained for, and finish second to last.

What happened?

You were not a great runner. You did not compare yourself to other benchmarks, and did not run against "great runners", only against yourself. You did not seek out information which offered you insight into what made for "great runner" status.

You operated under a self-deception that you had become a great runner. What you had become was a better runner than you were before, but not a great runner.




A similar thing happens in affairs. The self-betrayal happens when the WS begins the flirting and exploration of the OP. The WS knows this is wrong. As soon as the WS makes the decision to do the wrong thing, that betrayal of the self (this is a betrayal of doing the RIGHT THING), turns into blaming someone else. The WS begins to blame the BS. "My wife isn't so good to me. My husband doesn't listen to me. The marriage hasn't been good for a long time. He never loved me. I love him, but I haven't been in love for a long time." The self-betrayal results in blaming other people, and the forcing of blame for problems and choices onto other people.

When the choices really belong with ourselves.


That's what the book I talked about explains. The book lays out the concepts in a story that is based in the workplace, but it is easily transferred to marital relationships, friendships, families, etc. And it is a very easily read book. I read it in a couple of evenings. It made me understand SO MUCH about my relationships, and even makes me laugh when I see people doing things at work.

Leadership and Self-Betrayal: Getting out of the box.
By The Arbinger Institute.



SB