I wonder when it is time to act and not be the nice one or the forgiver all the time. I have tried to be the most understanding I think anyone can be in a situation with out being a total door mat. My husband injured his shoulder christmas eve. It is believed to be a streched muscle. (For lack of a better discription) We have been surving on workmens comp as a result. Now I find out from a doctors notice he got in the mail that he has been telling me he is fine and wants to get back to work, but tells the doctor he is still having pain. This is despite the fact that he is working out at home...playing soft ball and so on. This will be the fourth MAJOR lie in our marriage of 12 years. He has never cheated on me. But he has lied on three occasions that I feel most women would have divorced him over. We have two children...I am running a rescue which is holding it's own but can not yet aford to pay me a salary. I am confused.

Malingering, eh? OK, here's the hard truth about a liar. They don't get that way overnight, and if they were born that way, you would have noticed it a long time ago. <P>Everybody has a threshhold of discomfort they will stand in order to give the naked and unvarnished truth, and they have a series of strategies designed to keep their pain level at that threshhold or below ... none of which involve telling the naked and unvarnished truth. George Washington myths nothwithstanding.<P>The threshhold may not be in the right place. Or it may be normal, but your reactions to things that he says and does may breach it in situations much "lighter" than this one. <I>Whatever</I>!<P>How <I>gentle</I> of a talk can you have with him about the fact that you're 1) broke; and 2) seeing an apparently healthy man; who is 3) telling his doctors he still has pain. <P>He may still indeed have pain that allows him to do some things but not others. What are the demands of his job in comparison to the activities he can now do? <P>Have you just had it with him (the "fourth MAJOR lie" phrase seems to suggest you have)? Why is it that the people who claim to want the truth the most are the least accepting recipients of it?<P>My suggestion would be to address the behavior and not him, and address it from the aspect of the practical need for him to get back to work <I>now</I>!, rather than from the <I>truth</I> angle. <P>There are plenty of basically good people from whose lips hard truths seldom come. They can even lie to themselves for a time, unless someone comes along and gently sets them straight. Without lovebusters, accusations, disrespect, or anything else that makes the truth anything but a friend.