Is lying to your spouse ever okay?

Here’s the thing—on some level, lying in a relationship is normal. It may even be necessary to lie sometimes to avoid hurting your partner’s feelings. “Lying is quite common in relationships,” says Manhattan-based licensed clinical psychologist Joseph Cilona, PsyD.

What happens when you lie to your spouse?

Lying destroys trust. This point may seem moot, but trust is pivotal to all relationships. If a marriage does not have trust, it cannot function properly. When a partner lies, the spouse being lied to might feel devastated and distant. They also may start to question everything the deceiver says.

Why you shouldn’t lie to your spouse?

Lies can protect the feelings of our significant others when we know the truth will hurt them. That’s why you should never lie to your partner. If you take the honesty and sincerity out of a bond, you take away that union’s ability to flourish and evolve.

Is it time to leave my marriage?

Some of the signs that it’s time to leave a marriage can include any abuse (physical, sexual, verbal, or psychological), infidelity, when your partner continues to break trust, or when the relationship has become unhealthy. Your partner is unwilling to make changes.

What is considered lying in a relationship?

When someone lies, they are essentially putting their own self interest before those of others. Their unwillingness to make a sacrifice for the greater, long term good of a relationship is another indicator that they do not place a high value on it.

What are the rules for lying to your partner?

The obligatory rules are those you and your partner agree to abide by, such as regulations on white lies, social media habits, or interactions with exes. Discretionary rules are those for which you leave the decision to lie up to your partner. You might also agree that you and your partner don’t need to share your emotional reactions.

Is it better to lie or be lied to in a relationship?

Scores on the LIARS scale were higher than those on the reverse-LIARS gauge, meaning that people felt it was better to lie than be lied to . Moreover, people who tended to lie also felt more positively about being lied to by their partners, and men had higher scores than women.

Are men more likely to lie than women?

Moreover, people who tended to lie also felt more positively about being lied to by their partners, and men had higher scores than women. In a heterosexual relationship, then, the man appears to be more likely to be the white liar than the woman.

Does lying create boundaries in a relationship?

By lying, the theory goes, you create boundaries between yourself and your partner. Over time, those boundaries become reinforced, since once you tell a lie, you have to continue to tell others to cover up the original fib.