How do you know when your spouse is not lying?
It had gotten to the point where Jane was struggling to believe a single word her husband said. Thinking back to before she found out about the affair, she is still horrified at how easy it was for him to lie about where she had been. Having seen how skilled a liar he is, she doubts if she could ever trust him again.
How do you know they’re not lying?
Jane had gotten to the point where she couldn’t trust her own judgment about what was fact and what was fiction. This really took a significant hit to her self-esteem, as she couldn’t tell when her husband was cheating on her. Unless she can monitor a suspicious spouse 24 hours a day, how can she know if she is being unfaithful?
Marriage is built on trust, you have to trust your spouse, just like they have to trust you. Because she trusted her reasons for being home late, Jane felt foolish that she couldn’t tell her stories for the lies they were. With the magic of hindsight, she can’t believe how she fell for her lies. But if she has no reason to doubt her spouse, then what reason would she have for not believing him?
The memory plays a lot in his mind, the betrayed and trusting wife who now feels inadequate for having placed her trust in a cheating husband. Infidelity in marriage can be a soul-destroying experience, but you can’t let it destroy you. Jane didn’t do anything wrong. No matter who you are, anyone can be fooled by a good liar, especially if you have no reason to doubt them. Let’s face it, even the combined might of the legal and intelligence communities can get it wrong.
Many people who have been hurt come to believe that there is a magic formula for detecting a lie. Once you’ve been faced with the awful realization that part of your marriage was a lie, then how can you believe your judgment anymore? When you have been hurt so much, you will remember the golden days of your marriage when there was still trust. Once you’ve gotten over the shock of the affair, you may want to start trusting your spouse again. It can happen, but it will take time, and your partner needs to be prepared to go through the process so that they earn the right for you to trust them again.
There will be times when the victim in this can’t just say I believe you, sometimes they need proof that their wayward spouse isn’t going astray again. Jane, for example, needed to know that the affair was over. She needed to know that when her husband was going to be late, she had a genuine reason. When a spouse has gone astray once, anything out of the ordinary could lead the victim to believe that she is doing it again.
Some victims have such a powerful need to prove that their partners can be trusted that they require them to take a polygraph test. If it calms your mind, then it might be worth the expense. A polygraph test is not 100% accurate. Depending on the operator you can have a success rate of 60 to 70%. Now, with those kinds of statistics, it’s possible that your spouse could be wrongfully accused. I’ve heard of some cases where having to prove her infidelity in marriage to a stranger, the cheater ended up confessing so they didn’t have to. As a note of caution, instead of reassuring him, he might end up with more doubts than before the test.
An important question for you is how much do you need to have irrefutable proof that the truth is the truth. That is something that only you can answer. But beware of getting caught up in an endless search for the truth, it could ruin your life. There has to come a point where you are ready to trust again, if you can’t, then you won’t find happiness. If you really need to be able to tell fact from fiction, there are people who offer specialized training in lie detection. Needless to say, this will be very expensive. If the results are what you need to put your mind at ease, then the companies that offer this training claim to be 97% accurate in detecting a lie.
Dr. Maureen O’Sullivan, who until her death was a psychology professor at the University of San Francisco, conducted a study on lying. She surveyed 13,000 people to find what she called magicians, or natural human lie detectors. From her studies he had discovered that wizards could almost always recognize a deception. Of those 13,000 people, she was only able to identify 31 wizards. That should tell you that detecting lies is, to say the least, challenging for the vast majority of people.
You have to be able to eliminate mistrust triggers from your life. Their marriage has been torn apart by a web of lies and deceit. To rebuild your marriage, you must first rebuild your foundation of trust, and you can only do this by building one step at a time. Unless you follow them 24/7, you will never know if your spouse is being faithful to you or not. Infidelity in marriage is a terrible thing, but more terrible is letting it eat you up so you can never enjoy a relationship again.
If your spouse behaves as a normal spouse would, committing himself to the success of your marriage, then there has to come a point where you begin to trust him.
It is understandable that the victim in this wants more from their spouse than just words. No matter how genuine the sentiment behind them, words are cheap and the hurt spouse has already fallen victim to the cheater’s words. Actions speak louder than words, and the victim needs to know that the cheater is working hard to reform, from his innermost thoughts to his daily behavior. There are certain actions that he can take. Since every relationship is different, he may need to customize them to fit his circumstances.
First, you need to define what your mistrust triggers are. Take a look at what has happened during the last week, month or whatever time. Look at what your spouse did or didn’t do that started to set off alarm bells for you. They come home late and don’t call you to let you know? Are they supposed to be at your desk all day, but you can’t get them to answer your desk phone or cell phone? On the other hand, are you the one who is usually late or do you resist answering the phone? Can you understand how these actions can start to trigger mistrust?
In a marriage they are supposed to be able to share their lives. Infidelity in marriage raises barriers between you. To lower those barriers start being more open with each other, especially if you were the cheater. Stay in touch more, if you say you’ll be somewhere at a certain time, then be there! If you can’t, let your spouse know what the difficulty is.
Why not start staying in touch throughout the day? Pick a couple times of the day when you can call and have a quick chat about how your day is going. You may even find that you enjoy doing it.
Whether you’re the victim or the cheater, pick one of those personal triggers and then work to depower that trigger. It makes sense if she discusses it with her spouse, because then they begin to work together on how to rebuild and strengthen their marriage. Let’s say, for example, that before the affair was discovered, if you asked her how her day went, she responded with a kind of prehensile growl. Instead, taking the time to tell your spouse about her day has the benefit of involving you more in her life. Once you’ve started, don’t stop, keep working until all of your triggers have been stripped of their power.
There will be some who resent having to talk to you, they will probably feel like when they had to tell their parents what they were doing and when they would be back. If that’s you, I totally understand if you feel resentful. However, get over it. As long as you are burdened by this attitude, it will severely hamper your ability to rebuild trust with your spouse.
See your new behavior as a new beginning heralding a new dawn of transparency for your marriage. Being able to open up to your spouse is a true gift of love that will help enrich your marriage. It will not be easy. Getting used to opening up can be embarrassing and you may find yourself in areas where you feel vulnerable. Look at this as a process where you can grow, where you can reach new levels of communication and intimacy with each other. Infidelity in marriage is a terrible thing. But if you don’t let it destroy you, if you stand firm in your marriage, if you work through the darkness and turn it into light, then you will have something truly precious.