Lying in relationships

[ventilator]

My wife often lies to me very easily. Especially on matters that I cant take or dont like.

I get hurt when I find out that she lied to me; especially being bought up with the beliefs that trust is important and lying can disrupt trust

But is this something that I need to work with myself? I guess it is what reality is. Being in conflict with it will cause pain no matter what the reality is or what I expect it to be. Whatever she tells me is the reality and not what I want her to tell me.

How should lying be taken?

I am asking this question more from an educational perspective than just for suggestions to solve my problem.

[Delara]

Hello ventilator;
I’ll give you an answer from the way I see it.
There really isn’t anything that can be categorized simply as honesty or a lie. Everyone sees things differently. A child lies all the time because of mixing imagination with reality! Is that a reason to be hurt by a child?
Everything including lying and honesty is relative to someone or something. There’s always a reference. For example, when one is traveling u r not moving with respect to the passenger sitting next to you but u r moving with respect to a tree outside. Likewise for humans; a thief within a gang of murderers is RELATIVELY a good person but not so good within a group of liars... What I’m trying to say is that we all have human self tailored laws in what’s right and wrong.
Now who said honesty is always good? I’ll give a scenario, imagine yourself during war and your country is killing those who belong to different nationality, religion or race.There are plenty of stories like that in history, pick up one that touches your heart. Now imagine you are hiding one of those innocent people or children in your house and a soldier came knocking on your door and asked you if you have seen that child? Would you be honest and hand over the child? How does that feel to hand over an innocent child for murdering just to be HONEST??
Let’s elaborate the drama, you decide not to hand over the child and because of ur decision, the leader decides to kill all the children in town because of not finding that particular child! How you feel now? Because of protecting one soul, maybe million souls will be killed because of what you felt is right!
Isn’t that what happened when an army of foreign slaves led by Spartacus when they were defeated in battle and the roman emperor asked them to hand over their leader! To protect their leader, they all stood up and shout “I’m Spartacus” which lead in the end to all being executed including their leader!
So what is right? to lie or not to lie?
The only ABSOLUTE truth is God/the unknown. Everything else changes…and one can never say this is truth for anything that keeps changing…
Thank you for taking the time to read my long and boring thoughts which probably complicated things more than it gave any PROPER answer
 

[Clear White Light]

The idea of truth and honesty can be philosophized in many different ways.  Delora has done a good job of pointing out some of those extreme situations that show just how delicate our idea or truth can be.  That aside, you have to examine your reasons for having a wife in the first place.  I don't think that ignoring a problem and trying to say that it is your fault for reacting to it is a healthy way of going about things.  It's "my fault" that I don't agree with murder, but that doesn't mean I would marry a serial killer..

Without a certain degree of honesty and openness, I don't see how any relationship can be functional.  Especially a relationship with someone who you are living with on a daily basis.  

We can look at pretty much any situation from the standpoint of non-duality, where all meaning begins to break down and nothing can be said definitively one way or another about...well, anything at all.  But unless we are genuinely operating on that level on a consistent basis, I don't think it is very helpful to people.  If we were truly operating on that level in the first place, these "problems" wouldn't arise.

[nearoanoke]

Hi Ventilator,

All suffering is due to the illusion of a separate self or duality.

Lying just happens or Lying is. When your wife lies, there is no "you" that is the target there. Suffering arises when you bring your illusionary self into the picture and keep repeating "She lied to ME", "She thought I am dumb" etc...

All these after-thoughts that arise after the actual reality is what make it a "good" or "bad" thing in your mind. Reality is neither good nor bad. It is neither happening against you nor happening to you. It is you.

- Near

[karl]

What would happen if she did tell you the truth?
What would'nt happen if she told you the truth?
What would happen if she carried on lying?
What wouldn't happen if she carried on lying?

[nearoanoke]

P.S. I didnt see ClearWhiteLight's post above when I posted As he tells, no matter what anyone says here, your suffering cannot be alleviated with words. You have to change from inside and not get hurt. You cant keep suffering waiting for of a future enlightenment. Some practical steps may help. But again we can keep changing the external world without dealing with the pain-point inside us and that will not solve the problem

[Shanti]

There are generally 2 reasons a person lies...
one they don't want to deal with the reaction they get when they tell the truth
or second they got into a habit of lying at a young age because they were abused verbally or physically when they told the truth. In this case, even when they can tell the truth, they chose to lie.

See where your partner fits. If it's a habit, then she is doing it becasue she cant help it. Gently letting her know it's OK to tell the truth, you wont judge.. and encouraging her to tell the truth will help her break the habit.

If it is because there will be a reaction and she does not want to deal with that, then being aware of how you react will help her get the confidence that she can tell the truth.

But it will be a process, don't expect results overnight... any habit based on fear takes a long time to break... needs a lot of loving and caring and assurance and even the slightest show of disapproval will send her back to where she started.

It can also go away with meditation and other yoga practices, but not sure if she does any spiritual practices.

PS: You have been suffering so much over the years with things your wife does that does not please you (based on your older posts). Maybe reading through the old posts and applying some of the things told to you in those posts will help you get over this suffering. Really, like people above have said, only you can relieve yourself of the suffering... it's easier to wear shoes than to carpet the world.

[Clear White Light]

quote:Originally posted by karl

What would happen if she did tell you the truth?
What would'nt happen if she told you the truth?
What would happen if she carried on lying?
What wouldn't happen if she carried on lying?

Cuts right to the heart of things.

[keithhr]

the real question is why be with someone that does not tell you the truth. I recently married my life partner of 15 years because it was a celebration of joy to share with our friends.
Lying is inexcusable and shows no respect for anyone. Maybe something that could be categorized as a white lie would be ok, but then again I accept my wife unconditionally as she does me.
    She shouldn't have anything to lie about, but that is just my opinion. Trust is not important, it is everything.