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Faking It…

You know that period when you first meet someone, are intrigued and begin dating. Those first impressions are what will make or break the relationship. So what do most people do? Well, they fake it. They figure out what their significant other wants in a partner by asking a lot of questions and listening carefully and then begin to take on those characteristics. Some characteristics include not being truthful about life goals or even the number of children one might want. And then other lies include the number of sexual partners or past or present infidelity.

Lies like these tend to continue throughout the “dating” period, but become a lot harder to keep once married. Well, for some people. There are pathological liars that somehow manage to keep their stories straight for years and years.

Obviously if you lie about the number of children you want to have, the truth is bound to come out when the time comes to actually have the children. However, if you lie about an infidelity and then it comes out later on, it will probably have a serious effect on the relationship. From what I’ve read, once people get married, even if you’ve been living together for awhile, this sense of relaxation that comes over the couple. By that I mean, people get more relaxed and no longer feel like they need to fake it by being the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend. And any serious lies become just that much harder to keep straight. In fact, according to one article, one of the leading reasons marriages fail is because the person someone dated and married, suddenly turns into a totally different person after the marriage—either physically or by things like goals and future aspirations. If you talked about moving to a small farm and having five kids before marriage, and then you get married and she decides that she wants to move to the big city and only have one kid, that’s a problem. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re on the same page and know everything about each other before getting married.

And according to Dr. Tony Butto, a professor of Sociology, “the reason we lie to people closest to us is because they are more important to us and we have more to gain, more to lose, and more reasons to be ashamed of our behavior. We usually lie to strangers to throw the person off or to gain an advantage.”

Understanding our motivation for lying and the lies of others gives us important information about who we are and who the other person is to us. Lies to those closest to us are more personal. We must remember these lies and make them a part of who we have now become. We must conceal a part of ourselves from that person. Emotional intimacy is damaged.

Lying wreaks havoc in our relationships, as does the knowledge that we can’t trust our partner. It may be the single most common reason marriages fail. When the lie of an affair is exposed, the world of the relationship crashes in. The spouse feels stupid for not believing his or her instincts. Marriage can survive many things. It cannot survive continual lying. If one lies to their spouse, they will have a poor marriage.

He goes on to say that younger couples usually don’t survive this sort of thing, while more mature couples tend to try and work it out. I would guess it has to do with the amount of time a couple has invested in the relationship and also that, younger couples have a better chance of finding a new partner, while it’s harder for older couples.

For these reasons alone, I think it’s important to really get to know the person you’re dating and to feel that they are being completely honest about their past, present and even future goals. Imagine lying about something from the get-go and then ten years later, when you’ve forgotten all about it, it comes back to haunt you and ruins your relationship. Who wants that. Might as well just lay it all out from the beginning.

Also, I think it’s important to silently study the person you’re with. Past actions might give you insight into future results. If they have a history of being deceitful, chances are they’ll continue lying and hiding information throughout their relationships.

Tags: relationships, lying, dating, marriage

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