When to Leave a Lying Spouse

Why A Partner Might Lie

We have a lot at stake in a marriage – emotional, financial health and the health of our relationships with our children often depend on the survival of the union. Spouses will risk almost anything – even, ironically, the marriage itself – to protect their health and avoid the life-altering consequences of a divorce. Though they risk creating trust issues beyond repair, many spouses use lying as a strategy to protect their marriages, among other reasons.

Common reasons a partner may lie include:

• To avoid causing you emotional pain: Your spouse may do something that they believe would cause you stress if you were to find out about it. Spouses might lie about the details of such an event – or the fact that the event occurred at all – to prevent you from experiencing stress.
• To avoid causing them discomfort: Your spouse might be hesitant to tell you something either because doing so would make them feel vulnerable, would reflect poorly on them or because they know that your reaction to the news will cause them discomfort.
• To present a more favorable image of themselves: Nurturing the ego and avoiding judgment are some common reasons why your spouse might be working hard to present a more favorable image of themselves. If your spouse does something that they know you might not approve of, they may lie about it so that they don’t risk portraying themselves to you in an unfavorable manner.
• To remove doubt: Doubts about your spouse’s behavior, intentions or reports of events will prompt you to ask questions that your spouse may prefer to avoid answering, if they are trying to hide something from you.

7 Signs of a Lying Spouse

Your spouse may think they can hide the truth from you, but if you pay closer attention to both verbal and non-verbal communication, you may be able to see the signs that reveal when they are lying and what they are lying about.

Here are seven common signs your spouse may be lying:

1. Their Mood Changes

During a conversation with your spouse, does it seem like their mood abruptly changed for no apparent reason? If so, this could be because the conversation led to a topic that your spouse decided to create a lie about. The change in mood could be the adjustment from relaxation to the stress and hypervigilance required to lie.

2. Their Conversation is Shorter or Longer Than Usual

Your spouse may be lying about something if during a conversation they respond to your questions or tell a story with less words than they would normally use or if they take an excessive amount of care to explain details. Oversharing might be your spouse’s attempt to minimize doubt or distract you from detecting their deceitfulness.

Keeping contributions to the conversation vague and minimal may also be a sign that your partner is trying to prevent revealing the truth or shut down the conversation.

3. They Avoid Eye Contact

Your spouse may neglect to make eye contact with you during conversations for many reasons, but if you are in a conversation with your spouse and after making eye contact for an extended period of time, they abruptly divert their eyes from your gaze when a new topic is introduced, this change could indicate that your spouse transitioned into lying mode.

4. The Tone & Volume of Their Voice Changes

You know your spouse and their speech patterns very well. If during a conversation with your spouse you notice a change in their tone or volume that does not seem to fit with their mood or the context of the conversation, it may be a sign that your spouse senses that you may be able to see through a lie they are telling.

5. Their Gestures Change

Hand gestures are another indication that your spouse may be lying. When discussing a certain subject with your spouse, do they use gestures that you don’t recognize or that they rarely use? Do the gestures not seem to fit with their tone of voice or the topic being discussed? These subtle discrepancies could mean that your spouse is actively lying.

6. They Cover Their Mouth or Eyes

A classic first line of defense for anyone who is experiencing emotional discomfort is to cover their face. If during a face-to-face conversation with your spouse they suddenly and excessively rub or cover their eyes or mouth with their hands, this may be their way of coping with the stress caused by the lie they are telling.

7. They Refuse to Answer Questions or Change the Subject

Deceitfulness can be one of the more obvious signs of lying. This can be as apparent as telling you directly that they don’t intend to answer your questions about a certain topic, or as subtle as a pattern of changing the subject or becoming distracted for seemingly innocent reasons when questioned. Pay attention to how your spouse answers your questions; they may be lying.

Impacts of a Lying Partner

When a spouse lies, they hurt the entire family system. The unpleasant discovery of the truth often leaves a lying spouse’s partner and children feeling confused, rejected, angry, sad and even foolish. Trust in the lying spouse is damaged and – depending on the magnitude of the lie – can be difficult to recover from, dramatically changing the nature of the family’s relationships with each other.

Impacts of a lying partner on the family include loss of intimacy, increased conflicts, even divorce.

How to Respond to a Lying Partner

If you are in a conversation with your spouse and you become aware that they are lying, it’s best to address it in the moment. Word choice, how much you say and how you say it is ultimately up to you, but there are a few things about how you address it that you should make sure to always do, regardless of the situation.

Try the following tips if you catch your spouse in a lie:

• Respond immediately: As soon as you become concerned that your spouse may be lying, speak up. Listen to your body and mind and let your spouse know what they did or said that may have triggered the feeling.
• Be assertive: If you become concerned that your spouse may be lying, state your concern and be clear about your expectations for trust and honesty in your relationship. Set healthy boundaries and be prepared to leave if your partner violates those boundaries.
• Check their understanding: Don’t give your spouse the benefit of the doubt that they fully understand your concerns about their lying; ensure that your spouse understands you by asking them to repeat back or paraphrase your concerns. Invite them to ask clarifying questions to further prevent misunderstandings.

When to Leave a Lying Spouse

When a spouse lies, it is a major violation against you and your marriage. With lots of patience and work – such as participating in couples therapy – the emotional damage caused by lying can be repaired and trust restored. However, if you have been hurt too much, or your spouse doesn’t have what it takes to win back your trust, it may be time to walk away from the marriage.

Here are seven signs it might be time to leave a lying spouse:

1. They Refuse to Talk

One strategy that your spouse may use to avoid admitting to a lie and revealing the truth is to refuse or neglect to respond to your questions or efforts to share your suspicions. While hijacking these conversations by shutting down and providing little to no verbal and nonverbal responses – a behavior often referred to as stonewalling – might buy your spouse some time, but if it becomes a habit or your spouse never admits the truth, it may be a sign that you will never be able to trust them again.

2. Lying Becomes a Habit

You may have expressed your concerns about your spouse’s lying and the conversations may have gone well; your spouse may have empathized with you and even promised to never lie again. But, if your spouse does lie again, and denies their lies, it may be a sign that your spouse has chosen to ignore your boundaries or they are a pathological liar. This kind of disrespect does not make for a fulfilling or even sustainable relationship.

Taking responsibility for their actions is the most important step that your spouse must take in restoring your trust. If they are unwilling – or unable – to do this, you may never be able to trust your spouse and your marriage may be doomed to fail.

3. Confrontations Become Physically Aggressive

If you catch your spouse in a lie and confront them in the moment, they may panic as they struggle to respond. Sometimes, this panic can result in rage expressed as physical aggression. If your spouse takes this route and attempts to physically harm you, get to safety as fast as possible and make plans to end the marriage. Violating trust with a lie is one thing, but violating your physical safety is non-negotiable.

4. Your Spouse Insists Lying is Necessary

If your spouse claims that lying to you is the best or only way to protect your feelings and maintain the marriage, they are wrong. According to the Gottman research team, marriages that last long-term are based on trust and understanding “one another’s world”.¹
If your spouse won’t budge from their belief that trust and transparency are not possible if the marriage is to survive, odds are high that your marriage won’t last.

5. You Are Blamed for Their Lies

Typically for the purpose of avoiding responsibility, your spouse may insist that your actions or feelings forced them to lie and that they are the victim. Don’t believe this narrative; lying in relationships is a choice and it is one that should never be made. Consider ending a marriage if your spouse attempts to convince you that their lying was your fault. The use of this kind of emotional manipulation may be a character trait instead of a stress response.

6. Your Children Become Manipulated

In order to manipulate you, increase their leverage, experience relief from their guilt or all of the above, your spouse may attempt to convince your children to believe their lie. More apt to be impressionable and trusting, your children may be more susceptible than you to being fooled by your spouse’s false claims. Convincing your children that your spouse is lying is a difficult task that you should never have to take on. More importantly, your children should never be used as a tool. This should be grounds to consider ending the marriage.

7. Your Feelings About Your Spouse Change

Sometimes, how we feel about somebody can change when we learn that they have lied to us, even if it’s just once. Especially when the lie is about something highly significant to the marriage, such as an affair or a major financial issue, you may never view your partner the same way that you did before the truth was revealed. If after you discover that your spouse lied you feel a shift in your feelings, it may be a sign that the damage to your trust is too great and that your marriage is not salvageable.

Can Therapy Help You Deal with a Lying Spouse?

Regardless of the circumstances, whether it’s a low-stakes lie or the kind of betrayal that threatens the existence of the entire relationship, initiating marriage & couple’s therapy is an effective means to address your spouse’s behavior, how it has impacted you and how best to move forward in your relationship. Hiring a qualified mental health provider who specializes in relationship issues, such as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), is best to address your concerns about your lying spouse. To find an MFT licensed to practice in your state, Choosing Therapy’s online therapist directory is a great place to start.

Therapeutic methods for addressing dishonesty in a relationship include:

• Couples counseling: this approach involves treatment of both you and your partner’s individual behaviors, mental health histories and their impacts on the current relationship dynamics and communication patterns in your marriage. Couples counseling could help both you and your partner understand why the lying occurred, the systemic impacts of the lies and most importantly, discover if or how trust can be restored in your relationship.
• Individual therapy: exploring how your spouse’s lying has impacted you and if it has changed the way you feel about your spouse can sometimes be a difficult task when it involves your spouse. That’s why one-on-one counseling can be an effective strategy. In this setting, a therapist can assist you in processing the breach of trust at your pace and without the distracting and sometimes distorting effects of your spouse’s feedback. Look for counselors who have experience working with couples or who specialize in research-based treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
• Group therapy: this method of treatment involves attending sessions with other individuals for the purpose of learning from others and experiencing support from not just the therapist, but those who may be experiencing similar issues. Often, therapy groups are organized according to demographic themes, such as “men’s” and “women’s” groups or groups whose members are adjusting to similar phases of life. Group therapy could be worth exploring if you think you might be open to sharing your story with a community of people and believe you would benefit from learning from the experiences of others.
• Discernment counseling: this strategy may be considered most appropriate if your highest priority is to determine whether or not you should leave your lying spouse. This treatment is designed specifically to assist couples in deciding whether to remain married or initiate divorce. Until the question of whether or not you should stay is confidently answered, couples therapy and all its interventions will likely not work for you or your spouse and possibly may make your situation worse. If your lying spouse has damaged your trust to such a degree that you’re questioning the existence of the relationship itself, discernment counseling may be a better place to start before committing to long-term couples therapy.
• Online therapy options: many variables can make attending therapy sessions in-person a complicated task. Sometimes traveling to and attending sessions in an unfamiliar office space can add more stress to an already stressful situation. Scheduling conflicts between you and your spouse or the therapist can limit your availability to participate in treatment or even prevent your participation. If attending sessions in-person proves a complicated prospect for you or your partner, consider participating in online therapy, where you can meet virtually with your therapist from not just your home, but anywhere in your resident state. By attending sessions via an HIPAA-compliant platform, you and your partner can benefit from therapy treatment and avoid the stress of traveling to an unfamiliar space.

In My Experience

It bears repeating: lying is a major violation of trust in any relationship. It is especially offensive in marriage, where the ultimate trust is offered and accepted in the exchange of vows. Because of this, lying in marriage should be taken very seriously.

In every case where I have counseled couples where one or both spouses have lied, it always becomes clear to me that when a spouse lies, their partner experiences what some in my field term a “Little ‘T’” trauma. The spouse who learned of the other spouse’s lie experiences a trauma-like response: increased anxiety, hypervigilance about their partner’s behavior or statements, even nightmares about what their spouse lied or could have lied about. As such, I have found that lying in a marriage needs to be treated with the seriousness it deserves: like a trauma.

Trauma treatment can be highly rewarding, but also slow, messy, frustrating, discouraging and very painful. Couples who struggle with lying in their marriage should expect a similar experience, if their goal is to recover from the damage the lies inflicted on the relationship’s trust. A good counselor can help a couple navigate this journey, but ultimately, I have found that the key to restoring trust comes down to the spouse (or each spouse) who lied and their ability to be patient with not only their spouse, but the journey itself. Often, it’s when the lying spouse can’t seem to find or maintain this patience that causes the other partner to leave.