How to react when someone lies to you in relationships?
25.03.2020
If you are in a relationship, and your partner is used to telling lies from time to time or hiding something from you, this will probably not end well. People lie and keep something quiet for a variety of reasons. They consider this something innocuous and irrelevant, they believe they protect their partners from the unpleasant truth this way, or they just chicken out and cannot be sincere. Anyway, hiding something and lying about even the smallest things really does undermine your relationship. No matter what type of lying in relationships you have faced, everything depends on your reaction and whether you can get out of this situation with the partner or you have to break up.
Why Do People Lie in a Relationship
Without trust, it is very difficult to imagine a relationship that can be characterized as strong and healthy. When it comes to the relationship between a man and a woman, trust comes out almost in the first place. However, oddly enough, people have many problems with it. Lying is like acid for relationships and it eats away at them.
People often lie to each other because they are afraid to tell the truth. They assume that they will not be understood or misunderstood. It would seem absurd, but in reality, this is a fairly common reason for lying. Moreover, both men and women do this. This greatly affects the level and quality of the relationship since the one who lies is dissatisfied with the fact that he/she can’t tell the truth. And the one who is being lied to suffers from mistrust on the part of the partner.
The difficulty is that people still open up over time if the relationship is long-term, and then the problems become much greater.
How to Deal with Lies in a Relationship?
You know that everybody lies, and nothing can be done about it. However, you can still try to understand the reasons for such behavior because they are different in each specific case. So, what to do when someone lies to you in a relationship? Here are several important moments to start with.
1. Think about why they lied to you
If this is not a mental disorder, then there must be some objective reason for the lies. Think about why they did this. Were they afraid of your reaction? Were they ashamed of their action? Were they used to lying and deception in relationships with previous partners? Any of these arguments do not justify your partner, but if you show empathy, then it will be a little easier to cope with emotions. If you want to really deal with the issue and not just lash out, you should analyze the situation before you start a conversation.
2. Speak calmly
If you think that your partner is cheating on you, talk to them about it. Just do not give in to the desire to urgently make a scene. Be calm and self-possessed, explain what has happened and ask them to comment on this. Try not to interrupt your partner until they finish talking. You need self-control not for the partner to feel comfortable with you to communicate. If you talk too emotionally, your partner can turn the situation not in your favor. They can take offense at your insults and start telling that you need to calm down or they can even resort to gaslighting. Your reaction can give your partner a lot of reasons to get away from a constructive discussion of both big and small lies in a relationship.
3. Give them a chance to tell the truth
In some cases, we do provoke our partners into lying and deception in relationships. When a person knows that you will respond to the truth with accusations, convictions and that you are unlikely to share their position, they don’t really want to be honest. Make sure you give the partner a chance to talk to you about everything and back it up with actions. Be open to dialogue, try not to rush into assessments, control your emotions. Do not punish a person for being honest with you. For a relationship to be truly sincere, both of you should not have taboo topics. You can show them by your own example what behavior you expect, so be frank.
How to Detect Lies in a Relationship
A lie is an unpleasant phenomenon in the field of human relationships. But, alas, everyone lied at least once in their life, even if it was the so-called white lies in a relationship. Situations and reasons can be different, and if something can be easily forgiven, then sometimes lies can be very harmful. Anyway, lies and relationships aren’t the best allies. 
And if you ask, “How lying affects relationships?” one can boldly tell that it destroys them little by little like. It is possible to compare lies with a tumor, which is slowly killing a person. Probably, it is not always critical to know whether a person has lied or not, but in some cases, this can save you from serious consequences. How to understand a person is lying to you?
1. Discrepancies in their stories
A person who constantly lies to someone often forgets all the details of their story. It is very easy to catch them in an inconsistency, and trifles can play a big role there. However, you should do everything wisely and bide your time. If a conversation makes you doubt, do not focus your attention on it immediately. It is better to return to this conversation a little later, maybe in a couple of days or a week. If there are any inaccuracies or differences with the previous version, then, most likely, the partner is deceiving. If this is not an isolated incident, then it is worth considering how lying destroys relationships and whether you want to be with such a person.
2. Unwillingness to discuss serious issues
If a partner is never in the mood, they are constantly busy or they have a headache every time when you want to discuss your future life, feelings, or just plans for the weekend, everything suggests that the person is simply not interested in a continuation of this relationship. And when a partner is not important to a person, they will lie to them intentionally or unconsciously even in trifles. You can often meet men who lie in relationships when they don’t have serious feelings about their partners.
3. Taking a pause
You asked about something, and the partner went to get a cup of coffee or to the bathroom, they suddenly decided to light a cigarette or started coughing hard. This is a very unpleasant signal that it’s high time to look for quotes about lies in a relationship. Especially if, after a pause, the partner began to behave impudently, giving you a very detailed response. This means that they had thought out a further strategy for the conversation and continued to stand on their line of defense, using lies.
4. Avoiding eye contact
If your partner is not a skillful, practically professional liar, then they will try to avoid eye contact, telling white lies in a relationship. They are ashamed. A person will not be able to look into your eyes for a long time even if they force themselves to do that. They will start looking down because, as psychologists say, it is the reflex, as if something has suddenly attracted their close attention. Their eyes can fill with tears and turn red, the picture is so characteristic that you will immediately understand there is a liar in front of you.
5. Aggressive position
You are embarrassed by some details and decide to ask leading questions, but suddenly your partner turns into a very aggressive animal. In almost 100% cases, this means that the partner gave you the wrong information or withheld something. People who have nothing to hide usually don’t become aggressive, they just don’t even think about defending the truth in a caddish manner.
6. Mind games
If a partner lies and realizes that you do not believe them, they will begin to shame you for this disbelief. This will help them gain time and even distract you from the subject of the dispute. It is easy to understand that a partner is trying to manipulate you. For example, they can take offense, asking, “Don’t you believe me?” or try to make you frightened of breaking up, “If you do not believe me, this is your problem. I don’t need a partner who doesn’t trust me.”
7. Excessive pathos
This is one of the favorite methods of advanced liars. They swear at every step, assuring you of their honesty and sincerity. When one of the partners is cheating on the other one, everyone knows about that except for the partner. In public, a liar always smiles and says sweet words of love to the partner. But when such a liar is caught on sending love text messages to the lover, they can start sobbing and swearing on the Bible that they have never cheated on the partner.
How to Rebuild Trust in a Relationship after Lies
Everyone is afraid to lose the trust of a beloved one. However, if the situation has developed in such a way that a negative act has already been committed, and the partner has lost faith in a joint future, the delinquent should take urgent measures to reconcile and receive forgiveness. Before both of you start rebuilding trust in the relationship after lies, you should analyze the whole situation and answer the following questions:
- Are you ready for a long and difficult moral work to rebuild trust?
- How important your partner’s trust is to you?
- Is your partner important to you?
Answer frankly and make the right conclusions. How to get over lies in a relationship? Is it possible to return trust? A long work is ahead, but if both of you make efforts and sincerely want to change the situation, the result will be positive. So, how to fix a relationship after lying?
1. Do not try to minimize the pain caused by the lies
A deluded person wants to find out how everything was in fact, they crave the truth. Even if you attempt to be sincere and respond to the questions honestly, you can consciously or subconsciously hide certain information or give common answers. Your beloved one will feel something is hidden from them. Some specifics will emerge over time, and this will turn the life of the partner into a bad dream.
Having picked up the pieces of the whole picture, they will constantly reflect on your terrible deed. However, avoiding talking about what has happened and the reason for such behavior is not the best solution. Don’t hide anything or talk round corners. Going through this challenging phase, you need to experience the worst and feel the pain, otherwise, healing will not happen. Do not try to minimize distress because time is the best cure in this case.
2. Tell the truth and even a little more
Trust in a relationship is a very fragile thing. If you once were caught lying, the best strategy for behavior is to tell your loved one the whole truth.
Psychologist Roberta Weis notes that trust can be restored only by making full transparency an obligatory part of your relationship from both sides. And this applies even to trifles. If you are going to hang out with a friend, tell your partner about that. None of you should come up with more "harmless" actions and places.
3. Don’t move to a defensive attack
Those who want to earn trust will have a hard time. Listening to negative remarks will become your daily lot at the beginning of the journey, and both of you must go through this. Do not move to the attack. When you say, “You are not so innocent as well,” you are trying to justify yourself, and this is a simple defense mechanism. But think what it can provide you with. The anger of your beloved one is understandable. Forget about any kind of ugly stuff if the goal is to stay together, not to break up forever.
4. Don’t play the roles of the accused and the accuser
If the partner was charged with deception, and they have pleaded guilty, don’t think that everything is over. If you decide to stay together, you should try to do your best not to play the roles of the accused and the accuser. Such behavior will only worsen the situation and jeopardize your further existence as a couple.
The accuser will try to take their anger out, and they will invent new challenges for those who have lost their trust. The accused will try to get an indulgence, and they will also accumulate anger as their attempts fail. The best decision is to remain calm and forget about constant mutual reproaches.
5. Do not involve others
Both of you have taken the decision to stay together after lies, and the responsibility rests only with the two of you. That is why you should not involve others in the process of sorting out your relationships, and it doesn’t matter whether they are friends, family members or your own kids.
This is about the one who lied, and the one who decided to forgive the liar. Only you two should talk about the situation and its root causes, so forget about outside interference, criticism, and sympathy of other people. The psychotherapist Joanna Court is sure that the only one who can become a third party in such talks is a couple’s counselor.
