Husband Lying

August 28, 2002.

My husband and I have been married less than a year; we seem to have a problem with communication. I'm a Mom of three beautiful children, and I love my husband with all my heart. I don't understand when someone's in my face and is telling a lie with a straight face.  

My husband met up with some friends that he hasn't seen in seven years, so him and my son went to visit and my son seen him something that I don't approve of.  He was smoking "pot”, I know when my husband has been smoking because his voice gets horse.  So I asked him if he smoked he said no but my four year old said other wise.  Any ways he is still sticking to his story about not doing it for a couple of days but I know that
he's lying and it hurts and burns me up that he can't be honest.  

How can I trust him if he can look at my face and lie?  To me that's  so bad. I love him so much that it's tearing me up inside so I told him if he could look at me in my face and lie how could I ever believe in him (he's lie similar two times before) again and that I felt that our whole six and half years has been a
big fat lie.

Am I taking this to far or am I doing the right thing?  

Please help me …

Comments From Readers ...

A reader says ... About the pot smoking- obviously they have to lie to you because of your attitudes about it.  Honestly, it is just like drinking beer- ONLY LESS HARMFUL.  You are in control of yourself, only more relaxed.

A reader says ... a box of chocolates that I placed on our wall unit has gone missing. I know for sure that I placed it there. My husband says he saw it there yesterday but says he has no idea where it could be. We have a great nanny who helps me take care of the kids and she said she does not know where it is. Could my husband be lying? Or is it the nanny?

A reader says ... I don't think that you are taking things too far.  I have been married to my husband for 4 1/2 years and we seperated for 10 months only getting back together again in October 04.  My husband tends to lie by ommission.  He thinks that if he does not tell me something then he isnt really llying to me.  Recently, I asked him if he had heard from any of the girls he met while we were speerated.  He looked me in the eye and told me no.  I know that I was doing the wrong thing but I went through his mobile phone bill and found numbers that I didnt know of.  Instead of questioning him about them I called the number.  Realising that I was being silly and untrusting, I ended the call.  The woman contacted my husband and asked him why he had a missed call.  He asked me if I had called her and I told him the situation.  He told me that she had asked him if we were still together and, trying to justify his actions he told her me that he told her in no uncertain terms that he was.  Now if he hadve told me straight away then it wouldnt be at the point it is now.

So when we ask our husbansds things, or give them the opportunity to tell us something (yes that we already know is true) it can avoid all this.  For now it is not about the initial situation (such as the pot smoking) its about the lying.


A reader says ... I have been married now for 5 months.  We are both in the military and we live 7 hrs apart from each other.  He has a lying problem.  When we were first married he lied about how he quit smoking, then I saw him standing with his friends smoking and when I asked him later about it he denied it until he realized that I saw him.  Then another time when we hadent seen eachother for a month, he kept taking money out of our account and not telling me about it and when I asked him what he was buying he said he didnt remeber.  A few weeks ago he was visiting me and I was at work all day.  When he left I was on our computer on the internet, and I typed in www.goo and underneath what your typing in all the previos searches come up.  I then saw that he was looking up his ex fiance on google, and also other things that he shouldnt have been looking at.  I called him and asked him about what he was doing and he denied it all.  He then realized that I wouldnt be looking up those things and he had been caught so he admited it.  The last time that he lied to me was a few days ago.  His old phone line bill came to my apartment so I opened it and looked at how he has been calling and it showed that he called his ex fiance while we were married.  I asked him why and he said that he doesnt remember calling her and he dosent know what they talked about.  But before when I asked him why he was looking her up he swore on our relationship that he has not contacted her since we have been married.  I am not sure what to do.  I still love him but I am so hurt by everything,  is it even worth it? Should I whipe the slate clean and hope that he starts being a husband and stops hurting me? If you have any advise please help me.

A reader says ... You are taking that too far.  Marriage is not a committement that is dependent on whether the other person lies or not.  You made a committment to love your husband for "better or for worse".  Now your committment and vows of marriage were a lie if you now do not love him.  So did you lie when you took your marriage vows or are you going to love your husband for "better or for worse"?

See two wrongs do not make a right.  Just because your husband did something wrong doesn't mean it gives you an excuse to not love him and break your marriage vows.  Instead realize that your husband is human and he is trying to save face and lie to keep your respect.  He knows that if he admitted that he "smoked pot", that you would lose respect for him.  And he doesn't want to lose your respect.  So he lied hoping that you would believe him and then your relationship with him could go on with mutual respect for each other.  

If your husband thought that he could be honest with you and that if he told you he "smoked pot" that you would still respect and love him - then he would have told you the truth.  

So to solve this kind of problem from reoccurring, you need to convince your husband that it is ok for him to "smoke pot" as long as he tells you the truth about it.  You need to explain to him that you will still love him even if he smokes pot.  Then once he feels safe in being honest with you - he will not lie.

A reader says ... In this case obviously the husband should not be lying.  However God does expect the wife to win her husband to the Lord by being loving and kind.  If she knows he has been smoking pot, then why ask him?  She is really only trying to make an issue out of his smoking pot, when she confronts him.  The Christian thing for a Christian wife is to pray and ask God to change him and give him unconditional love and respect regardless of whether he is smoking pot.  This way God can help him change.

A reader says ... An excuse is often a lie to get out of something.  Have you ever told your wife she is the most beautiful woman in the world?  When you know she is truly not?  Now be honest.  See God is not sending all liars to hell.  The verse about liars going to hell is referring to the Old Testamant commandment of "bearing false witness against your neighbor".  Does God punish people who lie to save someones life.  For example in Nazi Germany was it wrong to hide a Jew in your home and lie to the German police when they came to your front door asking if you had any Jews hidden?  

Have you ever been upset and then the phone rings and all at once you are pretending like you are happy?  Has anyone ever asked you how you are doing and you say "Fine" when you are not really fine - but rather having a bad day?  Isn't that a lie to say you are "Fine" when you are not?
A reader says ... To Exodus,
You obviously don't know squat about what the Bible has to say about liars! Revelation 21 v. 8 " But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and ALL LIARS shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."  The bible calls satan the author of lies. There is no good lie in any situation especially in a marriage. Lies destroy the very foundation of relationships. Jesus said that we would know the TRUTH and that the Truth would set us free... He said that He is the way, the TRUTH and the life. You have no biblical foundation for what you have written and I would strongly suggest that you read the bible and go to a good bible teaching church.


A reader says ... My husband lies to me about a lot of things.  When he does it I am simply just a pure rude to him.  So tell your man that he either tells you the truth or suffer the consequences and give him a dose of your hurt, only don't lie to him just turn some of that hurt into anger.  Do little things that you know that will irk him and just act like you don't care.  See how he likes it for a change to be hurt and then maybe some truth will start coming out of him.  U CAN DO IT!!!  

A reader says ... Wow....I can not believe I just read this.  Here is a woman hurting because her husband is doing drugs in front of her four year old child and you are asking her not to be critical of him.  The man is doing wrong and all that can be said is how women are so hard on their husbands.  I must argue that women have their self esteem tested more than men.  I could go on about that for days.  

I do not think this woman should looking at being less critical towards her husband.  She should find out why her self esteem is so low that she puts up with it.

A reader says ... The eighth commandment in Exodus 20: 16 says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”  Notice that it does not say you cannot lie.  It says you should not bear false witness to hurt someone (your neighbor).  

Lying in self-defense is accepted and not condemned anywhere in the Bible.  For example what if your name is Tina.  And what if someone came up to you and put a gun to your head and said I'm going to shoot and kill you if your name is Tina.  Then they asked you, “Is your name Tina?”  Would you say – “Yes my name is Tina, and let him shoot and kill you?”  Or would you lie and say, “My name is not Tina”?    

Now what if the guy with a gun to your head did not know you had a gun under your coat pointing at his heart.  Would it be better to shoot him and kill him before he shoots and kills you, or would it be better to lie and say your name is not Tina?  Shooting him is a valid self-defense.  And lying to him is also a valid self-defense.  Wouldn't it be better to lie to him and save his and your life than to shoot and kill him in self-defense?

During World War II was it wrong to lie and try and hide and rescue and save innocent Jews from the killing hands of the Nazis?  Or was the right thing to obey Hitler and turn over all the Jews for slaughter?

So lying with the intent to hurt someone is wrong.

Here is what happens in some marriages.  Sometimes one spouse is so critical of the other, that the other spouse finds they lie to save face.  

I remember during our second or third year of marriage, my mother-in-law was visiting and my wife and mother-in-law asked me to go to the gas station and fill up my mother-in-law's car with gas.  She said be sure and get super-unleaded gas.  

This was during a period of our marriage when my wife was critical of me and consequently I had no self-esteem.  I worked at home and she worked outside of the home and so my self-esteem came only from her.  And she never had any kind words for me because, she had not told me, but she resented me working at home.  We were poor, and I was developing a software package to sell, which ended up giving me skills that enabled me to literally make millions of dollars later in life.  But at that time she could not see the long-term benefits of my working at home.  And so she was bitter towards me and critical of me.

And so I went to the gas station and forgot to fill up the tank with super-unleaded.  I put unleaded in, as I was accustomed to filling my tank with unleaded and I forgot I was supposed to fill up the tank with super-unleaded.

And so when I returned home, the first thing my mother-in-law and my wife asked was, “Did you remember to put super-unleaded in?”  My heart sunk inside.  To this day I can still remember feeling so devastated and tears come to my eyes even now thinking about it.  I lied and said, “Yes, I did.”  I couldn't believe I had lied, but I just couldn't take any more criticism.  My spirit was so crushed that I felt I had to protect it.

So I ask wives to be gentle and kind with their husbands.  Three or four times in Proverbs it says that it is better for a man to live in the desert or corner of an attic than to live with a contentious woman.  A contentious woman is a wife who is critical of her husband.  I'm afraid many husbands in this situation end up like I did - lying to keep their sanity.  Fortunately God blessed us with financial prosperity and so my wife has since changed and now she loves and respects me.

We should not lie.  But hopefully we can live in an environment where we are not tempted to lie.  No one wants to have to live in Nazi Germany or in a home where someone is very critical and where we are tempted to lie to try and preserve our self-esteem.

But some husbands lie obsessively to cover their own selfishness and deceitfulness.  This is wrong.  Some husbands are very selfish and lie to cover up their unfaithfulness.  Here is an idea to help a husband who is rough on the edges and who lies for convenience.  Try and see if he will listen with you to the free audio stories at www.unshackled.org.  If you will listen to them with him, he may get saved and God will help him to stop lying.

God Bless you and please pray for this married couple.  Pray that the wife will forgive her husband and try and not be critical of him.  Pray that she and he will accept Christ as their Savior if they have not already done that.  Pray that they will find a good Bible teaching church and begin going to a small group Bible study.

A reader says ... My husband is a liar also.  He could stub his toe right in front of me and if asked he would deny the fact!  I can not go through a day without my husband lying to me at least 5 times.  I don't know what to do anymore, I've tried everything.  We've done counciling, talking, writing, and yelling yet he still lies just as much if not more lately.  I have morals and hold myself up to them, but by letting my husband lie to me daily I feel less of a person.  I don't know what to do and have noone around me that understands.  I too feel that my husband enjoys hurting me because he doesn't care enough to get help for this evil problem.

A reader says ... My husband is a big liar too he is also a pot smoker he has even gone as far as telling my 8 and 4 year old sons to lie to me. I'm not really sure if I could trust him or not. I also think his lying will eventually tear us apart. I can’t stand liars. And I don’t want him teaching my kids to be a liar like him.

He lies about the littlest things and he knows how it kills me inside when he lies to me, because it makes me feel really distant from him. And if he could easily lie about small things maybe one day hell lie about something really big. It almost seems like he enjoys hurting me because he keeps lying.