may deny the hostility lurking behind some remark.
Take the high road if you can. Honorability, even in small areas, may not be everything, but without it, you cannot build a strong marriage, or maybe even a marriage at all. I’ve been so impressed with the importance of trust and truthfulness that I wrote a book about it.24
If you lie and get caught, your marriage will suffer, and if the lie is glaring enough, the relationship may never be the same. Your spouse may find it difficult in the future to feel sure of you, to be able to count on your integrity. I want to share a few stories of how lying led to marital breakdowns. Although names and other identifying information have been changed or omitted, these narratives reflect the experiences of people who consulted me in my clinical practice.
Doug fell in love with Toni, a model for a prominent line of sports apparel. She was not only attractive but also athletic, and, trained in ballet, moved with the grace of a gazelle. During their courtship, he wined and dined her, taking her to the finest restaurants and buying her expensive gifts, including stunning pieces of jewelry. He also paid for what, by any reasonable standard, would be called a lavish wedding.
They weren’t married long before the bills started rolling in and Toni realized what had been happening. Doug had kept her in the dark about his income and how he was paying for their indulgences, and he’d kept creditors at bay by making minimum payments on large credit-card bills. They were now in substantial debt. She found his deceit so intolerable that their relationship quickly deteriorated, and within a year she divorced the man she’d mistakenly assumed to be perfect.
Sandra had a habit of shopping at high-end department stores, hiding the new clothes she’d purchased in the back of the closet, and lying to her husband about why they often ran out of money before the end of the month. Since she was in charge of paying the bills, he remained in the dark for almost two years, until one day, home from work with the flu, he got the mail. He noticed a receipt from a local jewelry store, one known for its distinctive pale blue boxes. When he opened the envelope, he discovered that Sandra had recently acquired a high-priced necklace. He then opened two bills for charge accounts, and what he discovered shocked him. Sandra arrived a few hours later and encountered a stone-faced husband who wanted to know—now—what else she’d kept hidden from him. Angry, she defiantly blurted out a few more financial indiscretions, and then announced how much she appreciated Tom, a neighbor in whom she routinely confided because of how understanding he was. The marriage went downhill quickly and they, too, went their separate ways.
Andrea, a secretary who’d been twice divorced, met Scott at a party, and it wasn’t long before they began dating. Within a year, they were married. Scott sold technical equipment and wanted to invest in the development of a new computerized device. This, he told her, was a sure thing. But it was far from that, and he knew it. Having been a marginally successful salesman, he was looking for that one big score, the too-good-to-be-true investment that would set him up for life. Grossly understating the risk, Scott asked Andrea to take out a second mortgage on her house. When a large corporation came out with a better product, the small start-up in which he’d invested her money went belly-up. This couple, too, ended up in divorce court, when, unable to make the required loan payments, she lost the house.
I want to end this chapter by reporting the sad reality that some married people, typically men, continue to put on business attire and ostensibly leave for work. Only, that’s not where they go. Having been laid off or fired, they do not want to confess this to their wives, and so they spend their days at a library or coffee shop.25 This charade may go on for months.
Is this lying? Of course it is. As we have noted, lying takes forms other than telling straight-out falsehoods. Material omissions and willful acts of misdirection can be just as destructive.
God is the author of truth. If you want to enjoy a deeply fulfilling marriage, a necessary condition is that you establish a track record of unwavering and unerring truthfulness in relation to your spouse—no matter how awkward, embarrassing, or painful. And, if you slip up and find yourself lying—we’re all occasionally moral cowards—return to the issue and fess up as soon as you can.
Communication founded on lies is not communication at all. It fakes a connection that doesn’t exist, and as we have seen, the essence of communication is connecting.
11. Jewett, Lectures for Systematic Theology I.
12. Ladd points out that in the Bible sarx is often used in an ethical sense. See Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament.
13. Several verses in the Old Testament mirror the insight most vividly captured in Ps 111:10, including Job 28:28, Prov 1:7, 9:10, 15:33, and Isa 11:2, 33:6.
14. As we will see in Chapter 16, acknowledging the ultimate worthiness of God is an important clue to the nature of worship, a term that to many people carries with it an uncomfortably archaic ring.
15. Otto Rank (1884–1939) was well known for his skill at drawing correct psychological inferences.
16. See McLemore, Toxic Relationships, 226.
17. As we will discuss in chapter 4, hostility is a passive emotional predisposition to react in an angry manner, whereas aggression is the active attempt to harm another person, either verbally or through overt action.
18. Active Listening is also called Reflective Listening.
19. This is why being a psychotherapist is a challenging occupation. Many non-psychologists assume that working as a therapist is a cushy job. All one has to do, after all, is sit there. In truth, it is not easy to be with people hour after hour, especially when they’re in pain and there’s little you can do to change that. A therapist can, however, provide something else, and it’s largely what a wise spouse can provide: understanding.
20. The Great Wall of China was an ingenious military invention, in part because it prevented mounted horsemen of the north from invading the south. Its walls in many places are thirty feet high, and it is difficult to get a horse to climb a thirty-foot ladder! But the Great Wall also hindered movement from the south to the north.
21. Bronowski, The Identity of Man.
22. Berne, Games People Play.
23. “A Million Ways to Die in the West” was a 2014 film directed by Seth MacFarlane, who also stars in it.
24. McLemore, Inspiring Trust.
25. Recall how the character of Don Draper in Mad Men concealed from his wife that he’d been fired.
A Woman’s Perspective:
