Lying in Romantic Relationships.
What is a successful relationship? As many would say it would be communication, trust, compromise and most of all honesty. Though people can identify off by heart what is important to have a successful relationship why do so many end in divorce or separation. One of the major reasons leading to an unsuccessful relationship is when one of the major foundations is destroyed. Honesty is the root of all problems. If honesty is not a strong point in the relationship, then trust becomes an issue, which leads to a lack of communication and therefore an impact on compromise. Today, lying being a difficulty in a relationship is common in just about all couple. Though lying in a relationship has become so common, does it make it right?
For better or for worse, people expect complete honesty in their relationships. But at the same time they still cherish their right to privacy and freedom. With the nature of love it is clear that when love brings happiness it also brings heartache. It’s not all a happy fairytale ending. So where is the line? Where do the trivial lies cross over the damaging lies. First of all there are three types of lies that exist in relationships- complicit lies, pathological lies and social lies.(4) Complicit lies are the lies that tend to be very serious and could potentially end the relationship right then and there. Such as when you find out your partner has been cheating or something from the past which could make an impact. Pathological lies are the unnecessary lies or lies that are part of a persons’ character. The problem with pathological liars is that they often tend to believe their own lies and lose track of the truth which can often be frustrating for the partner and quiet hurtful. And lastly social lies are often “white lies” where the lies are often unintentional and is often for the greater good, such as saying “no honey that dress does not make you look fat.”
Lying is a survival technique us humans have developed as social creatures, but as consequence it definitely comes with its costs in our modern society and most of all in our relationships. So why exactly so do we lie in relationships? Studies have shown that married couples lie to eachother about 10 percent of the time during a daily conversation, but the 10 percent only include minor white lies. Lying in a relationship is usually to protect your own ego and to protect the partners ego. “When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others."--Oscar Wilde.(1) As we get close to someone and have a relationship, we tend to share information about ourselves about who we are, and what our interests are etc. in doing so we create an intimacy and share knowledge, which is critical for a romantic relationship as it creates a foundation. Through nature, intimate relationships provide a lot of rewards. They are designed to help us get ahead in life. It benefits us in terms of health, wealth and emotional well-being. To gain these benefits it’s crucial that the relationship is built on honesty and know one another extremely well. This builds a lot of trust in our partner but also a lot of confidence; in fact we tend to think we know them better than we actually do. As we become more trusting our confidence grows more which manipulates our detection of when a lie is actually being told. Every study which has been conducted shows that lovers are terrible at detecting when their partner is lying. By being so over confident about the thought of knowing your partner so well, this provides an opportunity for deception and dishonesty.
Whilst intimacy comes with its rewards it also comes with its costs of freedom and autonomy (6). Partners usually tend to mislead eachother when unique and valued opportunities arise and can be imposed with minimal strains on their relationship. We tend to want to seize an opportunity which is unique while not making an impact on the