What to do when you know your partner is lying to you.
Photo by Karabo Diseko on Unsplash
If you know your partner struggles to tell the truth, consider for a moment that you *always* have two options when he/she opts to be honest:
1. Be angry about what you're hearing, and get really mad.
Maybe it took them "too long" to be honest, or maybe you discover in their newfound honesty that they might've been lying to you for an extended period of time, or maybe what you're hearing hurts your feelings and challenges your plans, your experience of reality, or what you thought you knew. Maybe you really love to feel resentful and angry and betrayed (I'm not really joking here - while we consciously think we don't enjoy these emotional experiences, the truth is, if they keep happening to us, a part of us really wants to have that experience, otherwise it wouldn't keep happening) and you use them being honest as an opportunity to dive into that experience anew.
or.
2. Thank them for their honesty.
This act takes some big balls/ovaries, and in many ways is a seriously advanced relationship move. Because in order to do this genuinely, you have to know at the depths of your heart that someone telling you the truth, no matter how long it took, not matter how hard it is to hear, is the deepest expression of love that exists. That deep expression of love-truth is a catalyst for forgiveness. You have to know that when someone is lying to you, they are also lying to themselves, and that the pain they cause themselves is WAY WORSE than the pain you think they are causing you. Painful as all of this may be, this acknowledgement, knowing, and forgiveness is how healing occurs, how consciousness expands, and how relationships grow.
NB: we withhold and lie to manipulate, and we react negatively to truth to manipulate. When we can trust that it's safe to be honest, that coincides with learning that it's safe to let go of control. Conversely, when we can learn how to receive the truth without needing to react, we also learn that it's safe to let go of control of how other people show up around us. (without going too deep into it, these two simple expressions have a LOT to do with money manifestation).
HOWEVER, this does not mean it's cool to constantly let your partner lie to you and somehow convince yourself of spiritual authority and moral higher ground by somehow living above that. If you continue to see this pattern and it's not evolving, you can use that as an opportunity to check your own boundaries and whether or not your needs are truly being met in the relationship. It's okay to allow someone to make amends and course-correct; it's not okay to be a doormat.