How to Spot a Lie in your Relationship
After my divorce, I was fascinated with how to tell if someone I was dating was lying. I read books. I watched videos. I looked at systems that police departments and interrogators used. I practiced “baselining” someone and then watching their facial expressions closely. The South Florida dating world gave me plenty of opportunity to practice my skills.
None of that really helped though. In fact, even professional level interrogators are only about 53% accurate when telling if someone is lying.
What helped the most is that I made a decision to be rigorously honest myself – with whomever I was dating, with my kids, my friends, and my family, with strangers. It took some practice and occasionally a small, “stupid” lie would still pop out. But I would laugh and correct it immediately.
Once I practiced honesty, it became much, much easier to spot a lie. Honestly, most of the time lies (1) don’t make sense or (2) are just stupid. Nothing scientific about that criteria, but it generally works.
Once you start to ask questions of your partner, if things just don’t line up they’re probably not telling you the full truth. It’s totally fine to give them the benefit of the doubt, but if it happens repeatedly you may consider paying closer attention.
How to be honest in your relationship
Talk about honesty with your partner. Talk about when it’s hard to be honest and when it’s easy. Laugh if small, “stupid” lies pop up and make a commitment to be honest with each other, about small things, about large things, and about the hard things.
If you’re suspecting much larger lies like infidelity, according to research presented during a seminar I took years ago titled, “Why Men Cheat, “ the number one indicator of whether a husband is cheating is whether the wife has a feeling that they are. Marriages can recover and trust can be re-built, but only with honesty.
Peace,
Dr. Liz
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