White lies hurt too

[Wvudude89]

I have noticed since my reboot that I still have the tendency to avoid questions from my wife. I tell little white lies here or there about what I am thinking about or what my opinion is on certain topics. This was behavior I had prior to my reboot. I would lie about what I was doing late at night to avoid the embarrassment or her becoming upset. In the moment, it's an automatic response, but afterwards I feel guilty about it. Even though we have been open since I have told her of my issues, I still feel like I need to hide. I know with time and patience it will get better. I wanted to see if other people notice these trends as well.

 

[Deleted Account]

If you are still lying to your SO - as you noticed yourself, white lies are still lies - you are still actively addicted. Once I had discovered my boyfriend's addiction, I thought that once he knew that I knew and that he had my support and understanding, there was no more reason for him to lie to me. But I was so wrong. Whenever I came into the bathroom or study room and he was suspiciously staring at the home/lock screen of his phone/desktop of his PC and I asked what he was doing, he still kept lying to my face, every time. And even though my intuition told me something was wrong, I refused to believe that he would still continue to lie to me. One year after dday and finding hard evidence that he had still been looking at porn behind my back while pretending to have quit, I left him (temporarily). Knowing that he had lied to me was infinitely worse than being told that he had looked up some sexy pictures for a few minutes. And he also would argue that he was just 'protecting' me from feeling hurt. That is addict-logic. There is no way you can justify lying to your SO. There is no way you can justify deception of the person you love. You are just escaping the responsibility and consequences of your own actions. Because you don't know how to handle the feelings of having hurt your SO. You haven't learned how to deal with the guilt/shame of having disappointed her and her response to your actions reminding you of your mistake. You have learned to avoid dealing with these feelings in a healthy way by becoming addicted to porn. You need to relearn how to deal with feelings of having done something wrong (guilt =/= shame), without escaping them and not admitting them to yourself, lying to yourself and to your SO in the process.

This was and still is a problem in my relationship. Me resenting my boyfriend's actions (=him looking at porn, violating my boundaries) is perceived as me resenting him as a person and feels like an attack on his self worth and value as a person/boyfriend. It triggers feelings of shame. It triggers his fear of being rejected because of not feeling adequate enough as a person/boyfriend. And the only way he knew how to deal with those feelings was to escape them with porn. He has to learn to face them head-on, without him being lead to believe that his whole self is flawed or bad because of a bad/wrong action. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes, it's only human. Especially with an addiction, one is not fully in control of their actions. A bad action doesn't make anyone a bad person or a failure. A healthy way to deal with a mistake is to acknowledge the mistake, take responsibility for it and learn from it. You can never change something and grow as a person if you never admit a flaw in your behavior/actions. Some people just haven't learned that, because of traumatic events in their childhood/adolescence, adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms. My boyfriend for example was bullied in school, which I believe is the root cause for his unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I don't know if any of this applies to you, I don't know how you define a 'white lie'. But as soon as your wife asks you something and you know you are intentionally hiding something from her that you feel like she wants and needs to know, you are deceiving her and betraying her trust. You are not truly in recovery then. Just my opinion.

 

[JamesTheSquirrel]

I have noticed since my reboot that I still have the tendency to avoid questions from my wife. I tell little white lies here or there about what I am thinking about or what my opinion is on certain topics. This was behavior I had prior to my reboot. I would lie about what I was doing late at night to avoid the embarrassment or her becoming upset. In the moment, it's an automatic response, but afterwards I feel guilty about it. Even though we have been open since I have told her of my issues, I still feel like I need to hide. I know with time and patience it will get better. I wanted to see if other people notice these trends as well.

I definitely had a problem with lying which was tied into my addiction. I think it started off when I was a teenager, hiding things from my parents but then went to hiding things from my wife. The thing is with lying is that it's an easy way to avoid the consequences of your actions until things finally catch up with you. Some of the lies I told in the early days of my recovery were about pointless things but I was still trying to 'protect' myself (I literally lied about overcooking potatoes).

I think it's definitely something you need to work on as part of the recovery process. If you catch yourself lying then make sure to correct yourself. One thing I' found is that in the two times I relapsed since starting this process and lied about it, the guilt began to eat away at me until I admitted what I'd done. Before I started the recovery process I didn't use it to feel any kind of remorse for my lies.

 

[used19]

My husband had to realize that lying about ANYTHING can cause me to reset in my trauma. Any trust he'd built up, was just gone in an instant. He realized this over something stupid. I came back down after trying to put the baby to bed to play, and gave him a kiss. He tasted like he'd had something to drink. I asked about it and he lied. I wasn't stupid and called him out on it. He fessed up after being badgered but the damage was done. We were back to zero. It did push us to do a more formal disclosure, so it produced something but it has me on edge still looking for more lies. From our path, you can't begin to rebuild trust until all the lies are done. Even the tiny ones that have nothing do to with acting out.

 

[p1n1983]

I still have the tendency to avoid questions from my wife. I tell little white lies here or there about what I am thinking about or what my opinion is on certain topics.

You are used to lie when you are not confortable to tell the other person about something you did. Is just the way you are, is not going to change with NoFap.
Own the things you do, and don't worry about what other people would say. Don't be affraid of getting criticied. Don't take you so seriously! Everybody have flows, don't make your that big of a deal.
You already open up to her about porn, let it be. If she ask about it be open about it to her. Don't be affraid of her reaction.

 

[Wvudude89]

If you are still lying to your SO - as you noticed yourself, white lies are still lies - you are still actively addicted. Once I had discovered my boyfriend's addiction, I thought that once he knew that I knew and that he had my support and understanding, there was no more reason for him to lie to me. But I was so wrong. Whenever I came into the bathroom or study room and he was suspiciously staring at the home/lock screen of his phone/desktop of his PC and I asked what he was doing, he still kept lying to my face, every time. And even though my intuition told me something was wrong, I refused to believe that he would still continue to lie to me. One year after dday and finding hard evidence that he had still been looking at porn behind my back while pretending to have quit, I left him (temporarily). Knowing that he had lied to me was infinitely worse than being told that he had looked up some sexy pictures for a few minutes. And he also would argue that he was just 'protecting' me from feeling hurt. That is addict-logic. There is no way you can justify lying to your SO. There is no way you can justify deception of the person you love. You are just escaping the responsibility and consequences of your own actions. Because you don't know how to handle the feelings of having hurt your SO. You haven't learned how to deal with the guilt/shame of having disappointed her and her response to your actions reminding you of your mistake. You have learned to avoid dealing with these feelings in a healthy way by becoming addicted to porn. You need to relearn how to deal with feelings of having done something wrong (guilt =/= shame), without escaping them and not admitting them to yourself, lying to yourself and to your SO in the process.

This was and still is a problem in my relationship. Me resenting my boyfriend's actions (=him looking at porn, violating my boundaries) is perceived as me resenting him as a person and feels like an attack on his self worth and value as a person/boyfriend. It triggers feelings of shame. It triggers his fear of being rejected because of not feeling adequate enough as a person/boyfriend. And the only way he knew how to deal with those feelings was to escape them with porn. He has to learn to face them head-on, without him being lead to believe that his whole self is flawed or bad because of a bad/wrong action. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes, it's only human. Especially with an addiction, one is not fully in control of their actions. A bad action doesn't make anyone a bad person or a failure. A healthy way to deal with a mistake is to acknowledge the mistake, take responsibility for it and learn from it. You can never change something and grow as a person if you never admit a flaw in your behavior/actions. Some people just haven't learned that, because of traumatic events in their childhood/adolescence, adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms. My boyfriend for example was bullied in school, which I believe is the root cause for his unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I don't know if any of this applies to you, I don't know how you define a 'white lie'. But as soon as your wife asks you something and you know you are intentionally hiding something from her that you feel like she wants and needs to know, you are deceiving her and betraying her trust. You are not truly in recovery then. Just my opinion.

If you are still lying to your SO - as you noticed yourself, white lies are still lies - you are still actively addicted. Once I had discovered my boyfriend's addiction, I thought that once he knew that I knew and that he had my support and understanding, there was no more reason for him to lie to me. But I was so wrong. Whenever I came into the bathroom or study room and he was suspiciously staring at the home/lock screen of his phone/desktop of his PC and I asked what he was doing, he still kept lying to my face, every time. And even though my intuition told me something was wrong, I refused to believe that he would still continue to lie to me. One year after dday and finding hard evidence that he had still been looking at porn behind my back while pretending to have quit, I left him (temporarily). Knowing that he had lied to me was infinitely worse than being told that he had looked up some sexy pictures for a few minutes. And he also would argue that he was just 'protecting' me from feeling hurt. That is addict-logic. There is no way you can justify lying to your SO. There is no way you can justify deception of the person you love. You are just escaping the responsibility and consequences of your own actions. Because you don't know how to handle the feelings of having hurt your SO. You haven't learned how to deal with the guilt/shame of having disappointed her and her response to your actions reminding you of your mistake. You have learned to avoid dealing with these feelings in a healthy way by becoming addicted to porn. You need to relearn how to deal with feelings of having done something wrong (guilt =/= shame), without escaping them and not admitting them to yourself, lying to yourself and to your SO in the process.

This was and still is a problem in my relationship. Me resenting my boyfriend's actions (=him looking at porn, violating my boundaries) is perceived as me resenting him as a person and feels like an attack on his self worth and value as a person/boyfriend. It triggers feelings of shame. It triggers his fear of being rejected because of not feeling adequate enough as a person/boyfriend. And the only way he knew how to deal with those feelings was to escape them with porn. He has to learn to face them head-on, without him being lead to believe that his whole self is flawed or bad because of a bad/wrong action. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes, it's only human. Especially with an addiction, one is not fully in control of their actions. A bad action doesn't make anyone a bad person or a failure. A healthy way to deal with a mistake is to acknowledge the mistake, take responsibility for it and learn from it. You can never change something and grow as a person if you never admit a flaw in your behavior/actions. Some people just haven't learned that, because of traumatic events in their childhood/adolescence, adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms. My boyfriend for example was bullied in school, which I believe is the root cause for his unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I don't know if any of this applies to you, I don't know how you define a 'white lie'. But as soon as your wife asks you something and you know you are intentionally hiding something from her that you feel like she wants and needs to know, you are deceiving her and betraying her trust. You are not truly in recovery then. Just my opinion.

You're absolutely right. I kept telling myself it was to protect her from the heartache, but ultimately I was not being open with myself. I am currently in a therapy group and we have been going over these topics for the last month (sorry for the late reply). I appreciate your insight from the SO perspective because it helps me understand what she is going through. I see how the white lies are still lies and have been open with her since the original post. I sometimes have to pause before I answer because there is still an impulse there to hide something, even though I have been porn and masterbation free for the last 8 weeks. I have found myself reaching out to her more than I have in the past. Sadly, I put myself in an extremely deep hole, so there is still a lot of making up to do to get back to a better place.

Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it.

 

[Wvudude89]

Do you really think so?

Found out it's a lot more work than I previously thought. The last month has been tough, feeling like working against the tide. I know there is a lot of programming that needs rewritten. Still have my fingers crossed.

 

[Wvudude89]

I definitely had a problem with lying which was tied into my addiction. I think it started off when I was a teenager, hiding things from my parents but then went to hiding things from my wife. The thing is with lying is that it's an easy way to avoid the consequences of your actions until things finally catch up with you. Some of the lies I told in the early days of my recovery were about pointless things but I was still trying to 'protect' myself (I literally lied about overcooking potatoes).

I think it's definitely something you need to work on as part of the recovery process. If you catch yourself lying then make sure to correct yourself. One thing I' found is that in the two times I relapsed since starting this process and lied about it, the guilt began to eat away at me until I admitted what I'd done. Before I started the recovery process I didn't use it to feel any kind of remorse for my lies.

I definitely can relate to that as a teenager. There was this sense of "always be a good boy", but then you stumble upon porn and you've been told it's bad. I tend to bring up a sarcastic response (my defense mechanism) and it normally causes a fight. Still plugging away at it.

 

[ImASinnerWhoJesusSaved]

If you are still lying to your SO - as you noticed yourself, white lies are still lies - you are still actively addicted. Once I had discovered my boyfriend's addiction, I thought that once he knew that I knew and that he had my support and understanding, there was no more reason for him to lie to me. But I was so wrong. Whenever I came into the bathroom or study room and he was suspiciously staring at the home/lock screen of his phone/desktop of his PC and I asked what he was doing, he still kept lying to my face, every time. And even though my intuition told me something was wrong, I refused to believe that he would still continue to lie to me. One year after dday and finding hard evidence that he had still been looking at porn behind my back while pretending to have quit, I left him (temporarily). Knowing that he had lied to me was infinitely worse than being told that he had looked up some sexy pictures for a few minutes. And he also would argue that he was just 'protecting' me from feeling hurt. That is addict-logic. There is no way you can justify lying to your SO. There is no way you can justify deception of the person you love. You are just escaping the responsibility and consequences of your own actions. Because you don't know how to handle the feelings of having hurt your SO. You haven't learned how to deal with the guilt/shame of having disappointed her and her response to your actions reminding you of your mistake. You have learned to avoid dealing with these feelings in a healthy way by becoming addicted to porn. You need to relearn how to deal with feelings of having done something wrong (guilt =/= shame), without escaping them and not admitting them to yourself, lying to yourself and to your SO in the process.

This was and still is a problem in my relationship. Me resenting my boyfriend's actions (=him looking at porn, violating my boundaries) is perceived as me resenting him as a person and feels like an attack on his self worth and value as a person/boyfriend. It triggers feelings of shame. It triggers his fear of being rejected because of not feeling adequate enough as a person/boyfriend. And the only way he knew how to deal with those feelings was to escape them with porn. He has to learn to face them head-on, without him being lead to believe that his whole self is flawed or bad because of a bad/wrong action. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes, it's only human. Especially with an addiction, one is not fully in control of their actions. A bad action doesn't make anyone a bad person or a failure. A healthy way to deal with a mistake is to acknowledge the mistake, take responsibility for it and learn from it. You can never change something and grow as a person if you never admit a flaw in your behavior/actions. Some people just haven't learned that, because of traumatic events in their childhood/adolescence, adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms. My boyfriend for example was bullied in school, which I believe is the root cause for his unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I don't know if any of this applies to you, I don't know how you define a 'white lie'. But as soon as your wife asks you something and you know you are intentionally hiding something from her that you feel like she wants and needs to know, you are deceiving her and betraying her trust. You are not truly in recovery then. Just my opinion.

Wow, my ex girlfriend dealt with stuff a similar way as your boyfriend. After she lied so much about things that were so small, she would still get mad at me and think that I was being disrespectful or attacking her as a person if I questioned her. Very frustrating and made me want to pull my hair out. Hopefully your boyfriend is able to recover, most importantly from his propensity to hide.

 

[Wvudude89]

My husband had to realize that lying about ANYTHING can cause me to reset in my trauma. Any trust he'd built up, was just gone in an instant. He realized this over something stupid. I came back down after trying to put the baby to bed to play, and gave him a kiss. He tasted like he'd had something to drink. I asked about it and he lied. I wasn't stupid and called him out on it. He fessed up after being badgered but the damage was done. We were back to zero. It did push us to do a more formal disclosure, so it produced something but it has me on edge still looking for more lies. From our path, you can't begin to rebuild trust until all the lies are done. Even the tiny ones that have nothing do to with acting out.

I definitely see your point. In the moment, it seems menial, but ultimately it's the lack of trust. "If he is lying about this small thing, who knows what else he is lying about." My wife and I have discussed this on several occasions since my original post. We found I need to stay out of my own head and just be honest. It sounds way easier than it really is. I still find myself falling silent when she asks a question. I'm working on it though, it's tough to break the habit. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I have been in group with other guys in the same situation as me, but we don't always get the other side of the addiction. My wife tells me it's as if I cheated on her. It's hard to come back from the amount of trauma.

 

[eagle rising]

I have noticed since my reboot that I still have the tendency to avoid questions from my wife. I tell little white lies here or there about what I am thinking about or what my opinion is on certain topics. This was behavior I had prior to my reboot. I would lie about what I was doing late at night to avoid the embarrassment or her becoming upset. In the moment, it's an automatic response, but afterwards I feel guilty about it. Even though we have been open since I have told her of my issues, I still feel like I need to hide. I know with time and patience it will get better. I wanted to see if other people notice these trends as well.

Greetings @Wvudude89 . First, I hope that you are able to get where you want to be.

If I may share my own experiences regarding this topic and your situation... I had this problem for literally - years. Ever since d-day the lies have held so much weight on my wife and I. It is literally weight, or friction. The lies are an energy sink. I thought that they are necessary in order to save my wife some hurt, but that is the mind tricking me, not for her, but for myself; for my own image. All the lies I told were energized by the lies that I was fed during my growth. I know that seems like a stretch in connection but this is true in my case. Not saying that it was okay for me, but knowing that sort of relieves the pressure, relieves some friction within. The relief of that friction gave me more energy to face the act of lying.

Now, as far as the moment of pressure is concerned, there is a certain art in getting past that compulsion to lie. It will take time and patience. You do understand that, but we must take care of how we use react to that expression, "it takes time and patience". This does not mean that it will magically come about later on, nor does it mean that we can take it easy. No, rather it is like learning a skill or learning to hone in billiards, for instance. It takes work and dedication.

The subtle art, for me, was just to sit there (in conversation) and keep my mouth shut until: my breathing regulated, my body released its tension (not necessarily completely), until the anger or whatever it is also subsided. I kept my body still and I watched my brain develop the story in my head and I analyzed the story. I also tried to put myself in her position. After that I would utter the truth in a mild way, if that makes sense. There are many other things that one can do to get out of the lying, of course, but here are the ones that worked for me.

I hope this helps!

 

[used19]

My wife tells me it's as if I cheated on her. It's hard to come back from the amount of trauma.

It can definitely feel like this. And we do not mean it to. But the trauma takes over without us wanting it to and we start swirling. We start examining everything. Looking for other lies, other traps. Other things so we won't be screwed over again. Head swirling, foggy brain, etc. It sucks. If you find yourself having a hard time answering quickly without lying, maybe discuss with her how you might ask for more time (another minute or two) to gather your thoughts so that you can override the lying in the moment and give a thoughtful answer.