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My BP caught me about 4 weeks ago after having an emotional affair with someone I met at a conference. The affair lasted 2 weeks before my BP found the text messages. She asked me for the truth and I told her everything but not all at once, there was a lot of trickle truth, some on purpose, but some because I couldn't remember as I had deleted some of the communication. It was a terrible time and we briefly separated but after coming back together, we both started IC and it looked promising until today, when she went through my phone and saw I deleted messages with another person. We were able to get the messages after I wrote to the other person and while they were flirtatious and still wrong, they were not as explicit as the previous ones. Here is my problem though: I never volunteered the truth and in all these scenarios my BP is the one who caught me. To make it worse, for the incident today, I texted the person secretly on the side and asked her not to send those messages and deleted messages again but when my BP confronted me, I ended up telling her the truth. But only when she confronted me... And she says everything may have been forgivable if I just didn't text the other person to hide the messages.
Why can't I stop lying? Why do I keep telling half truths? It seems Everytime I want to tell the truth, something physically holds me back.

Probably you don't actually believe that the truth is better than the "reality" you try to construct for yourself and people around you. The truth is always better. Sometimes inconvenient and uncomfortable but better. You'll never experience real healing if you don't base it in the truth. If you don't believe truth is on your side, you'll keep lying.

Pippin,

Thank you so much for your reply. I did end up telling the whole truth and the response has been quite challenging but expected because of my actions. But like you said, whatever the case or outcome, at least I know that the truth is on my side.

Prayingforreform2024, I am glad that you told your wife the whole truth.

That is, if you did tell your wife the WHOLE truth. If you didn't, you wouldn't be the first one on the SI wayward board to say that you had while holding back. Ask me how I know.

This is the part that made me raise my eyebrows:

it looked promising until today, when she went through my phone and saw I deleted messages with another person.

What exactly was it that looked promising? It looked like she was calming down enough to talk to you? That you would get away with what you had told her and no more? The whole mindset of "it looked promising" is DEEPLY problematic. Those words emanate from beliefs. Beliefs don't change because you (may have) finally got all the facts on the table.

A crisis is a rare opportunity to make real change. You need to look deeply at your relationship with truth and honesty, where you learned whatever beliefs you have, why those are flawed, the urges you have to hide or lie or whatever, and how to resist those urges when they come. This isn't a one-time thing, it's an ongoing process that will be probably part of the rest of your life. I had to commit to the truth, re-commit every single day, recover from f-ups, and finally reap the rewards of an honest and truthful life. And still, sometimes, I have to notice during my daily self-checks that there is an urge to hide something and immediately un-hide it.

I promise, it is well worth the work, but the hard part comes first. And please, if there is a single lie or omission about any aspect of your life that you have not shared with your wife, for God's sake, write it down in detail, tell her the gestalt, and let her decide if she wants the details.

Also - just checking - are you actually praying for reform or is that just a figure of speech?

[This message edited by Pippin at 11:38 PM, Saturday, February 8th]

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Pippin. Yes, in the end, I chose to tell her the full truth. Initially, I believed I could get away with half-truths and past lies, thinking I could start fresh. But, of course, that isn’t what honesty truly looks like. Despite my lies, my BP would always find out the truth, and eventually, I realized that the only real way forward was to be completely open—including admitting to an EA she hadn’t known about. That was the point of my second post: that I ultimately told her everything. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it has caused her immense pain, but as I said before—no matter what happens now, at least I know that I am standing in the truth.

I’m learning that telling the truth requires a conscious effort, Pippin. I did the ‘why’ exercise suggested by Daddy Dom and discovered that my lying is deeply connected to my people-pleasing tendencies and my fear of being seen in a negative light. I used to convince myself that hiding the truth was easier because it spared others from hurt. But how wrong I was. Now, I am making a deliberate effort to be mindful of every lie I tell—or even consider telling. In fact, as another poster suggested, I’ve started journaling every time I lie or feel tempted to lie. I question my motives and reflect on what would actually happen if I just told the truth. And though being fully honest with my BP has been incredibly painful, I survived it. That realization gives me comfort whenever I feel the urge to lie—I remind myself that I told the hardest truth of all, and I am still here.

When I say I’m praying, I don’t mean it as a mere figure of speech. Reconnecting with my spirituality (Christianity, in my case) has been a crucial part of my journey toward change. So, I truly am both praying and working toward real transformation.

When I say I’m praying, I don’t mean it as a mere figure of speech. Reconnecting with my spirituality (Christianity, in my case) has been a crucial part of my journey toward change. So, I truly am both praying and working toward real transformation.

What does your prayer look like? I'm not asking to critique, I'm just curious. I like hearing about how other people practice their Christianity.

I was rereading Mere Christianity (CS Lewis) and thought about the difference between a one time tell-the-full-truth and a continual repentant commitment to always being truthful.

Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor - that is the only way out of our 'hole.' This process of surrender - this movement full speed astern - is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. it means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death . . . Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like.

Ray Stedman says -

Playing God is the nature of sin. It is an extremely pleasurable experience. We love it.

This is why you need daily, hourly, minutely prayer (which I think of as an intensification of your desire) to get away from it. You are getting away from something that, up to now, has been the default and a pleasurable default toward something that is hard and painful at first. And it keeps being painful to some extent as you go through the layers of letting go, and playing God in the form of truth-"management" keeps seeming pleasurable until you gain wisdom to see beyond. You'll go right back to it as soon as the worst of the storm has passed, if you are not as careful with the truth as you are with your life. When you feel like telling lies (in any form) is the same as stepping in front of a truck, you're getting there. It takes time and intention.

I worked on this with my therapist and we broke it down into my thoughts, beliefs, and actions. For awhile, I practiced stopping myself in that moment right before I wanted to lie and just noticing the urge. Then I practiced noticing what my thoughts and beliefs were in that moment: Was I scared? Did I want someone to like me? Etc. Once I noticed that, I could challenge those thoughts and beliefs.