How to overcome a history of dishonesty in your relationship (so you can swing safely)

“Anything good is complicated.”

 -Abe, One Fast Move

Do you have an explosive relationship? Or a complicated past? Let us love it. Nearly everyone who makes it in love experiences bumps in the road. What matters is that you are here now. But that doesn’t mean the past doesn’t still hurt sometimes. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to let it go? It’s time for a clean slate. Here’s some help on how to get there.

For the Betrayed Partner: A path toward forgiveness 

“Consider that this dark night of the soul is an invitation.”

-Wendy De Rosa

If you have a history of lying, withholding, or infidelity in your relationship, perhaps the insecurities brought up by swinging feel harder to overcome, more personal between you. I understand.

I share this pain with you. It was hard to go into swing settings wondering if my husband was going to be honest with me about his experience. If he’d be honest with me about his hottest moments, spankbank images, fantasies and dreams that followed. I was so hurt by past lies that I felt I would explode if I heard one more.

This was a toughie and we needed our couple’s therapist to help work through this with us. Even if everything is perfect between you, finding a (sex-positive) couple’s therapist to check in with once a month can make things even better. Sometimes you need an outsider to help you work through difficulties you’d otherwise avoid. Sometimes you need someone to remind you to celebrate progress you’d otherwise overlook. But, in the absence of a therapist, here are some learnings that have helped me.

First, if your partner has a history of lying, this started long before you. They have probably been lying since they could talk. Get curious about why this is. Most people lie because it wasn’t or isn’t safe to tell the truth. It’s like how you chew – it’s how they communicate – they don’t even think about it. They are so used to being shamed and blamed and punished for the truth that it is extremely difficult to become aware and decide to tell the truth, especially in the moment. This is why, for us, we have an open-door policy on revisiting past lies. My husband can come to me at any time and correct something he’s said, and it’s my responsibility to be entirely loving, enthusiastic and celebratory of this feat, not punish him for having lied.

Imagine a five- or seven-year-old, lying to stay safe and connected with the ones they love. How painful a childhood this must have been. How painful it must have been knowing that the child’s experience or full personhood would not be welcome around those he or she held dearest. When I learned more about why my husband adopted this adaptive behavior, it got harder for me to be angry about it, and I could see that it wasn’t personal.

It got easier to celebrate his bravery and trust in me when he did come forth and correct a past lie or tell the truth in the moment. I am honored by his work to be honest with me and it makes me more committed than ever not to show up as his parents did and shame him for the lie or the truth. If he is lying, I want to show him that it is safe to tell the truth.

The affirmation, “You can do no wrong,” is such a helpful relationship guidepost for us. Even if he is lying, I love him, and I will tell him as such. It takes daily and constant practice, demonstrating to him, moment-to-moment, that I am a person to whom it is safe to tell the truth. By not taking it personally, it doesn’t hurt my feelings (as much) anymore, either. Like a person addicted, I try to celebrate his abstinence, and basically ignore when he slips up. Slip-ups are expected when we are trying to shed old patterns.

I know how hard this can be. If you have a history of untruths or boundary violations, I know the searing hot pain of betrayal that may cause your insides to go haywire when you sense or pick up on a lie. But the more we understand why our partner did what they did, the more we can rest assured that it was nothing we did. It’s not that they don’t love or respect you, it’s that they have a nasty habit that predates you.

The more compassion we extend to them, the more obvious and reasonable it feels to extend at least as much to ourselves. By showing them love, you demonstrate they are worthy of love. And if they are worthy of love, as the betrayer, aren’t you? Fairness will require giving yourself more love, too. By loving them, you will heal yourself.

So, I need to remember to see him as the scared five-year-old and NOT punish him or overreact. If he comes to me later and says, “Earlier, I wasn’t completely honest,” or, “I remembered something I want to tell you,” I am going to smile and celebrate him for his bravery, not blame him for an error made from early life programming. And you are allowed to fail, too. Sometimes, I can’t help but say, “I know you are lying to me.” This is typically not a great approach, but just like he gets grace while he is growing, you and I get grace too.

If your insides are burning and you need to address a perceived lie, consider an invitation rather than an accusation.  Lately I am trying, “I love you. When I heard you say ____, I felt [emotion-word such as scared, helpless, sad, angry] ___, and the story I made up is that you weren’t telling me the whole truth.” Then I affirm something about him, such as, “You know I think the world of you and nothing you do or say will ever change that.” Or, “I love you and I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong; I just want you to know I love you, and I won’t be angry if there are more or different details you want to share, now or later.”

You may also grow in compassion by noticing that you lie too. (Unless you never lie, which, I love you, but I find doubtful.) Are you aware of your own lies? Recently a book I was reading--The Presence Process by Michael Brown--invited me to consider if I every say no when I mean yes, or yes when I mean no. I noticed it twice that day. Witness yourself for a day, or a weekend, and just notice. "If you notice yourself doing this even once," the book said, "then you are unconsciously doing this all the time." When I noticed my lies I felt furious, and ashamed, mostly for being a hypocrite. I had just gotten angry with my husband for lying the night before! But as infuriating as this was for me to see, being able to see that I too lie, withhold, and don't speak up right away when something is awry helped me show even more compassion to my husband (and recommit to not punishing him for these blemishes). Telling the truth is hard, and I don't want to be punished either. We are both doing our best.

If someone has a habit of lying, they aren’t just doing it in swing settings, so you have plenty of opportunities to demonstrate you are a safe person when the stakes are LOW. We also give each other a loving positive presumption. A positive presumption is the belief that a person is doing the best they can and not acting with an intent to harm you. After a swing event, you are going to remember things the next day and week as you process. That doesn’t mean they or you intentionally withheld. No matter what, I want my beloved to be assured that I am not going to get angry with him for anything he does, even lie. Over time, you will retrain this internal program of theirs, and they’ll recognize that you love and celebrate them when they tell the truth. You can even give them an extra-exciting reward, if they need it, to be brave and tell the truth in the beginning.

If you are thinking, “What the fuck? What about me? I’m supposed to just put up with this shit?” I hear that, and I understand. But, frankly, yes. If you were hurt previously with your partner, and you stayed, you must find a path forward, and forgiveness, a clean slate, is the least dramatic. Of course, my husband also has a responsibility to consider me, remember I too am human, have maladaptive programming, and give me grace and compassion when I am hurt or make a mistake that hurts him. Sometimes, I still take it personally when he lies to me, but an apology goes a long way to wipe the slate clean. If you don’t think a clean slate is possible between you, is this really the right relationship for you?

You have already endured the worst. Every time you remember it you re-experience it. Literally, the body does not know the difference. That’s why, for me, the more I thought about it, the more panic attacks I had. Let yourself let it go. Stop remembering it. You deserve that much. In Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, we will revisit a memory and act out what we wish we had done. This feels so good to me, and I’ve replayed these scenes of what I wished happened in my mind so many times that it feels almost as real as if that outcome really did take place. And I can feel confident that to the extent that I could have done anything differently, I will do so in the future. As painful as it is, can you go back to the memory and witness yourself? Can you see how innocent you are? Can you show yourself the love you needed in that moment, and every other in this saga of betrayal? What do you want to empower your past self to do differently? Can you act it out in your mind? It’s okay to cry (or destroy things). Anything you want to do in your mind is 100% okay.

Finally, can you forgive yourself for staying? I know I experienced so much shame for staying with someone who treated me poorly occasionally. Don’t most of us do that though, in one way or another? A recent Gallup poll found that, “Only 31% of those polled said they would try and save their marriage after their spouse cheated,” But actually, between 60-75% of couples stay together after an affair is discovered. It doesn’t make you weak or foolish. It puts you in the majority. It means you love someone unconditionally. Congratulations. Yes, it hurts, but you are not stupid. You are brilliant: you know that any love is going to hurt sometimes, and that you chose the right person. It’s their fault, and they going to show you how sorry they are. Don’t let anyone who isn’t you tell you how you should feel or react. They don’t know better than you, and it feels like shame-dumping on top of shame to carry shame for staying. Carry pride for loving. Pride for deciding for yourself what is right for you. Good luck.

For the partner who violated relationship boundaries 

“Love is not for the faint of heart. . . . This path you are just beginning is not an easy one. If you want to be truly close to the people you love, if you want to sustain real passion and authenticity, you will have to work for it, not just once or twice, but every day. And you will have to take risks.”

-Terry Real, How Can I Get Through to You?

If you lied or cheated, you are not a bad person. You just made one hurtful choice. Maybe even several hurtful choices. But you do get credit for all the loving ones. Your partner will probably give you credit for them, but maybe not right away.

Brené Brown advises thinking about trust as a jar of marbles, where with every act or every loving day you add a marble and trust gradually grows. As I explained to my husband, infidelity takes a baseball bat to all those marbles.

But not all of them will roll away. You can salvage some, and then rebuild every day. And like the Japanese art of Kintsugi, what you build will be even more beautiful and even stronger than where you started. But you cannot rebuild if you stand before the broken glass and refuse to acknowledge it, or if you have no urgency about grabbing those marbles and finding ways to pour more in.

Step one will involve the most painful part. You have to listen. Hear how what you did hurt them. Why should they have to deal with the pain and the knowing alone? You don’t know what it brought up in them, and therefore you can’t understand the unique depth and curvature of their wound. Imagine if you knew your partner was hurting, but you didn’t know if it was a toothache or a broken foot. How could you possibly attend to them with the requisite and appropriate care? It is going to hurt, but find a way to stomach the details, the specifics. To see them cry. Allow yourself to cry. Allow yourself to see the person who cheated as not you. In fact, that is not you, that is past you. You and your partner can be aligned together in helping them feel safe that past-you will not manifest in that particular way ever again. Whatever it takes, whatever they need, listen.

As couple’s therapist Terry Real puts it, “a great many of us emerge as adults unprepared for the task of staying in love.” It’s okay you messed up. But if you violated relationship boundaries, and you want to keep your mate, you need to decide, “Can I make this relationship my top priority, for as long as it takes for her/him to trust me again, and perhaps, the rest of my life?” It will take that much work. If this person isn’t worth the work to you, be honest and be done.

A family friend told us that he when he was super successful in his businesses, he came home to find his wife serving him divorce papers. He had a choice to make: what life did he want for himself? What mattered most? He decided to change. He reoriented. He quit the job. And he did the work to keep her love. And they are still together 30 years later, today. If you decide that your person is your person, that you would do whatever it takes to keep them, and that they are not too broken to quit, you can salvage this.

Take responsibility. Take action. Be patient and reasonable while your marble jar remains low. And find a way, every day, to add marbles back.

You can do this.

If you are looking for more compassionate resources, we benefited greatly from What Makes Love Last: How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal by John Gottman and Nan Silver, and confidently recommend any text by the Gottmans. Also Terry Real's books, especially How Do I get Through to You, provide many gems including the above quotes.