Ask Molly Ringwald: I love my wife to bits, but she lies – frequently

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/27/ask-molly-ringwald-my-wife-lies

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I have been married for two years, and I love my wife to bits. The problem is that she lies. If it was a one-off lie it wouldn’t matter, but there are all these small things where I feel like she lies to get me to do things. I don’t know what to do. I feel sick and sad – and sometimes it makes me wonder if I am going crazy.

I get how crazy-making it is to deal with a person who lies, particularly someone so close to you. There are myriad reasons why people lie, and without knowing your wife, I can’t say what her reason is. I suspect it is something she learned in childhood. Maybe it was how her mother dealt with her father. Maybe it was a strategy that she found would work for avoiding conflict with her parents. Whatever the reason, it is something she needs to unlearn. Any successful relationship requires a huge amount of trust and goodwill to thrive, and deception undermines both. Eventually that lack of trust erodes the goodwill, and anger and suspicion take over. Before you know it, you’ll find yourselves estranged from each other.

If you haven’t talked to her about it in a calm moment, then now’s the time. I suggest bringing it up when you’re not angry, because it is less likely that she will react defensively. Hopefully she can at least try to commit to a more truthful relationship if she knows how much it matters, and you in turn need to forgive her lapses if she makes an honest effort.

My mother-in-law, a woman with a very strict moral code, used to lie without compunction (or malice) whenever it involved family – which was always the most important thing to her. It drove my husband (and me) crazy. Once, she told him that there was a birthday party his Greek relatives were throwing for him. We didn’t want to drive two hours out of the way after we had just arrived on holiday, but a party thrown in his honour? How could we possibly decline? Turned out, the party was actually for someone else – though the date conveniently fell on his birthday. When the lie was exposed, my furious and exasperated husband went to find his mother. She laughed and danced, swinging her arms back and forth above her head, in the Greek fashion. “But look at this party, agape-mou: aren’t you glad you came?”

She had us there. It was a great night.

• Send your dilemmas about love, family or life in general to askmolly@theguardian.com