How do you clean it up if you tell a big lie, and don’t know what to do?
Find out with Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com and Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutSex.com.
Cathy: We have a video about what to do if you tell a lie and get caught in it. Why did you do that?
Reid: I do that when I lie.
Cathy: This is Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutSex.com.
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from the http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: Someone wrote in and said, “What if it’s a really huge lie? What if you made up a huge lie?” This person hasn’t actually … yeah she hasn’t actually gotten caught at this point, but she’s [inaudible 00:00:32] on her and she doesn’t know what to do. It’s not a little lie it’s a big lie. What would you do?
Reid: Thank you for writing in. I’m so sorry that you are now in a huge lie. http://www.ReidAboutSex.com/difficultconvo. I would use a difficult conversation formula now of course we don’t know what this lie is. I don’t know what the lie is. I am going to suggest, one if it’s a huge lie you should probably go see a therapist and actually get somebody who is a committed listener.
Cathy: You might want to see a lawyer if it’s something that could get you in legal trouble.
Reid: Actually get some professional advice not a YouTube video okay.
Cathy: From YouTube.
Reid: Not saying that we are not good with our advice I’m just, I’m not a therapist and she is not a lawyer that I know of.
Cathy: Are you a lawyer?
Reid: Are you lying to me? That being said, I have found while it is difficult to always tell the truth and also understanding human behavior for the most part and a lot of people just like they freak out and they get surprised and they just lie. Lie comes out. When it’s a lie of fear and you just freaked out, the sooner you come clean, the better your chances are. Like being difference with, I just I lied to you two minutes ago versus I lied to you two years ago and had been living in that lie ever since.
Cathy: Well you told a story about your dad didn’t tell your mom that he lost the house.
Reid: Yeah.
Cathy: That you found out in the paper.
Reid: Yeah the house I grew up in was up for auction.
Cathy: They were living in it at [inaudible 00:02:26].
Reid: We were living and my mom was thinking everything was fine so that’s a big lie. Come clean, be forgiving when people lie to you if you can. The Five Languages of Apology really helpful for starting to rebuild trust. There is also a book called The New Monogamy that talks about infidelity and rebuilding trust. For some people a lie is not about sex it’s just like cheating or similar it can feel like so that book has some amazing advice about rebuilding trust in it.
I would say do the work, get some professional advice because I’m just assuming it’s a big lie, means it’s a fucking, it’s doozy. Get some professional advice and some support and then check out the difficult conversation formula that I use for initiating difficult conversations. My basic belief is that it’s better to tell the truth and it’s better to come clean and then due to work to clean your mess up and to rebuild the trust. Than to try … than to assume that you can hide a lie forever.
Cathy: It just it follows you and it weighs on you.
Reid: It will probably, it will probably make you feel horrible and then you’ll blurt it out in one drunken night of something. Or whomever will find out whether it’s a friend or lover whatever family member like it’s just, lying is not the way to do it. If you can and I have a lot of compassion because I grew up in a family with somebody who lied. I know what that’s like being on the receiving end of it and I got to a place where I understood my dad a lot and why he felt like he couldn’t tell the truth at the time. Your mileage obviously is going to be different and for everyone who’s listening, your mileage is going to be different.
Cathy: I would encourage you also to try to figure out what triggered the fear because if you told a big lie there was some big like you said a big fear. If you can understand where that came from and either get therapy or coaching to clear that up, you are less likely to be vulnerable to that in the future. I love to look at it like I’m trying to blank at the person who said it, it was really blatantly said. He said, “Lies are like a blockage in our connection to somebody else.”
If we lie to someone to try to save the relationship or keep the relationship clean or like flowing easily, we are actually putting blocks in our connection. Because we will hold our energy back, we’ll hold our being back because we are like trying to hide that. If you can in the interest of healing the relationship and your connection with the other person, clean this up as soon as possible so you’ll have that connection. Or if it’s too late you can move on to other people rather than just setting all your energy trying to …
Reid: Trying to hide a lie will probably impact the satisfaction of your relationship and then odds are they will find out and then it will just go down the fire blaze of glory. Not even glory it will just suck. I would rather, again this is my personal opinion, you try telling the truth and clean it up and have the relationship end then. Rather than you live a lie, you are kind of not happy or self-expressed to begin with and then it really just fucking implodes. That’s all.
Cathy: If you think they are going to handle it really badly, get a therapist or mediator to be there with you. You don’t have to put yourself in physical or legal danger. Get some help in cleaning it up.
Reid: Again our advice based on the fact that we don’t know what the lie was, it wasn’t disposed to us, probably wasn’t my business and that’s just our basic advice. Leave your comments about how you like people to tell you the truth when they have lied. Bye, thanks for the question.
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