We all lie from time to time. People may ask us how we’re doing and we tell them, “I’m good”, when really, we are not. We may tell our spouse that their new dress that they love so much looks great when you are actually thinking it looks ridiculous. It is normal to fib every now and then. Often, they spring from innocent or perceived noble motivations. Sometimes we don’t even realize we did it. Later, we try to make these mistakes right by being honest about our small deceptions. This is the healthy action and we take it because we have been wired in one way or another to believe that lying is wrong. Even when a bigger lie takes place, healthy people with well-established boundaries and well-defined morals take this healthy action because of their values (a combination of morals, boundaries, and beliefs). These are not dishonest people because, although dishonest from time to time, they steer themselves back to the right path on their own.
Some people, however, seem, even to themselves, locked onto a different path. This is the road of dishonesty and, from my experience and research (both academic and practical), they get to this road by following a path they were steered onto for many possible reasons. Most of the time, the unhealthy action of deception has become second nature, and now, any other path seems impossible. Some of these people want desperately to end these unhealthy actions. Some don’t know that they can live any other way. Others think that this unhealthy way of life is okay and there are no repercussions from unhealthy behaviors. I was led down that path and travelled the road of dishonesty for a long time until I put in a lot of hard work and effort, trial and error, to get myself on a healthier path. No matter what category of dishonesty they may fall into, action must be taken to get on the healthy path of honesty because, whether you want to believe it or not, living a deceptive life is and will continue to do damage to you and those around you. The damage may not even be in directly relatable ways that are easy to identify, but the damage is still being done whether you perceive it or not. Dishonesty, as a habit or a way of life, must be eliminated in order to be happy, healthy, integrated, and whole. It will prevent you from prevent you achieving fulfillment in your life and, especially, in your relationship.
Okay, you may be thinking, “I can accept that what you are saying is true. I’ll give you one more, Sean. I can even accept that I may be on that path and need to get on a healthier path. Now, how in the heck do I even start doing that?” Well, unfortunately, it’s going to take some hard work. Although it may seem daunting, we can break this monumental task down into smaller pieces and tackle it one step at a time. The first step is the most critical and must be done first in order to succeed in all subsequent steps. Let’s talk about that first step and start to nudge you away from the unhealthy road you may be travelling on.
As with all habits and behaviors, the key to changing them is understanding what caused them or may be causing them. You cannot change something unless you unlock the reason you are doing it. Big surprise, right? Simple. As I wrote about last week in “Good, Old-Fashioned Hard Work”, however, simple does not equal easy. Getting to the root of these causes, no matter how deep, will set us up for success in changing our unhealthy habit into a healthy one. The methods used to identify these causes will also have the added benefit of helping to establish the new, healthy habit also.
There are many things that could have pushed us down the path that leads to dishonesty. I believe that we are, by nature, neither honest or dishonest at birth. Honesty is a learned behavior, as is dishonesty. To discover what led us to learn dishonesty, we must use an important tool and a healthy action-self honesty. This is one of the main facets of honesty and practicing this concept will not only help you understand the roots of your dishonesty, but at the same time, you will be establishing a new, healthy habit. Now, let’s talk about some examples of what those root causes may be. See if any ring true for you!
As far as my story, I was in active addiction from my late teens until my late 30’s. I had to start lying to maintain that addiction. If I had been honest about it, I would have been forced to accept my unhealthy behaviors and change them. I wouldn’t have been able to continue my self-denial and the people who cared about me wouldn’t have let me continue my bad choices. I started lying to hide my shameful behavior. This led me into the shame cycle. I lied to people to continue the self-gratifying behavior. I lied to myself to sustain my denial. The more shame I felt, the more I lied, the more I used, the more shame I felt, the more I had to lie to maintain my addiction and rationalize it in my own mind. I wasn’t ready to stop, so to keep my unhealthy lifestyle going, dishonesty became first, a survival mechanism, and then, as I did it more and more, it became a way of life. It grew into a part of WHO I was. I was pushed onto the path towards dishonesty, then made my way down it at full speed. Before I knew it (in fact, I didn’t even know it) I was on the road of dishonesty and it seemed to be a freeway with no exits. At that point, I wasn’t just lying about my addiction. Lying had become second nature and my go-to reaction to fear, anger, shame, and all the negative emotions I experienced. I was lying about anything and everything, and often, I was doing it without even being aware of it. I was presenting myself as someone different than who I actually was. It got to a place where there just didn’t seem to be any other way to live. I hope this example illustrates how I LEARNED the behavior of dishonesty and chose to take a path that led me to a dishonest lifestyle.
The behavior may have come from observed behavior as a child. We pick up our learned behaviors from those we watch in our formative years. If our parents, grandparents, other close relatives, or other primary caretakers lived a life of dishonesty, we will take on that behavior, thinking it is normal. Popular culture such as television, movies, literature, and music can play a role in this, though to a lesser degree. The people we associate with in our early years can influence us. If we run in a crowd that engages in unhealthy behaviors, we will pick those up whether we want to or not. They DO rub off on us. This is why responsible parenting and associating with people of high moral character are such important things to live by. The more we do something, and even the more we see something being done around us, the more it becomes integrated in our personalities. Even when there are negative consequences for the behavior (i.e. punishment at home, expulsion from school, jail, etc.) if it is observed and practiced enough, it will become part of us.
A history of abuse, either emotional, physical, or sexual, can lead you down the path towards a dishonest lifestyle. Just as in addiction, with abuse, there is a lot of shame involved for the abused. Lying becomes a survival mechanism and the pattern is very similar to what I described above in my story. People lie to protect the abuser, lie to cover up the fact that they were abused, and lie to themselves so as not to have to feel shame and humiliation. Then, the shame cycle takes over.
Feelings of inadequacy developed early on, or even later in life can push you down the path to dishonesty as well. Feeling as if you don’t measure up to some internal or external expectation of yourself can cause you to lie about who and what you are. Again, the shame cycle rears it’s ugly head, and down you go. Inadequacy can involve feelings of failure, disappointment, and underachievement, either to yourself or someone else such as a parent or role-model. In this example, as with abuse and addiction, shame is the driving force.
Do any of these examples ring true for you? If not, practice some hard, brutal self-honesty and search internally for your truth. There IS an underlying cause and you can’t conquer the unhealthy behavior until the root cause is known. Go all the way back and look at traumatic events from the past. Evaluate past care-givers, role-models, and peer groups. Be self-honest about addiction issues, either with substances, pornography, sex, or other addictive behaviors. Look for instances of abuse of any kind. Try to identify the time, place, and the people with whom you first started to be dishonest. When you find the root cause, don’t stop there. That is the time to start practicing self-honesty about everything-feelings, goals, morals, beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses. Take a personal, honest inventory. After you become well-practiced in self-honesty, you will be ready to bring honesty to all your communications with your partner. You will have steered yourself off of the road of dishonesty and set a new path for yourself-a healthy, honest, Confident path!
Want more? Listen to the episode “What Honesty Means With Your Spouse, Marriage and Yourself!”