Women Who Lie

Do you lie to your husband? 

According to reality television a lot of women do.  Mainly about how much money they spend.  Apparently, they'll go to such lengths as hiding bank statements and hiding their booty in the back of the closet and then bring it out months later at which time they could honestly say they've had it for a while.
The more that I thought about it, the more I was confounded by it.  It just doesn't occur to me as being a realistic option to hide my spending by lying to my husband.  Of course being of an analytic nature, I had to disassemble why that is and I realized there are two main reasons why lying wouldn't work for me:

#1.  There is no way I could hide the fact that I'd spent the money.  He looks at our accounts more than I do and with online banking there's no way I could even hide the bills from him.

and,

#2.  I suck at lying. No, I really suck at it.  I instantly feel guilty and you can pretty much read me like a book when I'm lying and if I do get away with a lie.. I don't feel good about it.   

I just blew $30.00 on some yoga mats online and while I hemmed and hawed over buying it because money's tight, I really wanted the mats to go with the DVDS I was getting (with a gift certificate) because it's our plan to get fit.  I knew he probably wasn't going to be pleased.  Did I lie to him or fudge the truth about how much the mats really cost?  No. I may have wanted to but the price tag was staring me in the face and I had to be honest.  In a sense, I am lucky.  The way our finances are set, I really have no option to lie if I wanted to or not. 

Still this got me thinking about women who do lie to their husbands. I don't get it.  After all, if you think your husband is going to blow a gasket because you just blew $100.00 bucks at the mall,  call me crazy here, but maybe there's a reason why you shouldn't be spending the money. 

Of course, I'm not a saint and I'm sure there have been times when I've been guilty by omission and I definitely know there have been plenty of times when I've downplayed my involvement in certain items getting broken around our house. Just as I am sure I don't tally up my blogging hours in a day for him to peruse or confess that I ate the rest of the candy I supposedly shared with the kids.

Which is where we come to white lies and how we define what constitutes a serious lie and a harmless (white) lie.  Depending on who you are and your background, that can vary a lot. 

So what it came down to for me was that I realized that lying about those types of things isn't okay in my book.  I want a marriage based on respect and trust. I would NOT want my husband to lie to me about those things.  He has, in fact, lied by omission to me recently and it hurt .... a lot.  There wasn't a thing I could have done differently at the time but it would have been nice to have been involved in the decision rather than him thinking he'll take the money and put it back before I know it's gone. 
I believe lying is usually done to save face. To save ourselves from blame, culpability, consequences etc.  But what about the people we lie to?  Months later, I'm still resentful.  It's hard not to play the blame game... if only we had that money we'd be able to buy a new washing machine or I'd have some money to invest in that home business I wanted to start.   

While you may think it's no big deal for you to lie about what you spend, think about it from their perspective.  If they know and/or are constantly finding out that you are over spending the budget etc they are already feeling angry and resentful and one day it will catch up with you.  The couples I see on these reality shows like Til Debt Do Us Part that are struggling financially are all on the verge of divorce, especially if one of them is being deceitful. 

I don't really think that's worth a new pair of Jimmy Choos.

Do you lie to your husband?  If so, do you think it's affecting your marriage negatively?


*Please note that this post is not intended in any way to be judgemental on how others live their lives but merely hopes to provide a platform for discussion concerning the issue of lying.*