When is it OK to Lie to Your Husband, Wife or Spouse

We are all taught from a very young age that lying is not a good thing. These life lessons help shape who we will become when we grow up and enter our adult years. Since we are young, when these classes are in session, we cannot be expected to understand that sometimes little fibs aren’t necessarily a bad thing or completely taboo.

I think for some people they equate lying with a lack of compassion or love. Sure some situations can be explained this way if a husband is lying to his wife about an affair or something that he did that he is trying to cover up, because he knows it will upset her, but not all circumstances fit this bill.

Sometimes married men lie because they think it is to protect their wives. Personally I don’t think this is a very good practice to use because it can have some very negative consequences, if it is not monitored closely. A simple explanation of this behavior is when an attractive lady walks by and your wife catches you taking a peek. She might ask if the other lady is prettier or has a better looking body. Even if the man feels the other woman is prettier or in better shape he will still reply that his wife is prettier or looks better than this stranger, to reassure her.

True story, I actually got in trouble for answering my wife when she asked me this question. She asked if I thought a co-worker of mine, who she had met before, was pretty. I answered that I thought she was and that put me into the doghouse. Looking back on it I don’t think I could have answered this one without getting in trouble. I thought honesty was the best policy because I felt saying no would be like I was trying to hide something (which I was not thank you very much).

For the record I love my wife more than I can say in words. After we started dating I stopped looking at other women in a search for a partner. I am by no means dead, and have no problem appreciating the beauty of the fairer sex, but I want no other woman in my life besides the one I have already.

Back on topic, unfortunately some men fall into a comfort zone with this ‘protect your wife’ method and use it too often. Married men might not have learned this but our wives are usually smarter than we are, I know mine is and they can see through us on just about everything we do. Deploy this technique too often and she will call you on it.

As a married man I have been guilty of lying to my wife and, to be honest, I couldn’t think of any situations where a married man has not lied to his wife yet. In our defense wives lie to their husbands too but I pretty confident that the numbers would show husbands lie to their wives more than the other way around.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not advocating creating a string of deceit from your wife but sometimes it cannot be avoided.

Here is a perfect example, your wife gets dressed and asks the question all married men dread, “do this make my butt look big?” Any married man who still uses his brain knows the answer to this question and replies accordingly with a “great”, “fine”, “good”, etc. What if he has concerns about the few extra pounds his wife is carrying around? Will bringing up these concerns at this particular moment help to answer her question or cause a fight?

For me these kinds of little lies are OK to me. I know I’m not thrilled about how I have lost some of my flatness around my stomach, as I age, but even if I make a negative comment about it my wife reassures me that it is OK. Even if she doesn’t feel that her statement isn’t 100% true I’m alright with it because I know her heart is behind what she said and it was said out of love.

As soon as married men let their hearts convey what they want to say, versus our brains, we will be in good shape. If we continue to allow our brains to tell our mouths what the right thing or ‘smart’ thing is to say we will continue shacking up with Fido.