Articles and Advice on Lying, Infidelity, and Cheating Spouses

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Since the beginning of time, romantic partners have been lying and cheating. We can help you understand why this happens and provide the tools you need to make things better.

We offer practical advice for dealing with a spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend who cheats or lies. We also provide research-based information about falling in love, and solutions for rebuilding trust, dealing with jealousy, resolving conflict, and creating a healthy relationship.

To help you find the information you are looking for, we have organized our site by the following topics:

Dealing with a Lying and Cheating Spouse

Initially, most people approach the topic of lying and infidelity somewhat reluctantly—driven by their curiosity or by a recent, unexpected discovery.

For better or for worse, our romantic relationships are not always as straightforward as we would like them to be. From time to time, our intimate relationships can become complicated—full of contradictions and inconsistencies.

When it comes to love and marriage, people expect a spouse to be completely honest. But at the same time, everyone values their sense of freedom and privacy. So while romantic partners typically want to please each other, sometimes couples have competing goals, which can make telling the truth more difficult (see when lovers lie).

As it stands, our close relationships involve a lot of truth-telling as well as some dishonesty.

If love was straightforward and unchanging, that make things easier. But when you take a close look at the nature of love and romance, one thing becomes clear: love creates happiness and heartache, opportunities and constraints, joy and sorrow.

For the most part, spouses are considerate, honest and kind (see healthy relationships). But at the same time, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, sometimes betray those they love. Deception comes in handy when people want to limit their partner’s choices, avoid conflict or punishment, or when they want to influence their partner’s behavior.

While it is not uncommon for people to lie and cheat, it is difficult to accept that one’s own husband or wife might be doing so (see cheating spouse). Many of us have caught a boyfriend or girlfriend lying, only to have him or her deny it—"I would never lie to you."

Not only can our close relationships sometimes cause heartache and anxiety, but it’s also difficult to discuss lying and cheating openly. When you mention the possibility that love and betrayal might go hand-in-hand, people tend to get angry, or they become defensive.

We know how disheartening it is to deal with these issues. But, disheartening or not, deception and infidelity are important to understand.

Therefore, this website provides an opportunity to explore this fundamental but rarely discussed aspect of our intimate relationships: how to deal with a lying and cheating spouse.

Even in the best of circumstances, it can be difficult to know what to believe. Many people struggle with their suspicions and concerns (for facts and advice, see cheating husband or cheating wife).

For example, people often wonder...

• Is my husband just being flirtatious or could he be tempted to cheat?
• When I ask my wife a question, why doesn’t she look me in the eye?
• Why doesn't my girlfriend answer her phone?
• Why is my partner working so late?
• What’s causing my boyfriend to be so distant lately?

Is there an innocent explanation for everything that happens? Or could you simply be reading too much into what’s going on? The truth is not always easy to discern (see signs of a cheating spouse).

Actually having to investigate a spouse can quickly turn into a never-ending challenge. More often than not, this happens because a cheating spouse will rarely admit the truth even when confronted with evidence of his or her guilt (see how to catch a cheating spouse).

Sadly enough, some level of suspicion might actually be warranted from time to time. Research indicates that if you want to look for deception in your own life, the best place to start is close to home. Lovers often lie about their true feelings for each other, the feelings they have for others, their level of commitment, their whereabouts.... And people tend to tell their most serious and consequential lies to those they love (see what lovers lie about and secrets lovers keep).

At one extreme, some husbands and wives never plan on being faithful. Millions of other husbands and wives, who never intended to commit infidelity nevertheless end up doing so (calculate how closely your spouse fits the profile of someone who is likely to cheat by taking our infidelity quiz or participating in our cheating spouse survey).

To make matters more complicated, detecting deception or infidelity is never as easy as people think (see detecting deception). Not only can it be difficult to investigate a spouse, but doing so also raises a host of relational, ethical, and legal concerns—issues which are important to consider before deciding to monitor a spouse (see gps cheating spouse).

In any case, most of the lies lovers tell go undetected, simply because people downplay the chance that a partner would actually lie, while in addition, they overestimate their ability to spot their partner’s lies (see tell if a lover is lying).

For the most part, the strategy of "assuming the best" works fairly well, until the day comes when it does not, and with little warning or preparation we have to confront the reality that a close relationship is not exactly what it appears to be.

Eventually, almost everyone will catch a partner in a lie. Often, it amounts to uncovering nothing more than a spouse telling a small, white lie. Of course, sometimes it also involves something much more serious, such as infidelity (see why men cheat and why women cheat).

When deception is uncovered, even finding out the truth about a small, white lie can lead to new problems, such as increased suspicion and doubt. If your spouse is willing to bend the truth about something trivial, what about something that really matters?

When something much more serious is uncovered, people have a difficult time coping with what they have learned and dealing with the fact that someone close to them has betrayed their trust (see steps for rebuilding trust and granting forgiveness).

It’s not so much that coming to terms with deception will solve all of the problems that people are going to encounter, but it will help to reduce the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that occurs when deception comes to light.

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