Not Cheating but Still Lying: Staying Safe when the Lying Persists (with Lisa Taylor)

What happens when the behaviour stops—but the lying doesn’t?

In this powerful and nuanced conversation, I’m joined by Lisa Taylor, a counsellor and APSATS-trained practitioner who specialises in betrayal trauma, sex addiction, and recovery.

Together, we explore one of the most painful and confusing aspects of betrayal: ongoing dishonesty—even when there is sobriety.

If you’ve found yourself upset with lying, lack of transparency, minimising and evasion, even when you're pretty sure he's no longer acting out 
 —this episode is for you.

We unpack:

•  Why lying often hurts more than the betrayal itself
•  The difference between lies of omission and lies of commission
•  A deeper look at intent behind dishonesty—from malicious harm to self-protection and carelessness
•  How patterns of lying can become automatic or even unconscious
•  The impact of compartmentalisation and cognitive distortions
•  Why understanding why someone lies does not make it okay

Most importantly, we focus on what you can do:

•  How to discern what’s actually happening
•  How to anchor into your own reality
•  Practical ways to increase your sense of safety
•  Holding your ground with clear, protective boundaries

This episode is especially for women who are:

•  Navigating a relationship where sobriety is present 
•  Still holding space for repair 
•  Trying to rebuild safety while facing ongoing dishonesty 

We also gently acknowledge:
 Hearing about lying and deception may feel activating. Please listen at your own pace, care for yourself, and reach out for support if needed.

My hope is that this conversation brings you clarity, validation, and grounded confidence—so you can make decisions that honour your safety and your truth.

Links & Resources:

Visit Quiet Wisdom for supportive resources, or explore my free tools designed to help you feel more grounded, clear, and confident after betrayal.

Naked Truth Recovery offers groups for men seeking to heal their relationships as they recover from compulsive problematic sexual behaviours. There are also supportive groups for women healing from betrayal trauma.

Lisa's books :

Beyond Betrayal: How God is Healing Women (and Couples) from Infidelity

There's What on my Phone? How God's Good Gift Beats Porn (for kids aged 10-12)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, you're listening to the Confident Again Podcast, a show that helps you regain clarity and confidence after the pain and devastation of intimate betrayal. I'm your host, Jane Gibb, and today we are going to talk about staying safe when my partner is sober but still lives. If that's you, you're going to get a lot out of this podcast. With my special guest, we'll discuss how deception is a huge part of the pain of betrayal, consider different kinds of dishonesty based on motivation, from malicious harm to carelessness, how you can discern what's actually going on in that space, and what you can do to protect yourself. We'll leave you with some specific ideas for increasing your safety from the hurt and damage of lying. What I'm about to say now we'll touch on later in the conversation, but I also wanted to be sure to highlight it here at the beginning. This episode is especially for women who are still holding open the possibility that the relationship might work. And in relationships where there is decent sobriety from porn and sex addiction, and trying to feel safe again while navigating the complexity of the journey. We also want to 100% validate that it is painful to be lied to for whatever reason, especially after discovering the big lies of sexual betrayal. Especially in the early days, every shade of dishonesty, lying, minimizing, excusing feels very unsafe. And talking about this might be triggering for you to hear. So if that's you, please care well for yourself. If you experience a sense of shutdown or heightened activation, listening to this and reach out for additional support if you need it. I'm also aware that psychoeducational material about lying can be used by a person who lies to avoid responsibility rather than to own the need to come clean, be accountable and get help. If this happens to you, hold your ground and protect yourself with good boundaries. You don't have to go there. My hope in discussing the nuances of this topic is to empower you to make more informed choices about your life. Choices that will bring you calm, clarity and confidence. My guest today is Lisa Taylor. Originally from Canada, Lisa is a New Zealand-based counsellor specialising in betrayal trauma, sex addiction and group facilitation. She works in private practice and also with the UK-based Naked Truth Project, an organisation I work with as well. Drawing on her own experience as the wife of a porn addict, Lisa works with men, women and couples whose lives have been impacted by betrayal trauma and problematic sexual behaviours. Lisa has a master's in counselling, is a certified clinical absatz model practitioner and a researcher on the intersection of domestic violence and sex addiction. She's also authored three books on partner trauma and problematic sexual behaviour, including one geared toward parents. So I first came across Lisa actually because she's well known in the betrayal trauma specialist world as having done the research around domestic violence and um sex addiction. And people refer to Lisa as a specialist in that area and really appreciate the work that she's done. And today we're especially going to focus on the topic of lying and deception. But before we do that, I'd like to uh let Lisa tell a little bit about her own journey with this work in the betrayal healing space.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Thanks, Jane. Thanks for inviting me here today. Um so I began as a group facilitator, I think somewhere around 2014, so about 12 years ago now. Um I had been on my own journey of healing from betrayal trauma a couple years, few years at that point. Uh my husband uh came out in 2010, just as we were about to immigrate from Canada to New Zealand, and he began his recovery journey within days of confessing to me about his porn addiction. And I began not long after that seeking my own help, and then I became a peer facilitator for groups, and then I would eventually go on in nine years ago and retrain as a counselor and and work in this space. And I've been with Naked Truth Project for since 2019, so going on seven years, and at the moment, I actually guess from early on I was actually running the men's groups, which kind of surprised me. That was an area that I didn't think I would be doing a lot of work in. Um I started working with women and um my my individual clients are still mostly mostly women. I I do see couples as well, uh, but I also uh have learned a lot, I would say, and I've appreciated our our uh Kat Etherington who um kind of manages you and I and and the other facilitators. Uh she said to me early on, she said, I think you would benefit from working with the men, and and she was right. I think it rounded out my my experience too. So I get the privilege of working with a you know kind of everybody that's coming into this space, and you know, the the the guys, the women, individuals, couples, groups. So it's um it's been a it's been a labor of of love. I I really enjoy uh working with these people. We uh we work we get to work with some of the neatest people, don't we, Jane?

SPEAKER_00 6:02

I think it's an incredible privilege to be witness to the journey of deep change that happens when both men in recovery from problematic sexual behaviours and their women and their wives um really lean into the painful but um transformative opportunity that comes with owning needs and stepping into spaces that provide for those needs. So yeah, I agree with you. Absolutely. It's it's sacred kind of work.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I I agree. That's exactly how I think of it. It's sacred kind of pain. Some people for some people this will be the w the worst suffering they ever experience, or at least it'll be well up there as some of the worst suffering and the darkest nights of the soul that they're ever going to experience. And that has the most opportunity for many people. And probably should say right off the get-go, and saying that, you know, we I I work with the guys and I work with couples. Um, I also I walk women out of their relationships, you know, three or four or five a year sometimes. And that is a sacred journey as well. And and a journey of of beautiful growth and healing too, as much as it it is a doorway to another type of pain and another type of suffering. Um so I guess as we start our conversation where we will be talking more about a coupleship and, you know, w work with you know, where there's probably still a goal to remain a couple, that I have the highest respect for women who uh make, you know, a very soul-searching call to say, yeah, no, I the the right thing to do is to leave. That's what I need to do for me, for my kids, for and even for him, I often say, you know, that's when it's the right thing, it's really the right thing for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, thank you for honoring the women who are also experiencing that journey. Um yeah, today I we want to talk a bit about the topic of lying and in particular um what it's like a little bit further on in the journey and why this came up for this conversation is actually um you wrote a bit about lying, and I was really intrigued by the way you laid out different reasons around lying. And we know that lying is a huge topic in this field, and often clients tell me and they would tell you too, that it, you know, the cheating is one thing or the porn is one thing, but the the lying is the thing that really hurts. It's the lying that's devastated me. I that's the thing that really has impacted my safety.

unknown 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

And back to those women who leave, I guess when I see women leave, at least 50% of the time, it's not about the betrayal as much as, I'm not saying it's not about the betrayal, but it's not about the betrayal as much as these types of abuses. Let's call it that lying as a type of abuse. Um, it can be part of domestic violence, but it can also just it can be a relational abuse. And this ends relationships as much or more than betrayal does.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So as we're talking about this topic of lying today, I want to make it really clear for anybody listening that there is no excuse for lying. We're going to talk about reasons for lying, and whatever reasons might exist don't make lying okay ever. And it doesn't take away the pain or the harm to know the reasons behind. But what we want to do here is empower our listeners to um think about how they might respond in this space where lying um continues after sobriety.

unknown 9:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

So before we um dig in a little bit more, let's just talk about what are some different kinds of lying and deception.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

So I guess we often hear of two major divisions for lying, lies of omission, lies of commission. I heard those terms when I began working on disclosures with couples. And I for a lot of years just thought that those are two major kinds of lying. But as I began to really consider what I've seen clinically, what I've seen in my practice, I see a much uh deeper spectrum of lies, um, and which I uh so in my blog post I wrote about look, there's lies of commission and omission with malicious intent. And I I guess I really start to break it down more by intent. Sometimes I'm lying because I I want to hurt you. Sometimes I'm lying because I don't care if I hurt if I hurt you. Um I want to protect my my addiction. So we see that um in this working in this space. What we see more of, though, often is lies of commission and omission, and maybe I should explain what those are to begin with, in case people don't know. Lies of omission means more like our hiding. I'm just I'm just gonna hide something that's actually pertinent for you to know. Um maybe we even have a boundary around it, but I'm just gonna I'm you know, you didn't directly ask me in this moment, so I'm not gonna tell you. Lie of commission means I it's kind of that lying to your face kind of idea. You're asking me, was it X or Y? And it was X, and I'm saying Y. That's a lie of commission, right? It's it's much more direct. And neither's okay. Right? Neither's okay. Lies of commission do tend to be immediately more we have the idea of more culpability, right? I am probably more guilty because right now in this moment, I am choosing lie over truth. Um and I just I don't see lies of omission as a whole lot better myself, especially where there's that intent of maliciousness, right? I kind of put it then as the next level down of maybe slightly less pathol pathological is um I'm doing it for self-protection. Um and we were talking earlier, Jane, and and as you know, as we were getting ready to start, we were talking about things going back to childhood, and there's a lot of people that learn in childhood this maladaptive, we like to say in the psycho, you know, in terms of using our psychological terms, maladaptive or non-really non-helpful way of coping in the world, right? And protecting myself can be lying. And kids have so little power to protect themselves, and there are kids who are in really horrible situations, right? So it's not surprising. They're going to learn, they're gonna grasp at anything to protect themselves, and that may be lying. Well, if I keep repeating that pattern of protecting myself, that is likely to become something I'm bringing to adulthood. So it's still pathological, but it's it it feels somewhat less pathological than I'm out to hurt you, or I don't care if it hurts you. Um I'm in a I'm habituated to this form of self-protection. Okay, that's not great, but it's maybe a little less self-path it's a little less pathological or a little less concerning in terms of as I as I weigh up um how I should respond to this. Um that can become those those self-protective lies can actually become v so automatic that they become more like what we call cognitive distortions. Right? It's now my way of seeing the world is kind of twisted, right? And I'm twisting it towards uh self-protection, uh self-defense. And so are you when you talk about cognitive distortions there, are you talking about uh justifications and rationalizations that might exist minimizations, yeah, yeah, that may exist and they're so deep in my thinking and I've really never brought them out to examine them to go, is this true? Or, you know, is this and the crazy thing is when you're dealing with people in addiction it can be like you're I mean, this is this is you know, going back to our to the opium at opium addicts of the nineteenth century and Robert Lewis Stevenson writing, you know, about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You can have two different kind of people with two different sets of values and two different sets of beliefs in the world, right? And that that is a very common phenomenon, was then, is now in people with addiction. And Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can just have two different ways of seeing the world. And Dr. Jekyll, who's who's an upright man of good values, might be able to see that this is a lie, but when do but when Mr. Hyde's in operation, he was he was the the evil dark side of Dr. Jekyll in that story, um he just has a completely different set of values where he can justify, he can rationalize, he can minimize horrific things that actually Dr. Jekyll would not. So that's that's part and that does partners heads in, right? Because we tend to be more integrated people, right? If we think of integration is uh I can be myself and my best self in more in the vast majority of situations. And we could say in some way psychological health is the more situations in which I can just show up as me, the the better my psychological health. But a person addiction doesn't have this level of psychological health. They frequently sometimes we talk about chameleons, they show up as different people in different situations. And that that creates its own kind of pathology pathology that where in lying becomes more common and more likely, also more convincing because I part of Dr. Mr. Hyde really believes in this moment that what he's saying is true, right? This justification, this rationalization can be incredibly convincing. Um that's that's getting complex and deep in in into some of the pathology that may exist around lying. And again, I'm using this word pathology for a reason. This is all this is all unhealthy, this is not acceptable. Um, it just helps us to understand uh maybe even a little bit why somebody might be really really convinced, right, with with some of their lies. They have they have um deceived themselves on one level and on another level they may actually know the truth. Uh yeah. And I'm not talking about social identity disorder, by the way. When I talk about Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, that is a different um problem. And that's a obviously that that can take lying to a whole new whole new levels that we are not even going to get into in this in this podcast. This is still just within the normal range for people in addiction and their lack of integration.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah, so when we're talking about this really deep compartmentalization, we're talking about two parts that actually don't have the same set of values. And for some reason, they because of whatever has been present to create that, it's very difficult to bring that together. And because of that existing, that lying becomes a thing that does our head in because if we're not experiencing that same kind of compartmentalization, it's very difficult to comprehend it in another person. 100%. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah. That's that's exactly right. Um, so what I see underneath you know, kind of that in terms of a type of lying that we may see um from a person in addiction or you know, in recovery or early recovery, is just um the lies that come out when I'm in a state of dysregulation, which which any of us are capable of. And if you think about a lot of dysregulation can be negative emotion is now driving my narrative. Can be the other way around. I can have a narrative that's now driving my emotion. But you know, if we say if if I this negative emotion comes up and it's it's driving my narrative, well, we've all had the experience of feeling hopeless. I can remember I can remember saying to my husband at one point in recovery, or this is in the first year, you know, you're never gonna get better. This is always gonna be like this. Well, I mean, I couldn't know that in A, I couldn't know that in B. That is wasn't even how it was gonna play out, as it turned out. He's done great recovery. Um But that felt really true to me in that moment. Was I lying?

unknown 18:55

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Well, I was certainly not speaking the truth, but you know, so so we have to be aware that there's these untruths that, you know, are can be also driven by dysregulation. We can have lies of commission or omission that that are about dysregulation. A lie of omission when I'm dysregulated might just be I freeze. And we think when we freeze, we're often like we're walking through sludge. Our brain just slows down, everything slows down. And I may not be able to grab enough puzzle pieces to put it together. I may not be able to access my language center. I'm I'm now stuck just before making it to the left side of my brain where my language center is. I'm stuck and freeze. And um I may I may lie by leaving out information and not saying something. Once I'm regulated, I may be able to access all that again and put it together and speak it out.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, so I'm hearing the sort of it sounds like there's three big categories. So one category of lying being the category of lying that's intent to harm. I'm doing this because I I don't really care about you, your well-being, and I'm just gonna lie. The second level was more around I not thinking about you, but I'm really more in that self-protective space. And the third level of lying being um that I'm dysregulated. And so I kind of have access to my full cognitive capacities because my um amygdala is sort of taken over in that space. Is it is it have I captured the essence of that?

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah, I think so. I in the blog post I went on a little bit more to talk a little bit more about the lack of self-awareness or carelessness with details or cognitive distortions as their own thing. They're certainly related to self-protection. So we could we could possibly say that this is there's just the three main categories. Um I also threw in at the end that the kind of the least pathological is I'm not a hundred percent sure of the facts as I'm saying it, but I'm not telling you that you know, I think that's right, or maybe maybe I don't have that right. I'm just not I'm speaking with certainty when I don't have certainty. Could be wrong, right? Yes. And I think there's levels at which we all we all um know this, we've seen our kids do it, we like in which this is a it's a common human struggle. Um to be rigorously honest. And I don't know about you, but in uh the early days of my husband's recovery, I didn't have a lot of space for the common human struggle. I just had been lied to and had had things hidden and it had been devastating, and so I was demanding rigorous honesty. What I didn't always realize was was the rigorous, rigorous honesty um is a journey, especially where we're talking about the common human struggle. Some of it isn't, some of It's just just deciding I'm going to tell the truth. There's a level at which just that will can kick in. But there are levels of rigorous honesty which require a journey of self-awareness, which require a journey of um vulnerability, like learning to put down my defenses, which which requires me becoming aware of my defenses first, and then a willingness to put them down and be vulnerable. So it's skills that have to be learned, it's capacity that has to be grown. And it those kinds of things don't happen overnight.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah, yeah. So that's a good point at which to come back to who this podcast is really aimed at. And so what the people that we're talking to are women who are still working out if staying in the relationship will work. So we're not necessarily talking to people who have decided that the relationship isn't going to work for whatever reason. Secondly, we're talking to um to couples where the husband is in recovery from addiction and is doing well in his sobriety. Maybe it's not perfect, but he's got traction going in that sobriety, sobriety journey, and there's genuinely an upward trajectory with that. And we also want to 100% validate that it is painful to be lied to for whatever reason, especially in those early days when it everything feels so unsafe and every lie, every shade of dishonesty or of minimizing or of um avoidance of telling the whole story, all of that creates a lack of safety in those, especially in those early days. And even moving on can be very triggering. And so we want to also validate that hearing this content might be triggering for you. And so if that's you, um it's okay to go care for yourself and maybe reach out for additional support if you would need that. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Thank you for said, Jane. Because it's not it's not our intent at all to um undermine um what you know, or tell even tell women what they need.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

No.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Women have to work out what they need to feel safe, and we support you in working that out. Sometimes, you know, it well, pretty much most of the time I would say, it it helps to get some support as you're working that out, especially if you try and understand what are norms, what are what's the normal journey look like? And that's a really common question you probably get asked. I know I get asked that, you know, that and how long is this normal journey gonna take? Um, which is a little bit harder to to speak to. So this is more advanced recovery, the lying piece, um, in some ways. The the more nuanced areas are more advanced recovery. Um, you know, lying by omission or commission maliciously, there's no reason that can't stop right now. You know, self-protection. Uh that sometimes takes some deeper work, right? That sometimes takes where where did that come from? When did that start? Are there traumas that need healing around that? And um, and that's usually uh staged process as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

So, what we're particularly focusing on in this podcast is that journey from the state of denial, which is part of the profile of being in addiction, towards rigorous self-honesty and self-awareness. So we're talking about that journey and especially for people in relationship with a person on that journey, um, validating the difficulty of that. But we also want to give you a sense of what you can do to protect yourself and feel better in the context of that, whatever that might be for you, not telling you what to do, but trying to give you a sense of what's what are norms and what are some things that might be action steps that you can take.

unknown 26:07

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah. So, Lisa, could you um paint for us a bit of a picture about why a person for a person who's in fairly good recovery and um doing the work, but why might these lying patterns persist and what might be going on inside him?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

I I think when I when I think about someone who's doing good sobriety, the most common reason I see the lying persist is that that's my that's my go-to reaction when I'm in fear. Right? If I feel that that my relationship is threatened, um maybe this went back to my childhood, um, where I was trying to protect myself in an unsafe situation, and I'm not kind of staying present as my adult self, but I'm defaulting to this, you know, kind of because it's it's you know, it's it's almost like going back to a younger self where where I don't I feel disempowered, and so I'm I'm just grasping for what protected me back then, and it was to to tell a lie, to not be honest with you, if I think the concept I'm there's gonna be a negative consequence coming at me right away.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

What comes up for me when you talk about fear is um sometimes that lands on the partner like um it's your fault. You're scary. Yes. Yeah. So can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Absolutely. There's no there's no excuse for for you're scary because we're both adults, right? So when we're both adults, I mean if she's got a weapon in her hand, you mean by all means be scared and and take action. Uh so the reality is is that that sense of you're scary means often I've got some work to do on stepping into you know my full adult self, right? Where I recognize the reality of my power in this situation, um, where I become, and this is second stage recovery work where I can be comfortable with negative emotions and I can know what I mean, me didn't know as a kid, I am going to survive this, right? Even if we don't come to an agreement, even if she leaves, even if um you know, even if there's some other really kind of dire consequence, I'm gonna be okay. Because I am an adult, and it's more important to live by my values than to and and bear the uncomfortableness of this moment, right? If I'm an addiction, I probably have failed to learn how to ride out negative emotions in a healthy way. And what that's the problem I'm I would see. Your wife is gonna be mad at you sometimes, especially on this journey. 100% it's gonna happen, guaranteed. If she's not, she should come see Jane or I because we'll help her get in touch with her anger. It's normal, unexpected to be angry at times on this journey. And we don't want her internalizing all that. It's actually a really healthy thing for her, for the relationship, and also for the guy in addiction or recovering from addiction, to to have her externalize that at times. And we're working with partners to help them externalize it in ways that help them meet their goals, right? That that there isn't weapons involved, that there is, you know, there is um feeling, there's assertiveness, there's empowerment, there's confidence, um, and requests are being made and displeasure is being shown. But that's all that's all normal. And many guys in recovery cannot deal with that at the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for speaking to that that piece about the recovering addict saying to his partner, You're scary, and therefore I'm lying. Um and so I just really appreciate you speaking to that. Yeah, it's justifying, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Yeah, yeah. And there is no justification for lying, as I said, outside of the most extreme situations.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yeah. So I want curious about how understanding these things about lying in a recovering addict, um, how does that support partners in their own healing?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

For one thing, I think it helps us to with our expectations. I and I'll speak for myself. Um part of where I came up with this line, which I I I write in my book, The Lying is the Last to Go. I think it's I think it's a chapter title. Um, speaking to my mother, who worked 30 years as an addictions counselor, and she said, you know, the sobriety piece is often, you know, really well underway within a year, 18 months, but that lying just pers it persists. It just takes longer to fade away, right? For that, for those, um, for those habits to to be dealt with and the nail to be put in the coffin of the lying. And she told me, because I was lamenting to her that about how difficult I found this. And she wanted to help me. She wanted to help me to understand that yes, on one hand, it's it's not acceptable, but there is a journey for most people coming out of addiction around lying, whether it is the cognitive distortion, self-defense, um, you know, some other type of defense, they are an inability to be vulnerable, we'll throw in there. They are going to have to do some growth that they didn't have, their growth being having been halted by the addiction, before they are consistently all the time showing up without that lying.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Can you speak a little bit to the role of the will for the recovering addict in this space?

SPEAKER_01 32:20

And and obviously the the there's going to be differences of opinions on this, so I can only give you I can only give you my opinion. You know, I would say early addictions, uh my understanding of the history of of say the AA, right, and and the idea of like alcoholics anonymous, was that you know, we could just apply our will and change, right? Was what was what was understood to be going on before that. And AA kind of stepped in and said, I think we need to recognize that the will alone is not changing it for most people. And so they had step one, I'm powerless. I'm powerless against this addiction, right? Willpower alone is not going to do it. Uh, so that's speaking to the sobriety piece, that often there has to be an understanding that it's going to take more than will to make the change that I deeply desire, right? To be a healthy person. And, you know, I and I've seen it argued that that despite AA, it was often still treated as if just it was an it was an issue of will and it was a moral failing, um, addiction. But we do see it today as as being more complex than that. And therefore, our our will can be very helpless in the face of strong emotions, for example. Our will, that area of our brain is just not online if I'm triggered, if I'm deeply triggered. Um, if if a I'm you know aware of a past trauma, suddenly I'm going back to that trauma place. Will is is gone, right? It it won't it won't get me through that. Will works really well when I decide to go see a counselor to deal with my with my previous stuff. Um it's really good when I practice my exercises to help me stay regulated, my grounding work, when I practice my my gratitude exercises and things that help me to um to be more vulnerable and away and aware of my emotions. It gives it's great for directing me to group where I can sit there and watch guys modeling for me the you know how to live a more honest and vulnerable life. And I can make the decision in that spot. I want to be more like you know, my brother on this journey, Xavier, I'll say, I want to be more like Xavier who's doing great recovery. Will is good for those kinds of things, so it's important. It just doesn't get us, it just doesn't get us there immediately, won't go to the depths.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

What do you what would you say to a partner whose recovering addict is is saying, I want to be honest with you, and yet lying persists. So there seems to be a verbal agreement to I don't want to lie, and yet lying persists. What what do you say to that?

SPEAKER_01 35:09

I would be looking with her at what kinds of lies are we are we talking about? Is is this the kind of silly, childish, self-pro self-protective stuff? And I do, I hear this regularly, he lies about what time he put the kids to bed, right? It or is he lying and hiding his addic, you know, that he's still an addiction? Um this is the you know, how we respond will will be different depending on how big the stakes are, right? So it's it's okay to say this isn't this isn't okay. I would be also looking at what's the frequency. Are we talking about multiple times per day? Are we talking about once a week? Um, I would also be asking her, does he come back and self-correct? Is he confessing? Or you having to catch him each time? Because again, it um it's more concerning if he's never confessing. Um how quickly does he confess if he confesses? How what's his attitude? You know, you know, is he uh kind of kind of huffy about it, or is he actually got a great deal of humility and um you know, and so I would be weighing all of those things together to to work out because in a sense, we we're going right back to one of the first things we said, we can't tell uh we can't tell another woman w what should you know whether she should feel safe or not in her situation. We might help her to see that that um you know some of these things have different levels of implication. I I would want a woman to to be aware that you know there's a great lack of safety, uh lack of safety, right? If there's a really poor attitude, you're always having to catch him out. This is happening all the time. To me, that I would I would want her to see that that that's fairly important information in terms of how safe a person he is in role in a relationship. Conversely, you would want him to we'd also want her to see that that maybe it's worth if her goal is to see this relationship heal, that it may be worth hanging in there still, right? If if the opposite is what you're you're constantly seeing.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yeah. So it sounds like part of what a partner can do to protect herself is to evaluate what's actually happening in the space of the dishonesty and lying. What else could a partner do to protect herself in this phase of the journey? Boundaries, okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Right. They're there are they're key to our our self-protection and creating a safety or net around us.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Can you suggest some relational boundaries that you've seen useful?

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Yeah, I'm I mean it's and a lot of boundaries, you know, to work well, got to have consequences. So what I what I recommend, and I'm sure you're you're probably pretty similar, Jane, is I want to see women, you know, have boundaries, make those requests for what I need, and not paint themselves into a corner at the same time. So to say, if you ever lie again, I'm leaving you, could be painting myself into a corner. Right? What if, you know, there there may be instances where one lie is absolutely you would want to leave. It would make sense. That is the really the only appropriate response, right? That that absolutely there will be cases like that. And there will be cases of, and I've seen it, there are cases of women saying something like that, and then it turns out it's not a really important topic. He was kind of dysregulated at the time. He realized it the next day, came with great humility and contrition, and said, Oh, I minimized, you know, that was a lie because I'm I minimized that detail to you um last night before we went to bed. I, you know, I'm so sorry. What if what if I've made a boundary with with that consequence? Well, now what do I now what do I do? So I'm gonna be careful how I make the boundary.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

It sounds to me like a saying that I heard somewhere around don't make permanent decisions with temporary emotions. So I'm feeling unsafe and so I'm gonna make this permanent decision. What could I what other options might there be, Lisa, that are protective consequences without being permanent necessarily?

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Absolutely. So uh, you know, I today I'm not feeling safe. You're out on the couch, you're out in the other bedroom, you're out of the house. You know, there's all these different levels of consequences. Um, you know, when I say you're out of the house, I mean like you're out of the house for the night. You're out of the house. We're separating for the weekend. I'm going away to visit a friend for a week, right? And I would like you to get some help with this. That's always a really you get some help with this is a good consequence, right? Because it could lead to the change you need as well that creates safety. So these are all, you know, types of consequences we could put in place. And you know, we we talk about with our kids we want the punishment to fit the crime, right? As a society, we that that's kind of a rule of our justice system. Let's make the punishment fit the crime. Um, I can't tell another woman how much of a crime it is to her. And, you know, we can weigh out together. And and and I guess I would want to say to women, I I work just as much with women who I think are underseeing the severity of a situation and and the the you know the are are assuming more safety, where where I'd I'd not seeing that safety myself, um, as the opposite. It just kind of depends on on our a lot of things about us and how we deal with trauma, whether we'll we'll kind of go one way or the other. But it because it is trauma, it can be helpful just to have another set of eyes weighing in and saying, you know, yeah, you know, absolutely validating our experience, but that seems like something that's more overcomable. I'm just making up this word. This is a new word, overcomable. He may be able to overcome that faster with a little bit of help so forth. Um, what do you think? Do you do you think that's you know a possibility that your husband could overcome this or your partner could overcome this with a little bit extra help? And I think that's really key information for women. Is this gonna persist forever or or can he get better?

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Yeah. What are your thoughts around using accountability tools to support honesty?

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Absolutely, I'm a huge fan of accountability tools. Um so that that's to me, those are just standard things that need to be in place. Um, accountability, software, accountability partners, um who talk to the partner. I'm a big fan of if you have an accountability partner, he should be somebody who's on the side of the relationship, not on the side of being the father confessor who ends up just becoming part of the addiction cycle or the the bad pattern, which can happen. So, yeah, accountability people that you trust, you feel safe with, accountability software you trust, you feel safe with. Yeah. Um, yeah, and transparency.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Location tracking, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Location tracking, 100%. Um, taking videos. And my husband still does this to this day. My husband has to travel to California to work every now and again, um, from New Zealand. And he will video himself because we're in a completely different time zone. He'll just run a video and I can scrub through it the next day. This is my husband in the hotel. And I I'm aware of other husbands who've come up with that all on their own. Um, you know, I'm gonna or I'm gonna take pictures, I'm gonna take a bunch of pictures, right, on on my route. All the all there's so many, you know, it's it's its own whole it's its own whole podcast you could do, right? What are the ways the husband can make can do to to make her feel safer. Um but but specifically in the area of lying, yeah, I want to see too a lot of humility and patience, right? Including patience with her impatience about his lying. Yeah. And and that he holds the standard of this isn't acceptable. Right. And I will do what it takes.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Yeah. What would you like to say to people who are recovering from chronic lying and struggling with radical honesty?

SPEAKER_01 43:47

So for a person who, you know, was formerly in addiction and is now in recovery, um, I want to encourage you that this is uh sobriety is never the end goal to me. Right. Sobriety is a step on the way to your transformation, right? Into becoming the the man or woman, if you're the if it's a female betrayer, that you know you're meant to be, right? And you desire to be. So sometimes I I also have put that as, you know, this is this is the maturation process. Addiction stuck me. Now I'm going to become fully adult, a parent, an elder, right? A person who's got things to give others. And there's no place for lying in that. Like lying is a thing of of childhood, right? It's it's a great way to keep yourself alive in a terrible situation in childhood. Um and it's a terrible way to live as an adult. And it it's going to often require some support, right? To get at what is my what's behind lying for me? Is this trauma? Is this self-defense going back to childhood? When did it come into play? Can I get healing for that? And that would be a piece of it. And other pieces go to group. Um, I love the groups, the men's groups I run at Naked Truth. They love each other and will not accept cognitive distortions. They will call each other out lovingly, um, and having and tell their own stories of having to walk out of their own stinkin' stinking thinking is the term that AA originally came up with for cognitive distortions. So it's a great little way to put it, right? My thinking stinks, and therefore I'm lying to myself, and therefore I'm lying to others. Um so that's gonna be part of it. Second phase recovery where I'm becoming more aware of my emotions, first of all. I I probably didn't end up with a lot of emotional awareness as part of being stuck in addiction, but I can become aware of them now, I can name them, and I'm developing the courage to sit with them when they're negative emotions, and the even greater courage to name them to others, right? That vulnerability whereby I can tell you what I'm feeling even if I'm even if I'm afraid of your reaction. So that's all that's all part of the journey, and those are the some things that help.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

I'm hearing an invitation to courage. We talked about fear earlier, and there's an invitation to courage, to be honest.

unknown 46:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

And deeper recovery work, right? The deeper recovery work um is all part of that.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

100%. So what particular supports as we're wrapping up now here would you like to highlight?

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Yeah, so I think, you know, again, I just had just mentioned the the group that I run at Naked Truth and Chain, you know, we we know that the Naked Truth just provides some really top supports for um men in recovery, women from recovery, you know, healing from betrayal trauma. So though that's a a great international resource. Here in New Zealand, we have a we have a ri recovery groups as well. Um, run through Metamorphosis Trust, formerly side-by-side, so for betrayed partners and um that I really recommend. Those are for um side-by-side metamorphosis more Christian-based groups. So those are also you know excellent supports. Um, sex addiction specialist Atearoa, I'm on the board, so I'm doing a little shout-out to them. We are we are training counselors in this area all the time. And we have a list on our website of people in New Zealand, also some in Australia. So check there, there's gonna be good resources there.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Yeah, thanks, Lisa, and I'll put links for all of those things in the show notes. I did want to highlight that the men's recovery groups with Naked Truths really focus on the relational aspect as well as the addiction recovery aspect. So it's not just about addiction, and I think that makes it a particularly useful support in this space where lying shows up and that has so much impact on the relational space. So thank you, Lisa, so much for taking time to discuss this really important topic of lying with us and giving us some really helpful tips to understand what's happening in the background around lying and what partners can do to stay safe in the context of a person being in relationship with a person who's recovering from chronic lying. Um, that's so helpful, and we really appreciate that. We recognize that uh recovery is not a once and done, it's not a switch that we flick, it's a journey, it's a journey of courage, it's a journey of choice, um, and it's a journey of connection. And so I'm really appreciative of you being here to talk us through how we can be more um aware of the healing steps we can take in the context of being in relationship with a person who lies. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Thank you, Jane. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for your vision for this topic.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Thanks for joining my guest, Lisa Taylor and I in this conversation for betrayal healing. As you journey in your healing, remember that you are precious and your safety matters. To see what services I offer, check out my website. If you want to practice nervous system regulation, download my free polyvagal challenge in the show notes below. If this podcast helped you, like and share to help others too. Until next time, this is Jane. Holding space and hope for you to be confident again.