Can You Lie-Proof Your Relationship?

There have been a few high-profile incidences of infidelity in the news of late, from Foo Fighters founder Dave Grohl’s announcement that he had a baby girl with a woman other than his wife and mother of his three other daughters; to news that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former presidential hopeful and husband of Curb Your Enthusiasm actor Cheryl Hines, had an emotional affair with New York magazine journalist Olivia Nuzzi; to House Homeland Security chair and conservative Republican Mark Green’s impending divorce in light of accusations that he has been having an affair on his wife of 35 years.

While it’s hard to know how much cheating goes on in romantic relationships, as that information is self-reported and people who are engaging in extradyadic shenanigans aren’t always honest about what they’re doing, a 2023 study indicates that about 25% of marriages experience infidelity—and that just includes sexual affairs, not emotional affairs, which can be just as painful.

Still, focusing solely on sexual infidelity ignores the many ways people can betray their partner or partners. As famed psychotherapist Esther Perel writes in her 2007 book, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, betrayal comes in many forms, including being neglectful, indifferent, contemptuous, asexual, demeaning, and insulting. The 25% figure also excludes financial infidelity; a recent survey indicates some 42% of adults in the United States have kept financial secrets from their partner—especially problematic as many couples say money issues are a major stressor in their relationship.

That doesn’t mean people can’t make their romantic relationships a safe place for truth-telling, which will go far toward avoiding betrayals of any kind. But it does mean we need to get comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations, not once but throughout the relationship.

Why we lie

Most of us are pretty upfront and self-disclosing in the beginning of a relationship in hopes of being seen as someone who is honest and trustworthy. And most of us want and expect honesty in our relationships, especially with a romantic partner. Over time, however, being honest with our loved one can take a back seat for many reasons, including anticipating that they may evaluate and judge us or, worse, reject us, especially if that has happened before. And so, the temptation is to stay mum—about how you really feel, what you think, and what you need, whether it’s something as seemingly benign as not wanting to watch their favorite streaming series with them or learn to play pickleball because they love it and you don’t, or something more significant, such as about how they touch or kiss you.

“The more we start to feel intimate with each other, and we become close, we worry about each other, and we are afraid of each other’s judgment and . . . we actually become less open,” Perel shares on the “Knowledge Project” podcast.

Research indicates that we’re more likely to lie in our romantic relationships than in other types of relationships, mostly motivated by a concern for our partner’s feelings—we don’t want to hurt them or cause them pain—and for the relationship as a whole. Too many of us buy into the “happy wife, happy life” mantra—a belief that if we can just keep our partner happy, then everything will be OK.

Being real with our loved one isn’t all that easy. Even though having uncomfortable conversations is a huge part of life, not only in our romantic relationships but also in our platonic, familial, and workplace relationships, most of us feel anxious about having them—and so we either choose to be less than honest so we can keep the peace and appear easygoing or opt to avoid having the uncomfortable conversation altogether.

How dishonesty backfires

While deceiving our loved one is a way to cope in the moment, “the extensive use of deception appears to be an indicator of overall relational distress,” writes researcher Tim Cole.

“Relationship breakdowns can be inevitable if partners aren’t working on the same page to create a shared reality, to be transparent, to give each other the benefit of the doubt and not exploit that benefit of the doubt, if they [aren’t] committed to an uncomfortable honesty as opposed to dishonest harmony in the moment,” says Kate Balestrieri, a psychologist, sex therapist, and founder of Modern Intimacy, which offers individual, couples, and group therapy as well as online coaching and therapy.

Dishonest harmony—just keeping our partners happy—shouldn’t be the goal, she says. That only perpetuates inauthenticity.

“The partner who is placating is not advocating for their own needs and they’re not actually getting curious about how to create a sustainable solution together,” she says. “Then they get resentful, and that resentment erodes trust and intimacy and care, and it can turn into deception, it can turn into infidelity of any kind, it can turn into contempt, defensiveness, and feeling like ‘my partner isn’t on my side.’ And that happens when we’re not being real.”

Her experience seems to confirm what the researchers behind a 2001 study, “Lying to the one you love: The use of deception in romantic relationships,” discovered: “Although successful deception may pacify relational partners, one’s own use of deception is associated with increased feelings of isolation and declines in intimacy.” That disconnects us from our partner.

Yet one 2018 study indicates that being honest really isn’t as challenging as we often fear, leading the researchers to conclude that “by avoiding honesty, individuals miss out on opportunities that they appreciate in the long-run, and that they would want to repeat,” such as promoting “meaning and long-term growth.”

How to tell the truth

So just how can people turn their romantic relationships into a safe space for truth-telling and keep it safe for all over the long haul?

Research and experts shed some light.

For example, a 2022 study found that as important as asking questions can be, the kind of questions asked can lead to more honest answers from your partner. That means asking questions in a way that shows you are truly interested and curious about your partner’s thoughts or actions, and not suspicious or mistrusting of them. If your partner thinks that they won’t be believed or respected, they’re more likely to be deceptive—after all, what would be the point in telling the truth if you weren’t going to be believed?

Using elaboration questions—“Tell me more,” “Could you tell me more about that?” “Why do you think that?”—as a way to better understand your partner’s viewpoint may go far in reducing resentment and mistrust, according to a 2010 study.

Perel urges partners to never lose their curiosity about each other. The more you realize that your loved ones are actually a mystery, no matter how long you’ve been together, and that you don’t know everything about them or your relationship, “the more likely you are to be curious about them as most of us are when we first are getting to know someone,” she says on the “Knowledge Project” podcast.

Perel suggests people have a separate email address that they only use to communicate with their loved one as a partner and lover, not to talk about parenting or the day-to-day realities of life, such as money or household issues. “They start to say different things they haven’t felt they could say,” she says.

While our curiosity can invite our partners’ honesty, we should also take care how we share our own truth. A 2022 study found that while being honest often can bring people closer together and improve intimacy, communication, and understanding, what is being disclosed and the way it is being disclosed could undermine both partners’ well-being and the entire relationship, especially if it is said bluntly. Instead, researchers found that sharing your truth with kindness and sensitivity is more likely to get the desired results.

Creating a safe space for honesty

Unfortunately, we aren’t really trained to be good communicators, Balestrieri says.

“The people in the relationship really need to be invested in prioritizing the relationship over the individual, and that includes themselves,” says Balestrieri. “That doesn’t mean not advocating for yourself, but it does mean recognizing that the system of your relationship is bigger than either one of you as individuals, and creating a safe space or a place in your relationship where you both can feel heard and seen and witnessed requires a few variables.”

One important variable is making a commitment to what’s called emotion regulation, including being able to recognize when your emotions are getting too big for the situation and thus getting in the way of your ability to have a coherent, collaborative conversation, she adds.

“If you no longer can have a collaborative conversation, you’re dysregulated. And dysregulation in relationships is the thing that renders people self-protective. Once you are being self-protective, you’re no longer prioritizing the relationship over self. And so, when you and your partner are being self-protective, that’s when you stop being seen, feeling heard, you stop feeling witnessed, you stop feeling like a place where you can come and lay down all your baggage and not be judged and be received.”

Balestrieri advises her clients to develop a practice of getting quiet and reflective with themselves, which can include journaling. That may help you focus on the kind of relationship you want and how close or far you are from that. It also can help you realize what are the actual risks of being honest with your partner, especially if they quickly get angry or become abusive, and what risks are based more on fear than on what has actually happened in the past.


She often has couples create a mission statement together—why are we together and not with someone else? What agreements are we making to support our visions together? When will we reevaluate those agreements, how often, and why?

Sometimes, however, your partner just may not want to put in the relational work required. As frustrating as that can be, she says, working on what’s in your own control can help. “Just making changes of how you show up can affect the system of the relationship, which evokes change organically.”

Tamara Thompson, a New York-based marriage and family therapist, writes that by holding ourselves accountable for how we show up for our partner, we can create emotional safety in our relationships.

She suggests reinforcing your commitment to the relationship and that you are willing to make things better; thanking them for sharing their feelings and being vulnerable with you even if you don’t necessarily agree with everything they say; and being consistent with what you say and do, which goes far in establishing trust.

As someone who works with couples who have already given up on their union, New York City–based divorce lawyer and author of If You’re in My Office, It’s Already Too Late James J. Sexton is clear—relationships need attention if you want them to be happy and healthy for the long term, he says in an interview with Business Insider. Paying attention will help you realize what you need in the relationship. But, again, if you’re not creating a safe place to hear each other, you’re inviting problems and even more deception, including infidelity.

“The deception is happening because every time that there’s an honest sharing, it results in attacking,” he says, a common pattern he’s seen with clients experiencing infidelity because they feel they don’t have another choice to get the intimacy they want.

If we truly want to be told the truth, there’s one thing we can do, Sexton says—“refrain from reacting aggressively when confronted with unsettling information.”

“If you want a safe place in your relationship, you have to be that safe place,” Balestrieri says. “We are all messy, we are all imperfect, so all we can do is be the kind of partner we want to be. And get real.”