I may be wrong but I think one of the worst feelings in the world is to discover that you have been lied to. It gets worse when you discover it is someone you care for, someone you had trusted. (The caveat is that the lie was deliberate and that it was substantive.) What becomes a kind of perverse icing on the cake is when you discover that other than them saving face, there was no real purpose in their lying. How do you feel upon this discovery? Angry? Yes. Hurt? Yes. Confused? Absolutely.
When the person who lied to you is a family member, a spouse or a child or a parent, the emptiness inside is nearly crushing. You now don’t know how to react around them. Do we tell the person that you know they lied to you? If so, how? And the host of other questions you never thought you’d be facing but will need resolving increases. Forgive? Well, if you are a Christian, you have no choice – you have to forgive. But forget? Trust again? What do you do with all your emotions? Ignoring or denying them will never work – you have to come to terms with your sense of betrayal.
How do you react around that person in the future? While you may want to eke out some revenge or give them a taste of their own behavior, those options are not even in the mix of options.When the perpetrator is family, the likelihood of interaction is heightened and you are forced to confront your feelings quicker than you may be prepared for. But what do you do? You really can’t act as if nothing has happened because it has. Personally I’ve never had the desire to act so I don’t but I also know that what has occurred will cause a change in the interpersonal relations. A riff has been caused. Repairable?
The whole ‘realm’ of lies, lying is much larger than anyone ever imagines. The ripple effect that a lie causes is truly immense and the liar rarely sees all of the destruction their lie causes. And the myriad of emotions cascade one upon the other. Being the recipient of a lie is difficult to live with. Then again, we don’t know the motivation of the person who lied … why did they lie to us? We just know they did. But you haven’t been the first nor will you be the last person facing this quandary. And if nothing else… you now know how the other person feels when you are the perpetrator of a lie.
