Although it seems like a lifetime ago, and definitely the life of another woman, I can easily recall when I had to learn how to deal with a lying husband. When I realized he’d been lying to me, I wondered “how had I been so naïve?” We were out of the honeymoon phase, but had not been married very long at all when I discovered the kinds of things that will break a marriage. I can still remember vividly the look on my husband’s face as regretful tears fell and he lay broken before me.
“You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?” He whispered.
But even more than I recall his shameful tears do I remember the astonished, unbelieving look on his face when I answered.
“No. No, I’m not.” I said. “I love you.”
And we just hugged and cried for a long time. I cried tears of grief at trust broken. He had lived a life I wasn’t even aware of, right underneath my nose. But that was the start of learning how to deal with a lying husband.
The next year of marriage brought a new way to live out our covenant to God, and to one another. I spent a lot of time watching him through narrow, distrusting eyes, searching his pockets when I found his pants on the floor, or looking quickly through his phone when he walked away. If he got a phone call I needed to know who it was, and if he went somewhere I was chomping at the bit wondering where. I didn’t know how to deal with a lying husband. I was a suspicious wife, and I’m not saying I shouldn’t have been. After all, his past actions had not been the stuff of saints. But then again, neither had mine.
I remember that period as one where I consistently felt like he was lying to me, even when he wasn’t, and I truly believe that my obvious distrust somehow pushed him to be more secretive just for spite. But I cannot say for sure. I just know that at some point as I looked up on a pill-finder website the information for an unrecognizable capsule I had found in his pocket that I realized it couldn’t continue like this for the long term. As I gazed at the website telling me the innocent origin of this acid reflux pill I had slyly discovered, I knew I had to let it go. That was a first step in learning how to deal with a lying husband. Eventually you have to trust again. Eventually you have to surrender to God the things you cannot control. Eventually you have to stop worrying and start praying.
