On lying, part 2

Meanwhile, I have gotten a couple of e-mails from Boyfriend 5. I thought it could be kind of useful to be able to correspond with him directly. But now I am not so sure there is any point.

One of the first things he told me was that anything I send him will be kept in absolute confidence and not shown to Wife. I guess he was trying to build up my trust. The problem is that I cannot possibly believe this, try as I might. So the result is that he has undermined my trust rather than bolstering it.

If he had said flat out he would share whatever I wrote with her, I would have given him points for honesty. If he had never mentioned the subject, I probably wouldn't have thought about it. But now that he is insisting on a point that I am certain is a lie, I have to assume I can't trust anything else he says either.

Not that this is a big surprise, I guess. It does persuade me (in a cynical kind of way) that he and Wife were made for each other, because this is exactly the kind of lie she uses on me too. Whenever I ask her a question, she tries to figure out what answer will make me happy rather than just telling me what is true. But there is not much point in my carrying on the correspondence under these circumstances.

The thing is, I have learned belatedly that little bitty lies over trivial things are always indicators of more fundamental behavior. Back when I had only known Wife for a couple of months, I overheard her talking to her mother on the phone and casually lying about how she had spent the afternoon. And I almost walked out right then. Part of me told myself that I should tell her, I can't be involved with you if you lie like that. But I was still head over heels in love, and I told myself it was no big deal. I told myself it wouldn't happen to me. And I have spent the next quarter century with it happening to me repeatedly, more often than I could dream of counting. The moral of the story -- and what I should have realized at the time -- was this: If she lies to her mother, then one day she will start lying to me.

Some time, I need to tell Wife the following: If you get fed up with me and want to run away with Boyfriend 5, then just do it. If you want to go running off to the Middle East and spend your life drinking mint tea and haggling in bazaars, I can't stop you. Get it over with and let's both get on with life. I'll be sad, but I have spent years in advance grieving over an impending divorce because you have threatened it so often. By the time you pull the trigger, it will be just a formality. But before you leave, remember one thing. If he lies to me, one day he will start lying to you.