Agnostic.com

36 9

Have you ever been devastated by a lie?

I feel this way after I was told a heartbreaking lie last month by a man friend. The hurt that you feel when being lied to, is it devastating to you?

Sheannutt 9 Aug 11
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

36 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

8

The problem is....it's easy to lie to an honest person, because we never really expect it/see it coming. The difficult part is NOT letting it color your next relationship. Good luck! You'll see this through and be wiser for it.

@Sheannutt You're welcome....it WILL get better!

@Sheannutt, @Seeker3CO Seeker...you're right! And then, we're hurt...and they just dance away, in total cluelessness! Sometimes...this atheist wishes she could believe in KARMA!

8

It was that very feeling that made me into an atheist.

YES!

6

Lies by omission: After my husband died, I found out that I was his 5th wife (I thought I was the 3rd), and that he had taken me off of his life insurance policy.

@Sheannutt It was a difficult time. It was also a catalyst for me to make some positive changes in my life. I'm in a better place now than I was when I was married.

6

Yeah, she said she loved me, but I was just convinient.

Yep. He said he cares about me but that was not true either

6

Yes, and l have also been devasted by the truth.

6

I think betrayal lies at the heart of it. Good old Dante put betrayers in the lowest circle of Hell.

6

Being lied to always sucks.
The most devastating lies are told to us by the people we trust the most.

@Sheannutt The longer you find out the lie has been going on, the harsher it feels to have been betrayed.

5

the lies I've told myself have hurt most i think.

5

I once puched someone for lying to me. Not because he lied, but because he thought I was stupid enough to believe the lie. That was the only time I ever struck someone not in self-defense 😟

I think you’ve nailed it. It’s usually not so much the lie itself that hurts. The pain comes from what we tell ourselves about the situation. If we judge ourselves to be incompetent saps for being taken, then that causes us to feel badly. The truth is that it could happen to anyone.

@Sheannutt Yeah, sometimes they only have the courage to confess if they're out of arms' reach 😉

4

One time a former wife told me that her friend was just that and he meant nothing to her and all the letters I had found were from him and she did not feel the same way. Based on that I let her go halfway around the world to be with her sick mother and take our daughter. In the end I found this was all planned. Unfortunately, it was my daughter that suffered the most. BTW way she and her entire family are evangelical Christians.
However, don't let this discourage you in the future. To do so would only hurt you. There are still lots of honest people out there.

4

Yes

My first fiancé lying about her friendship with a coworker.

They are married for 32 years now.

That would hurt. I hope it's a consolation that there's a world of hurt out there. Maybe not...

It all worked out eventually. She actually reached out to me through LinkedIn about two years ago and we occasionally message each other. It took me years to get over her but it’s a long time ago.

4

My parents used to lie and keep secrets from me. They once took my sister on a vacation. I found out when I found the photos. They countered with you were in camp. It still hurt and started a pattern of lies and deception throughout my childhood. Never trusted my parents after that.

4

Yes I have been destroyed by erroneous reveals. I'm too, especially in a professional workplace, nice to adequately defend myself. Long story long I moved to a new city, bought a pricey home, lost my girl and my job. Keep fighting.

4

I can’t really think of finding out any devastating lie. I can understand your outrage though! I hope you are getting over the hurt....just tell yourself it’s better you found out when you did and now you can forget him and move on to better things! Chin up ??

@Sheannutt You will. Just be patient and remember you're healing every day.

3

Yes... One of the worst things you can do to a person is to betray their trust.. imo...

@Sheannutt It's especially FUN when you don't see it coming. 😛

3

It is devastating. A betrayal beyond words when the heart is involved. It took me a long time to pick up the broken pieces.

3

Yep re my ex and her drinking problem...when you put all your trust in someone and they lie of course it hurts. Devastated? No. Need to move on but it reduces the chances of trusting someone again.

lerlo Level 8 Aug 11, 2018
3

Yeah, my last relationship lol

3

We discover many lies told us along the way through life. The devastating ones are so in relation to the personal 'belief investment' we've made in them and the consequent things we have done for ourselves and worse yet, TO others because of those lies.

Precisely because coming to know truth can be painful, and devastating to our security in so many ways, we are most often loathe to know the full truth about anything. Having beliefs and attached obligations and actions based on them suddenly erased is extremely traumatic and disorienting!

Consider the best example I know of. A woman has been programmed from earliest memory to become a ward/dependent of her husband. Promises and tokens of promises from a man who is often conditioned himself to shirk true morality (boys will be boys) with biased, assigned gender based excuses lies (sometimes believing his own lies) to her as a means of forming a family. Her entire physical sustenance and financial security is tied to that - dubious business deal.

After some time, sometimes only in months, she starts 'feeling' as though something isn't quite comfortable. His habits start to become mysterious. The brain function in her 'gut' is flagging things that are inconsistent. Suspicion, perhaps not even on a conscious level, begins to form. Fear of possibilities for her alone or alone with children start to also creep into her thoughts. He lies, makes excuses and she dutifully accepts them on the surface while alarms are blazing in the pit of her stomach. Fear increases at the prospect of naked, unprepared independence!

At base, she doesn't WANT to know. Knowing calls upon one to take action and her field of options for action is barren; save possible marginal support from family or friends.

Fear of truth isn't isolated to my example but the description exemplifies the fear of freedom; fear of asserting personal, independent positions in the face of 'having been had'.

We in this congregation of god rejectors have experienced such emotions and recriminations as part of our own escapes from doctrinal fabrications of sheer fantasy and intentional falsehoods. Some of us have escaped those sophisticated articulations of religious lies, only to cling desperately to equally parasitic and grossly false political ideologies, parties and movements; equally ignorant, spoon-fed attitudes as price for membership as a 'true' Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, Socialist et al...

The truth does in fact set one free! The terror invoking question is: Are you prepared for freedom or dependent upon the lies for your emotional and financial 'security'?

3

Of course. It's always worse when you know it's a lie from the very beginning and know exactly why the other person is lying but he/she won't admit to the real reason.

3

Does cause my poetic juices to stir, well at least it is some reaction anyway.

3

Yes. Beyond words. Destroyed.

2

yes. i'd prefer not to go into detail, but yes. it's the hardest thing to get over.

g

2

It's a family thing for me. I might forgive, but I don't forget, and because of that, a lot of conversations are directed around and about me, but rarely to me. If I call anyone on it, I'm accused of being overly sensitive.

2

Yes, it happened in business, client rep. denied giving me permission to publish graphic of my work, only to find out the pres. didn't want it published.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:153011
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.