An article in last week’s New York Times magazine contained the following amazing statement: “Repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness.”
Although the article had nothing to do with sociopaths, the statement made me think of my ex-husband, James Montgomery. Among his many lies, Montgomery claimed to be a member of the Australian military, a decorated Vietnam War hero, and a member of the Special Forces. None of this was true, but from what I can tell, he’d been making the claims since at least 1980 (we met in 1996). They’d been repeated many times, for many years—which apparently enhanced their believability.
Like most of us here on Lovefraud, I felt like a complete fool for being so totally deceived. Why couldn’t I see the lies? But it turns out that I have plenty of company. Psychological research indicates that in general, people can distinguish truths from lies only about 53 percent of the time. That’s not much better than flipping a coin.
No signs of lying
Some people believe that there are physiological signals that someone is lying—for example, extraneous hand gestures or averting eye contact.
In one study, scientists asked more than 2,000 people from all over the world, “How can you tell when people are lying?” The number one answer was the same: “Liars avert their gaze.”
This may be true for some people, but it is not true all the time, and probably not true at all with sociopaths. Here at Lovefraud, we all have stories of the predator gazing into our eyes while he or she lied through his teeth.
Some researchers believe that liars tend to move their arms, hands and fingers less, blink less, and have more tension in their voices. Still, these behaviors are not consistent—some people who lie display them, and others don’t.
The point is, in hundreds of studies, researchers have found no reliable signal that indicates when someone is lying.
I don’t know, but I assume that the studies were done on general populations, and not populations of sociopaths. If we can’t detect lying in normal people, what chance do we have with sociopaths?
Truth About Deception
The situation gets even worse in romantic relationships. The reason, quite simply, is that we want to believe and trust our romantic partners.
“As people become more intimate and more emotionally involved they also become less accurate at detecting their partner’s deception,” states the website Truth About Deception. “People are too willing to give their romantic partners the benefit of the doubt.”
The Truth about Deception website is dedicated to explaining lies in romantic relationships, and the information presented is scary. For example, it states, “Most people think they are really good at telling when their partner is lying, but research shows that thinking you are good at detecting deception does not make it so.”
This creates, according to the website, a dangerous situation:
- As intimacy increases:
- People’s confidence at detecting deception increases
- People’s actual ability to detect deception declines
- Partners have more reason to lie
The website suggests that the only real way of determining if a romantic partner is lying is through some type of monitoring or surveillance.
Awareness, intuition, evaluation
So what’s the answer? How do we know when someone is lying?
The first step is to realize that people do, in fact, lie. That’s how honest, trustworthy people get into trouble—we don’t lie, so we don’t expect people to lie to us. This is a dangerous blind spot.
Our initial clue that someone is lying will probably come from our intuition. If we get that hit, that inkling, that the truth is not being told, we need to pay attention.
Then, we need to critically evaluate what is being said, along with evidence that proves or disproves the statements. When facts are irrefutable, we should believe the facts, and not the pleas of the liar.
Fascinating post. For we that have tangled with an S/N it often takes some time to discover the WHOLE PERSON the is a lie. When we are madly in love, a little white lie is forgiven, in my case, lies told in the investment business are just paying your dues and part of the game, as long as you are not really shafting anyone, it is in your job desription to obfuscate and omitt in order to get a deal done. With that as a career backdrop for both myself and my husband, I always treated each case of lying as an anomoly.
It is only through researching the P/S/N personality and from bitter experience that I now understand that the whole person is a construct. We all create our own personalities to some extent, and through our choices create our lives, but the P/S/N actively and knowingly builds a myth for public consumption to HIDE the hollow empty bit inside.
My ex did shift his gaze, change the subject, twiddle his fingers, tap, express tense body language. ALL THE TIME. He was extremely sedentary, but never RELAXED. In such a context picking up visual cues for specific lies is very difficult. Also, with my overly developed sense of loyalty, I could never bring myself to “check” when we were together in our marriage. That would be lack of loyalty and trust (back in the day), and to me those qualities in a relationship are in a piece, they are whole, you trust and are loyal fully if your partner does an adequate job of convincing you he is deserving.
And what about the lies that are not direct, but rather “manufactured crisis”. Winner take all do or die artificial constructs, working without a net, no plan ‘b’. These are built on the “lie” that achieving a certain goal, no matter what will bring happiness or security, or status or whatever. The lie is buried deep within the actions and the outcomes, but the attention getting? Priceless.
The biggest lie is the one you make to yourself, the one that gets you sick like Donna described, the one that prevents you from finding any respite from a constant knawing stress, and unease, a sense of being off balance. It is the “if only” lie. If only I were more patient, if only I could help more, if only he were’nt so preoccupied with our finances and well being……”
Here is a specific one I would like to share…I had discovered a monstor lie that was totally devastating (not fidelity related) and brought me to the brink of divorce several years earlier, two years of anguish, some therapy and a promise of no more lies and we patched it up.
My older son was a new driver and driving, usually a little late, to a country school 45 min away on twisty windy,icy, New England roads. My x wanted to get him a fuzzbuster. We discussed and I said, NO WAY over my dead body should he have one, as it would encourage him to speed and put him at greater risk. Plenty of other kids were ending up in trees or ditches on this very drive. Okay, says he.
Not two months later I find the device in my sons car. He went ahead and got it anyway and asked my son “not to tell”.
What an infant! (the x not the son). How totally irresponsible, teaching his son to think he is above the law, and driving way above speed is a good thing if you can “get away with it”.
So maybe that is a piece of it too. The P/S/N is a lie, and he/she lies for “sport”, it is titallating to “get away with it” – “It’s only cheating if you get caught”.
From what I read on this sight, despite of the incredible pain many have endured and survived, it seems to me that everyone eventually is stonger for having learned the depths of deception, brushed themselves off, and gone on to live a life of truth and harmony, sharing laughter and love, but much better equipped to know the pitfalls of tangling with a liar.
Also, once we have found our true selves again, reconnected to our “people” and gained financial indepenance we are not as vulnerable to a new liar in our life. I am not there yet, but I know that day is coming.
Peace to all,
Great article!
Oh, but I think it has everything to do with sociopaths, in that they know and use that knowledge to further their overall deception:
” “Repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness.”
They do one thing and, through words, reinforce the illusive reality they created for us. “Of course, I love you” (when they do something awful or don’t want to see us for weeks on end). “Of course I’m happy you called” (after he’d convinced me to start calling him he’d answer with a happy voice, until I would say ‘hello’ and then he’d use this sad or annoyed voice — feigning surprise and unhappiness it was me on the other end even though he had CALLER ID). “Of course, I’ll always be here for you” (before and after refusing to help).
The repeated lie kept us hooked long after their actions exposed who they truly were.
“As intimacy increases:
People’s actual ability to detect deception declines”
So true. Things were much clearer before I bought the whole song and dance. I could see his manipulations for what they were and then, eventually, that stopped.
I think that habitial liars are much more difficult to detect, and since Ps don’t have a conscience I think many times they are not easily detected in lies.
However, even if they are CAUGHT RED HANDED they will repeat and repeat the lie even in the FACE OF EVIDENCE that they are lying.
Yes, the gut feeling is sometimes there and EVERY TIME, not 99.9%, but EVERY time I have had it I was right and when I pushed it down and later discovered I was right, I felt so stupid. I tried to “give the benefit of the doubt”–NO MORE.
I let my mother gas-light and lie to me because I NEVER expected that she would lie to me, not a bald-faced one anyway, but she did. When I finally discovered that she was BALD-FACED LYING to protect my P-son, and addressed this issue, it pushed her in to a rage with me.
She did, having been discovered in her lies, “confessed” to my son C that she had indeed lied, and then blamed it on ME because if she had told the truth I would have “thrown a fit”–and I would have because she was STILL sending money to my P-son in prison, which was both for his comfort and would also have given him the wherewithall to contact others and cause us more problems. SHE KNEW he had tried tohave me (at least) killed, but I think also the entire family, and she STILL did this.
Now, my “rule” is one proven lie–ONE and I will never trust that person again, or give them the opportunity to lie to me again. No matter how sincere the apology appears, they will never get within “striking” range again.
Not all liars are Ps, but all Ps are LIARS, and anyone who will lie or try to deceive me has an UNETHICAL AGENDA and I am not going to deal with unethica. people “up close and personal.”
Eyes wide shut, your husband teaching your son that it was “okay” to deceive mother is very typical of P’s behavior. “Just our little secret” to do something unethical. I am glad that you caught this. I hope that your son is not continuing this behavior that was sanctioned by your H.
Teenagers are at an age where even normal ones want to do this kind of thing, and to have a parental figure OK it is doublly devestating to their development of a moral code.
Thanks for this excellent post, Donna.
This article is so true…with the S, they are so adept at lying that they can easily go undetected. I read that S’s can pass lie detector tests, because without the guilt, remorse and anxiety that a normal person would experience, they don’t exhibit the signs of increased heartrate, perspiration, or whatever.
My S showed NO signs of lying whatsoever. I trusted and believed him implicity. He looked me straight in the eyes as he lied; he did not fidget or appear nervous at all. In fact, he was extremely calm 99% of the time, except when he went into one of rages. I have now found out that nearly everything he told me was a lie or the truth was twisted, from day 1.
Eyeswide-
I am sure you have thought of this,but …maybe there was more to his radar stunt. I recently learned a P I know ordered unneeded surgery for their child. Attention, attention that’s all he wanted…he had recently has surgery and basked in the attention…so he figured he’d get a ton thorugh his child’s surgery.
They make me ill.
Donna’s post reminds me of something my husband said last April. I was just in the process of finding out, discovering, uncovering my husband’s infidelity (which at the time I assumed was past tense and singular). I had gone to my mom’s for a week, to get away and hopefully prompt my husband to fess up. During that time DH (damn husband) talked to our daughter. She was 17, and aware that something was going on, so he had to say something to explain my recent behavior.
Later he called me and said he had told our daughter that I was upset because I had heard a “rumor” that he supposedly had sex with another woman, but that it was ONLY a rumor, and he told me that when he told her this, he HELD HER GAZE. I remember his exact words.
He knows so well how to appear sincere and truthful. And to him it’s almost as if he talks like it’s the truth, it is the truth. “I held her gaze,” so not only does she believe me, but I believe me too!
Also, he told me at one point that he would take a lie detector test. I said, “You would probably pass it!” and I have no doubt he would.
This is the thing that has astonished me most. How can anyone engage in such duplicity and yet show no visible signs of discomfort? No flicker, no glimmer of guilt, no shaking hands, no racing heart. He can be talking to me on the phone while looking at the “other woman” sitting in her “silver parked car” down the street and–without skipping a beat–tell me how much he loves me and that he’ll call me later just before he goes “night night.”
Over and over I’ve been blown away by this, and his complete lack of conscience, and all this from someone who appears–and, heck, I utterly believed it for 18 years–to be the paragon of care and compassion.
Recently I started going over some cell phone bills again. This because my S husband (soon-to-be ex; divorce is filed this week; cheers and sadness both at the same time) last month told me there is someone new, a 33 year old ER tech he works with, who after only 2 or 3 weeks of dating he is sure he wants to move in with and marry and knows “with all [his] heart” that he will never be unfaithful to.
So I was trying to determine when he started calling her (for such a brilliant man he can be such a dummy, leaving such a paper trail). And lo and behold, I discovered that Jan 31, the day he had an endoscopy–a procedure he wanted me to be there for so I could ask him any question under “truth serum” and he couldn’t possibly lie even if he wanted to–he called 6 DIFFERENT WOMEN!!!!!!
One of them a 24 minute early-morning phone call to a woman in a town near where he lives, another call, but briefer, to his new gf, one to K–the woman he had a long-term affair with and was planning on leaving me for–then a woman named Denise, a woman named Leslie, a woman named Theresa, and a woman named Elizabeth.
Okay, recount here. I guess that makes 7. And the reason I know the names is because I’ve called the numbers and they identify themselves by name on their answering machines. Most of these are woman he has met in a 12 (13 for him) step group, I should say groups, plural, because he has been attending groups all over a huge metropolitan area and beyond so he can get away with scamming all these women. (And believe it or not, this is not even all of them.)
Yesterday I was talking to a friend and I was imagining his phone calls that day (which probably aren’t all that different from his phone calls on other days).
“Hey baby. How ya’ doing? I was just thinking about you. Missing you. When can we get together? I think about you all the time. Omg, [deep inhale] you’re incredible……wow. Anyway, I’m having that [or had that] test done today. Think about me, okay? I’ll be thinking about you. Can’t wait to see you and hold you, and, you know, make sweet sweet love to you. Ooh boy, I can hardly wait.”
And then he hangs up and punches in another number…..”Hey baby, how ya’ doing?”
And so on and so on if I’d never become entangled with this asshole I would actually find this somewhat hilarious.
I am having this fantasy. I’ve shared it with a few friends; they think it’s a great idea. Several months down the line, after my divorce is signed, sealed and final, I’ll call all the “other” women I can get a hold of, tell them everything and have them over to my house one day (maybe I’ll have to rent the local convention center), and on that day, I’ll arrange for my husband–who by then will be ex–under some ruse, like say something for our daughter–to come over too, and when he walks through the door….SURPRISE!!!!!
Gillian, I bet at some point during those 18 years he tried to make you feel like the needy one. Despicable. I agree, they don’t look or sound like lies, because they give themselves liscense to create their own truth. I will never forget a top producer salesman I worked with one day jumping up after a long call and yelling ” I am so damn good that I even believe my own bullshit!” Bingo. What lie?
eyeswideshut,
Well, he always said he had me up on a pedestal, that I was the most wonderfulest person he had ever known, that I was too good for him, that someday I would come to my senses and leave.
Of course I would object. Oh no, no, no; I would never leave you, you are the sweetest most loving man, why on earth would I ever leave you?
And he took advantage of my gullibility and trust. If I ever did suspect anything–which, at worst, was only of flirting–he would convince me that I was just insecure, jealous, that I didn’t feel good enough about myself (I guess he did hone in on that), and therefore I was suspicious.
When I started to get onto him, he tried to convince me I had some kind of mental problem. That I was obsessive, would get a thought into my head and just wouldn’t let go. Yeah, he wanted me to let go of those thoughts, immediatement. He was always able to convince me to do so in the past, but–fortunately for me–this last time he wasn’t able to work his black magic.
A couple of months after I was away from BEH (Bad Ex Husband) he called me and tried to convince me how sorry he was and how he knew he had ruined all of our lives. I knew he was just worried about his job and the pending divorce settlement. He was playing head game with me again trying to imply he wished we were still together, but then saying it was to late. I don’t remember the specifics, but when I wouldn’t believe an obvious manipulation he said, “I know I’ve lied in the past, but I’m telling you the truth now. You need to tell me what you think is the truth because you’re not going to believe me unless I tell you what you want to hear.” I said that I would know the truth when I heard it. (I wasn’t going to give him any help because he is an expert at using what you tell him to fabricate a believable lie.) I just wanted to share another example of how they turn it around on us.
Gillian, I just saw your last post as I previewed mine. BEH said very similar things to me too. I still find it amazing how they all use the same techniques. But I guess if it’s not broke……
tryingtorecover,
Crikey! My P-husband has the exact same script!!! The I’m sorry; I’ve caused so much wreckage; I do understand your pain; I’ve given you every reason not to believe me, but I’m not lying to you now.
(Red alert! Red alert! on that last one. That is the one for-sure, absolute, never-to-be doubted signal that what he is about to say is a lie.)