WHY I CAN’T STOP LYING

“I am not upset that you lied to me; I am upset that from now on I can never believe you”-

Friedrich Nietzsche

After being more than 2 years free from gambling activities, I noticed that I still have a huge problem with lying to my partner. It became a habit and somehow I can’t stop lying to my partner. Someone once said to me that for as long as you lied to your partner, expect them not to believe you for the same time after you stop lying. It will hurt when they question you when you are telling the truth, you will be surprised because you never even thought to lie.

This advice helped me to think that did I achieve anything worthwhile by lying or cheating. I started thinking that what I am hiding from her? Why I am so insecure? Why my self-respect is at rock bottom? Why I am addicted to lying? Sooner I realized that lying is like a slippery dangerous slope with nothing good at the bottom but misery and empty life.

We all lie in different situations in our lives. We all have our reasons for lying, it may be to escape punishment in our childhood. When we grow up, we lie to get attention or sympathies and some even create stories to set friends against each other or get others in trouble. It is an expression of being afraid, what others will think, afraid of facing the reality. We want to show people that we are better than others and reflect the weakness of our character. This could be the result of low self-esteem, fear of rejection, desire to please, or any other nuanced reasons. A liar justifies or makes stories to cover up something he has done wrong. To cover the first lie, another lie is required and this leads to an endless chain of lies. I had no idea about my case, why I was manipulating different situations to lie with my partner. Sooner I realized that I am a habitual liar, I tried to discover the root of my behavior, why I am doing and what I am avoiding. I thought that if I want to spend the rest of my life with my partner, I must avoid this habit of lying to restore the level of trust in our relationship. 

If you are constantly lying to your dear ones and you are not able to do anything about it, then you don’t want to change. You cannot change what has developed in you for years. If someone matters to you in your life then you have to be truthful or else you will end up losing not only that person but your importance, your respect and the likeness you were trying to create will go away in a moment and will never come back. All the lies which are still covered can come crashing down on your head at any time. You will live in constant fear of the truth being discovered and expose you which creates a bad effect on your nerves. Stop living in dream world with a fake identity. Get out of your unreal world and start living in present rather than the past or future.

A person who often tells fibs will never have trustworthy friends and will not be loved by anyone. Life is not only judged by a rich lifestyle, fluent language ability, or branded clothes. It is measured by the number of faces who simile when they hear your name. Analyze your life and try to find how it has impacted your life and others around you. Somewhere or somehow it has broken a lot of innocent hearts or brought tears to the eyes of your loved ones. Do you think you feel happy about it?

How To Stop Lying?

Start thinking, why you want to quit lying, think about the bad things associated with being a liar. I am not an expert by any means but you must ask yourself why you are lying? Why are you not comfortable with the truth? Learn to appreciate things you have in life and be satisfied with your family, friends, and your surroundings. But what makes sense to me is that instead of trying “not to lie anymore” which is difficult to achieve in one day, try to focus on making little but sturdy progress. Think to yourself why you’re lying? Why are you not comfortable with the truth? Is it because you are not confident? Or on the other hand you fear reality?

You can’t change the past, the past is immutable. But as long as you understand that the time of yore was something that you’ve learned, and then it won’t haunt you as much.

Few imperative things to consider while struggling to come out of this habit:

• Never give up! People have thrived in breaking the nastiest & most addictive habits, you can do the same!
• Change is going on in little- often not noticeable steps. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t observe changes immediately, YOU ARE CHANGING!
• There will be setbacks. There is no way to accomplish a goal without failing on the way. Remember: failing doesn’t mean to stop struggling and starting all over again; you rewired your brain by fighting your habit & it will become easier & easier until it will go away!

Like other habits, you don’t want to fix the awful habit, you want to reinstate with a good habit. That good habit is the truth. Truth is freedom, truth is real, not fake. Don’t let the old practice of lies keep telling you the big lie – that lying is OK and won’t harm you. Every lie is like a bullet hit in the heart of your honor. It’s one more rope around your neck that can choke you and pull you down a road of despair. Embrace truth with all its consequences, and never look back.

People are faulty, people misspeak, and people need to correct themselves all the time. There is a higher probability that your family and friends will much more easily forgive and forget a lie that is corrected seconds after it’s spoken than one that is left to stand. 

 If someone asks you a question and you don’t want to tell them the truth, just refuse to answer. This may not be the best solution in all situations, especially if the person who is asking the question is depending on the answer, but it works for many. If someone asks about something personal or just needs a detailed answer it’s fine to say, “I’d rather not talk about that,” or, “I’d prefer not to say anything about it,” More often, if you explain that it is something personal, people who know you better will not force you to explain. If they insist and push the issue you can use the same answers as one of the above, “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Sometimes you’ll mess up, someone will mention a lie you told a while ago. The best thing in such a situation is to admit the truth, apologize for what you’ve said, and tell them you’re working towards becoming a more honest person.

Let yourself become someone new. In your life, you’ve lied a lot, and if someone called you a liar, they wouldn’t be wrong, but actually, it hurts. Always accentuate to be the person you want to be, emphasize truthfulness. Every time you lie by reflex and have to correct yourself, don’t feel ashamed, only focus on the correction and not the lie. The correction is a sign of improvement that shows that you are getting better. As time goes on you’ll find you’re correcting yourself less and one day you’ll realize, you haven’t lied in over a week. Eventually, you’ll hardly ever feel the urge to lie, and when you do have that urge you’ll have the emotional tools to deal with it.

  Truth does set us free because with truth there’s nothing left to conceal, no more wild stories to keep track of. Truth facilitates us to pursue real dreams, gain success in our lives, and accomplish things that will make us feel unbelievably good and happy about ourselves, instead of empty and disgraced.

 In my opinion, stop lying to your loved one is the greatest and most significant decision you will make in your life. It’s seriously important stuff and will redirect your life like nothing else. 

The past is always there in the background, you can’t change any part from that period, just learn to ignore it. It won’t bother you if you keep yourself focused on the present and the upcoming future. As you know that the past was something that you’ve learned and will never repeat such mistakes then it won’t haunt you as much.

Telling people the truth is one of the best things you can do. They might be despondent, yet they will see the value in the way that you conceded your bad behaviors and told them the truth. People you love may leave you and never trust you, it’s never too late, realize it that is how humans are programmed to be.