Trust is the foundation of close relationships. If trust becomes compromised it can lead to serious problems in the relationship. Without trust, it is hard to maintain the level of closeness most people require in a relationship. Speaking a lie is betraying trust and therefore a lie always hurts.

Big or small, you should never lie to someone you love. The bigger the lie, the more it will hurt your relationship. Honesty is as important to your relationship as love. Lying contradicts everything that love stands for. Love is meant to be a mechanism of openness and honesty enabling us to grow together. When we lie to each other, we only grow apart.

A lie isn’t a lie

There are two categories of lies, lies of commission and the lies of omission. All lies have the same effect, deception. Some of those lies hurt more than others, but they are all based on dishonesty, and therefore, cause harm to others and ourselves.

Most people are familiar with lies of commission. Lies of commission are blatant misstatements of fact about life, behavior, and history. Simply stated, it is when you tell someone something that isn’t true.

What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Lies of omission

People often deceive themselves in believing that lies of omission are not really lies. A lie of omission is defined as:

A method of deception and duplicity that uses the technique of simply remaining silent when speaking the truth which would significantly alter the other person’s capacity to make an informed decision.

Lying by omission also includes failures to correct false ideas and misconceptions.

Lying by omission makes a difference in the way the victim understands the truth of whatever the liar is lying about. When lies are revealed, it puts doubt into everything that the relationship with the liar was built on. It breaks trust at its very foundation and is extremely damaging.

Sometimes we lie to save another person pain. More often we want to hide something or not “get caught”. Finally, people lie to manipulate someone into something. Whatever the reasons people lie have the same end result, a breach of trust.

Sparing people from pain doesn’t mean lying. It means telling the truth and doing it with tact and kindness. If it means that the other party will be hurt, it means putting yourself in their shoes and understanding how they will feel, and then telling the truth with that in mind. In any relationship, it is better to be honest then to be untrustworthy. When you lie to your partner, she will lose trust in you. If you lose trust in your relationship, you lose the relationship, sometimes forever.

Lying to someone that you love is unfair because it is manipulative, selfish and self-serving. Telling a lie to a person you love is akin to telling them you don’t love them. Love depends on total trust. Without it, there isn’t love because deceit is not a loving act. When a lover lies to his partner, not only does it break trust, but he also breaks hearts. Liars lie because they believe it will preserve their relationship. It assumes the recipient of deceit cannot handle the truth, hence the truth is distorted or withheld from them. Lies not only destroy love between of a couple, but also the person who was deceived.