How To Deal With The Lies Of Your Addict Significant Other

Hello and welcome to Put the Shovel Down. Today we're going to be going pretty in depth into the topic of dealing with lies, specifically when it has to do with addiction. We're going to be taking a look at the seven most common types of lies that people who have addictions tell. Now, there are other videos on this channel about lying and manipulation, but today we're going to go just a little bit deeper into the topic. For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth. I'm a master addiction counselor. I've been helping people overcome addiction for more than 20 years now. So as you could imagine, I have more than just a little bit of experience with dealing with lies. Now, there's no one way to force someone to tell you the truth. In fact, you really shouldn't try to force someone to tell you the truth at all. And don't worry, we're going to be talking a little bit more about that later on. But there really is no perfect way to respond. I am going to give you some different ways of thinking about it and some different options so that you feel like you have some tools at your disposal. Because if you care about someone who has an addiction, heck, if you care about anyone at all, eventually you're gonna get lied to. And the important thing here is not to take it personally. I know it is personal. I know it does feel personal. But the real reason why people lie is because they're avoiding something. Now's a good time to take a look at the seven different ways that someone might be lying to you, or different reasons they're avoiding something. Now, the first one is the most obvious, and that is that someone with an addiction is going to lie to you about did they use, how much did they use or how often they were using. This usually happens when you're directly confronting them, like saying something like, have you been drinking? Did you only stick to two like you promised? Did you go back to the casino? Are you smoking again? Do you owe money? These are usually quick, responsive lies that have to do with, you know, feeling like you're in the corner and you're under the gun and someone says, did you do it? It's kind of like this is that sort of busted kind of moment. And a lot of times people will just instinct, instinctively lie right here. In fact, you kind of almost expect someone to lie right here. It's sort of, you know, catch a kid with his hand in the cookie jar red handed and they're gonna impulsively lie to you before they can even think about it. And with people who have addictions, sometimes they'll even think, oh my God, that was so dumb. Like, but it's, it's almost an instinct. I'm not saying that it's okay, but I am saying that it's going to happen to you. Now, the next big reason or type of lie that you might get from someone who has an addiction is a self deception kind of lie. Usually you're going to see this. It's going to come out more like a rationalization, a justification or a minimization. It's sort of like they're trying to smooth the edges around what's happening. They're trying to make it all right or less than. These types of laws are usually a lot more about deceiving yourself than necessarily the other person. When it comes to self deception, this is a defense mechanism. And a lot of times these defense mechanisms are subconscious, which means they're happening almost automatically. And ultimately it's a person trying to protect themselves from seeing some sort of truth. Hang in there. We're going to come back to exactly what that means and how to deal with it. But let's move on to the third type of lie that you're likely to encounter if you're dealing with someone who has an addiction. And that is the broken promise. So this is when they promised they were going to show up. They promised they would give you the money back. They promised they were going to watch the kids for you. They said they were going to do something and they didn't do it. Now sometimes they knew full well that they never were going to do that. But most of the time when you're dealing with an addict or an alcoholic, they intend to do it and then they just don't follow through. And it's really more like one of those self deception kind of things. They're just not being honest with themselves about the amount of unmanageability. Now, of course, another kind of lie or reason why you might get a lie from an addict or an alcoholic is because they're trying to avoid punishment. They know that you're going to be upset with them. They know they're going to be in trouble. They may even have to suffer some kind of big consequence based on you finding out the truth. For example, if you have said, if you relapse one more time, you're out of here. If I found one more beer in this house, I'm going to leave you. And sometimes the avoidance of punishment isn't even necessarily some big threat of something that you're going to do, but maybe a big reaction from you. Like, they know that they've not followed through. They know they've done something and they shouldn't, and they're avoiding telling you because they don't want to deal with your emotional reaction. A lot of times when that's the case, they'll be telling themselves that they're trying to protect you from it. They don't want to hurt you or upset you, but really what's happening is they're trying to protect themselves. The feelings that they're going to feel when you emotionally react to that, whether you yell, cry, shut down, whatever it is, it's going to be very difficult for them to feel what's coming from you. And they're really just trying to avoid that. Now, another type of lie that's a really frequent one is when they lie to get something from you. You most commonly see this when it's like, hey, will you watch my kids? I've got to work an extra shift or something like that, when really they're going to go drink. Or you see it like if someone's trying to get money from you when they want you to do something for them, they're probably not going to be giving you the whole backst. Maybe part of it's true, maybe none of it's true, but ultimately they're just trying to get you to agree to do something in order, which is all just going to feed their addiction either with money or time or resources. It's all in an effort to keep this addiction going. Now, another big reason why people who have addictions lie is to avoid their own shame about the problem. This one's a little bit different. It's kind of like if you lie about your weight on your driver's license or about how much you ate, really, you're not really trying to so much deceive the other person. You're just trying not to look at something about yourself. It's a little bit of self deception, but it's also just embarrassment and feeling shameful and guilty about it. You're trying to avoid your own feeling about the situation. Now, most of these lies that we've talked about so far, pretty much everyone does at some point or another, whether they're addicted or not addicted. We've all done these types of lying before. This next one is a little less common in just the general everyday population and a little bit more common when you're dealing with someone who has an addiction or maybe someone who's a narcissist. Or something. And that is lies that they're telling about you. So this isn't usually something they're telling to your face. This is something they're telling other people about you. And there's a whole video on this channel all about that. I think it's called what your addicted loved one is telling others about you. If you want to know more about that one, I will link it up for you here at the end. Just hang in there, because that's a whole topic in and of itself. But for now, let's move back to when they're lying to you directly. Now, no matter which of those seven reasons or types of lies that someone is telling you, the concept here is they're trying to avoid something. They're trying not to feel something or experience something. They're usually not doing it because they're trying to make you look stupid. They're usually not trying to do it because they think you are stupid. Although it feels that way sometimes. It's like, do you think I'm stupid? It's really about an avoidance. That doesn't make it okay. But I do want you to know where that's coming from because it's really important when it comes down to what should you do about it. If you're dealing with someone who tends to be avoidant and uses all these lies and other techniques to avoid conversations and difficult feelings and all that kind of stuff, then as you could imagine, trying to turn up the heat really high or turn the pressure on or force it probably isn't going to get you the result that you want, which I'm guessing is more honesty. So the first thing I want you to know about how to deal when someone is lying to you is do not try to force them to tell you the truth. The harder you try to force, the more problematic behaviors that you're gonna get. Now, that doesn't mean that you just always want to let it go. I do have videos on this channel where I talk about when to call it out and when to let it go. Sometimes it is necessary to call it out. But even in those situations, you're not trying to get them to tell you the truth, but you may want to let them know that you know. Maybe you know exactly what the truth is, and that's okay. You can say that, or maybe you don't know exactly what happened, but you know that the story they're giving you is not right. I do think that it is necessary to call people out, especially people with addictions on their lives. It's just really important how you do it, if you want it to go over well. And if the goal is to build more trust and try to get them to be more honest with you. If you don't have the hard facts about the situation, you just know that they're not telling you the whole truth, then the best way to deal with it is just to say, hey, I'm just having a hard time with that. Or I'm not sure if that lines up for me or I feel like maybe there's something missing. So you're not telling them, you're not even necessarily, you're not outright calling them a liar. You're just saying something feels off to me about the situation. And to be honest, you don't even need to say that much more. In fact, sometimes it's the most effective to make a little statement like that and then just walk off and leave the conversation. I call that the drive by. We talk a lot about this in our invisible intervention course. But the reason the drive by method is more effective is because people's instinct, when they're busted and they're caught in the moment, it's just instinctual to protect yourself and to lie. But if you give someone a little bit to think about it sometimes they'll think it through and they'll decide to get more honest with you. They may come back around and say, you know what, I know I said I didn't do this, but here's what really happened. Now not everyone will do that, but for a lot of people, if you'll give a little distance and let them think through how they want to respond to the fact that you're not believing them, they will come through and get a little bit more honest with you. Sometimes they'll come completely clean with you. But you can't do it with a ton of attitude. You have to do it with a. I just don't know, like that one's a hard one for me. Is there more to the story? You can just kind of drop this hint that you're not buying it. Now don't go at it by saying something like, I'm not buying your bullshit. This is all you ever do is lie to me, blah blah, blah. That's not going to get you what you want. Unless what you want is a big old knockdown, drag out fight. If that's the case, go ahead and do that. Now you may be thinking to yourself, well, that's some bull. I don't have to put up with people lying to me or you know, you may be defensive just hearing me say that. On this channel, we don't really focus so much on what's fair. We focus on what works. Is it fair for you to be able to call it out aggressively and assertively like that? Sure, it's totally fair, totally warranted. But does it work? Not so much. Now we're going to come back to. I'm going to give you some more tips on how to confront these lies, but I think this is a really good place to stop and get you to think about your specific person, your loved one, and how they're likely to react to you calling them out. There are all different personality types. There's all different ways people can react. But my guess is you know your loved one pretty well because y' all been through this a time or two and you probably know exactly what's going to happen. For example, is your loved one the kind of person who's just going to flat shut down, go silent on you, freeze up if they're caught red handed and you call them out? Is your loved one the type that's just going to dig in and tell you more lies and like literally spin this giant ridiculous web of lies that's like some kind of crazy Netflix story or something that's just outrageous? They're just digging in and making more lies and more lies and more lies? Or is your loved one the type that's going to do like the porcupine kind of thing where they get really loud or mean or aggressive? Basically they're trying to get you to back off by up. Or is your loved one the type of person that's most likely to try to turn it around or deflect it back to you by either bringing up something that you did wrong or blaming you for their lie? This is a really important thing to think about before you call someone out on their lies. A lot of times these tendencies are very reflexive. And you know this because it kind of like always happens that way. It's so predictable. And so now when you get to this point in the conversation, you're dealing with with the lie, the original lie, and you're dealing with this other kind of non productive behavior or defense mechanism that they're sort of throwing out to deflect the situation. When you run into these kind of deflection techniques, the best thing to do is very calmly and casually call out the dynamic of what's happening right there. Avoid the instinct to push further into the actual lie or conversation, because at this point we've moved from the Lie to a whole nother situation. And we need to sort of back up and deal with the dynamic of what's happening. So, for example, if your loved one is the one that types to get loud or aggressive or pushy, trying to sort of intimidate you and get you to back off, then you can actually call that out. You can say, I feel like you're getting really loud or aggressive or pussy, because you're just trying to make me go away and not confront you about this. Now, they're probably not just going to throw in the white towel and be like, all right, you're right. But what is going to happen? Whether they realize it in that moment or a couple of hours later or the next day when they're thinking about it, you're bringing their attention to the pattern of what happens. And basically it says, hey, I got you. I see you. Not only do I know that you lied, but I know now that you're doing this technique, you can use that same methodology for any of these other things. Like if they tend to deflect it or either have done in the past or allow you told or put it on you somehow, you can say, hey, I feel like you're deflecting the conversation. I do think it's important to acknowledge if there's any truth in what they're saying. Maybe you did something in the past. You can say, yeah, you know what? That's true. That's important. I did do that. I take ownership of that. And we can talk about that. But right now we're talking about this again. What you're trying to do is you're calling out the deflection. This is like a, a process comment that's happening. If your loved one is the type that tends to shut down, you can call that out too. You can say, hey, it seems like you're shutting down. I know this is a really hard conversation. Would it help if we came back to the topic later? And if possible, get the person to agree, hey, let's talk about it after dinner. Let's talk about it tomorrow. Let's talk about it Sunday after church or whenever it is. And you can be really nice about it. You can say that. That way you can have some time to collect your thoughts. I don't want you to feel on the spot. I just want to be able to talk and I'm not going to lose my cool either. If your loved one is the type, the person that's going to, like, build the storyline and just add more and more and more lies, then it's okay to call that out, too. You may not want to say, oh, you're still lying, but you want to say, you know what? I feel like you're really digging in at this point. It seems like maybe you're getting more and more defensive. Maybe we should come back to the topic again. You want to stay in this process comment zone where you're holding your own. You are being assertive, but you're also being somewhat empathetic and most importantly, non defensive, because they're already defensive. That's why they're lying to you. That's why they're bringing out these more defense mechanisms. If you bring in defensive defensiveness, you can rest assured they're going to amp their defensiveness up. So you're going to come in non defensively, but still assertively. Now, one of the things that's really tempting to do when you're being lied to is when you don't know all the details, but you know that they're not telling you the truth. You may want to, like, fill in the details. You may want to say, well, I know you're with Johnny and y' all went to Billy's house and y' all been smoking it up all day and playing video games or whatever. You want to fill in the details. I want you to try to resist that instinct because the chances that you're going to get all those details right is not very much. And when you get one little detail wrong, I mean, one little hair of a detail, they're going to call you out on that and then y' all going to be fighting about that. And now you got a whole nother deflection going on. So you don't have to know every detail of it. You can just know. You can just say, something doesn't feel right to me about that. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm being paranoid. Drive by, call it out, walk on, let that seed sit and settle in a bit. Now, this next tip is one we talk about a lot inside the Invisible intervention. And I think this one is, is super duper effective. Let's call this one Give Them an Out. Basically what you want to do is you want to sort of give them an out of sorts or you want to say, hey, I know that this is going on, but it's not because you're an evil, terrible person. It's really because you're just trying to X, Y or Z. So for example, you can say, I know you're probably just trying to protect me. I know you don't want to upset me or disappoint me. I know you're really just trying to relax after work because you need to cool down or you need to have some time to yourself. Basically, what you're doing is instead of assigning some kind of bad or evil or terrible intention to their behavior, you're looking at the behavior, and you're saying, hey, I know this really uncomfortable conversation, and you just want to get out of it. Probably. I kind of do, too. Right? So instead of viewing that behavior as bad behavior, if you look empathetically at maybe why that could be happening, and you assign a not so bad intention to it, they're way more likely to own up to it. Now, some of you guys know one of my guilty pleasures is I love to watch true crime, and I specifically love to watch interrogations. Now, the common technique that is used in interrogations. Interrogations these days is called the Reid technique. And honestly, it's a lot of what I teach you guys. It's building a rapport. And then there's this thing that I'm teaching right now, which is in an interrogation, what they'll do is they'll try to get you to, like, own a piece of the crime, but make you the good guy while owning the piece of the crime. Hey, you were probably just trying to protect your wife, trying to protect yourself, and you just had to do this. This works like a charm. If you don't believe me, go watch interrogation videos. If you can use this technique and get people to confess to giant, horrible, ginormous things that are probably going to land them in prison forever, then this is going to work for you. It works because you're giving them a way to step into it without having to lose face completely. Now, in interrogations, they sort of do that, and they. They wean you, and they get you to own piece of it, and then they pounce you and be like, we know you're not telling the whole truth. And they do that. Later on, they get more confrontive. I don't really suggest you that part. I just suggest that you either give them an out by saying, hey, let's talk about this later. Something that doesn't make the person sound terrible. This particularly important. If someone's trying to either avoid shame, avoid a giant confrontation because you're coming at them empathetically, you can say, hey, I've been there before. I totally get it. I completely understand why you don't have this conversation. When you do these things, you're building room and safety for the truth to come in. Now, of course, there's no magic bullet here. Sometimes people are just going to keep digging no matter what you do. But even if they keep digging and you're using these techniques, they're going to know that you know. And isn't that the point? You're not trying to get them to confess the truth, because it's not really an interrogation. You don't really need them to confess all the details. Unless this really is an interrogation and they're going to jail or something for it. You're just trying to say, hey, you know what? I don't believe that. And more than that, you're trying to say, hey, you know, you're hurting our relationship by doing that. And. And you're trying to set a precedent to. It's not necessary. We can talk above all else if you want someone to tell you the truth. As cliche as this sounds, you got to be able to handle the truth. Now, I use all of these techniques. Do clients steal out of me? Sure, but not nearly as much. In fact, most of my clients, when they've done something, they come in and it's like they're going to confess. It's like you can see it on their face. I'm saying, what's going on with you? You can feel their energy, and they're like, I gotta tell you something. And they just spill it out. And they tend to feel a lot better after they get it out, but that's only after I've shown them time and time again. Not gonna get mad. I'm not gonna get upset. In fact, a lot of times I flat tell them, I say, no matter what, it's my job to be on your side. Okay? I'm your lawyer. I'm your advocate. We're in this together. And when they do tell me something, even though sometimes I am kind of disappointed or upset or let down in some way ways, I try not to let that show. Or if I do let that show, I let it show in a way that's not too heavy. I may say something like, oh, man, I'm really disappointed. I thought you were gonna make it. You know, in a way that's like, okay, I'm upset, but I'm not gonna yell or scream or holler. And we're gonna talk about it, and we're gonna get through this and we're gonna get on the other side. And I know it's not the same. I'm the counselor. Their lies are not affecting my life necessarily. It's not personal. I'M not trying to compare my situation to your situation because I completely know how different it is. I'm just trying to tell you what techn techniques work. And these techniques will still work if you do them. They're just a lot harder for you to do because there's a lot more emotions involved in it. But you know what the good news is, is you probably kind of know when the lies coming because you know when you're going to call them out. So you've got the time before it happens to get yourself in the right place to give yourself a game plan. And if you're too upset about it, then you definitely need to wait to call it out. Unless, of course, there's an imminent safety issue at hand. Now, as promised, I'm going to link the video up here for you about what your addicted loved one is telling others about. Now, if you enjoyed this content and you're not subscribed, consider subscribing. Our goal is to make sure you are always five steps ahead of addiction. If you're already subscribed and this video was helpful, be sure to give it a little thumbs up. I'll see you guys next time.