When you intentionally misrepresent yourself to a friend or partner, they don’t like you, they like the person you’re pretending to be. If you tolerate their lies, you don’t like them, you’re like the person they’re pretending to be (because you can’t catch their lies all the time). But neither pretended person actually exists. Instead, it’s healthier and cognitively simpler to just be honest and expect* honesty from others, because then if one person doesn’t like what the other is saying, they’re at least getting a more accurate impression of what the other person is like. For example, if you want to have a trusting relationship, you should treat your SO’s words as true, but if you find out that they aren’t, call them out on it.
.* By “expect” I don’t mean “anticipate”, I mean “consider reasonably due”.
When you intentionally misrepresent yourself to a friend or partner, they don’t like you, they like the person you’re pretending to be. If you tolerate their lies, you don’t like them, you’re like the person they’re pretending to be (because you can’t catch their lies all the time). But neither pretended person actually exists. Instead, it’s healthier and cognitively simpler to just be honest and expect* honesty from others, because then if one person doesn’t like what the other is saying, they’re at least getting a more accurate impression of what the other person is like. For example, if you want to have a trusting relationship, you should treat your SO’s words as true, but if you find out that they aren’t, call them out on it.
.* By “expect” I don’t mean “anticipate”, I mean “consider reasonably due”.