Little Lies--What's Acceptable? What's Not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am annoyed at the little stops on the way home because he gets home so late--usually between 7:30 and 8, and we have two young kids. I also work FT and I rush home to pick up the kids from daycare at 5, prep dinner, feed and bathe the kids, and when DH decides at 7:20 that he need a beer and makes even a quick pit-stop at the CVS, I just find that so annoying.

OP, think about it. He is a grown ass man, why can he not stop on the way home to pick up a beer or a gatorade. I make stops, run errands on the way home. Barring an emergency, who cares? If it takes him an extra hour and he does it every night, that is different. Otherwise, you need to chill -- A LOT!

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing that if her husband does 100 things and tells her about 99, she gets pissed about the 1 "lie" he failed to mention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I am annoyed at the little stops on the way home because he gets home so late--usually between 7:30 and 8, and we have two young kids. I also work FT and I rush home to pick up the kids from daycare at 5, prep dinner, feed and bathe the kids, and when DH decides at 7:20 that he need a beer and makes even a quick pit-stop at the CVS, I just find that so annoying.

OP, think about it. He is a grown ass man, why can he not stop on the way home to pick up a beer or a gatorade. I make stops, run errands on the way home. Barring an emergency, who cares? If it takes him an extra hour and he does it every night, that is different. Otherwise, you need to chill -- A LOT!

How do you do this when you are the one to do pick-ups from daycare every day?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why, in a loving partnership, there would be a need to account for yourself, or a need to conceal and omit details. Aren't we talking about two adults here? There seems to be some very childish behavior on your husband's part, and some very controlling behavior on your part in this situation.

I would say, get used to that fact that the children and the dinner are your responsibility and eat before he gets there and don't cook for him or consider him. Have some fun things that you do with the kids that he is not a part of when he doesn't get home in time. Make him feel that he is missing out on family life with this behavior. Leave and go somewhere, like a fast food place and have a good time instead of waiting for him. Have a good time without him and his behavior may change, or you may change and be happier, which is even better.

[Anonymous]

guy here - except for the kid one, the others are meaningless.

your own insecurity is making you crazy and to see things when there is nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been trying to explain to DH how small lies, usually him neglecting to leave out information, make me upset. He says that they are no big deal, focusing on the act, but for me not telling me things is disrespectful. He usually omits information because he'd rather not deal with my annoyance. Some examples:

1) Calling from the office to say he's coming home, but then stopping by the CVS or wine shoppe for a quick purchase of beer.
2) Being late picking up DC from practice, calling another parent to pick DC up because he's running really late, then picking DC up from the other parent's house to come home. Then, once at home, not telling me about it because DC did get picked up to come home.
3) Telling me that he's going to grab a burger on the way home because he's hungry. I say we have Pete's Apizza at home. He says, OK, great, I'll have that then. Then decides he's hungry anyway, gets the burger, and then comes home without mentioning it. I find the receipt later.
4) Having a boy's night out. I ask where they went, what they did, how it went, etc., etc. He tells me they went to the sports bar, the restaurant, the cigar bar, but omits to mention to strip club--which I ask about because there is a wad of dollar bills left in his pocket.

I KNOW these are lies that are inconsequential in and of themselves--and I don't even really care that they went to a strip club as a group of guys--but what bothers me is that he regularly leaves out details that he knows I would be interested in because he'd rather just not deal with me. And the ironic thing is that I would be so much less annoyed if he was forthright and said, "I ended up getting a burger anyway because I was so hungry!" I'd most likely say, "OK, no problem. There's still pizza if you want more."

Thoughts? Do all guys do this? I've tried to explain to DH that it's not the acts themselves, which I admit are small potatoes, it's the intentional evasion that erodes my tryst. Also, the fact that he lies about small stuff makes me wonder about how he will evade telling me about bigger things.

(1) Who cares, really?
(2) OK, that's pretty legit. You don't know where your kid is (how old?) but he does.
(3) This is sort of weird. You have food at home -- either you could've saved $$$ by just getting food for you and the kid or he could've had food with you guys (why couldn't he?) It'd be 20x as annoying if OP was making something she and the kid were "meh" about but the husband loves and the husband bails last minute.
(4) OK going to strip clubs on the sly is something that's a big deal in some marriages/to some women and no biggie to other women. I won't fault OP for that one.

[Anonymous]

He lies because you sound like a nagging control freak. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Well the food & beer issue - does he have low impulse control? A food addiction? A shopping habit? My husband has a food addiction problem and when he hides, or doesn't divulge, his take out orders it's mostly out of embarrassment. He hasn't actually hidden anything - I can see every single purchase on Mint and he's the one who set that up, so if I wanted to track his every purchase, I could and he knows it. But I don't keep tabs like that - I am worried about his health and I try to keep my message focused on that rather than the purchase of the day.

The childcare pick ups - can you just sit down with him and let him know that you understand work, traffic, & the like can make him run late and you're fine with a neighbor helping out, but you'd just appreciate being looped in? My neighbors & I help each other with pick ups at least once a week - it's just a matter of including your spouse on the SOS text you send to the neighbor when asking for help. I'm sure he could get in the habit and if you let him know you're not going to make an issue of it, he has no reason not to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well the food & beer issue - does he have low impulse control? A food addiction? A shopping habit? My husband has a food addiction problem and when he hides, or doesn't divulge, his take out orders it's mostly out of embarrassment. He hasn't actually hidden anything - I can see every single purchase on Mint and he's the one who set that up, so if I wanted to track his every purchase, I could and he knows it. But I don't keep tabs like that - I am worried about his health and I try to keep my message focused on that rather than the purchase of the day.

The childcare pick ups - can you just sit down with him and let him know that you understand work, traffic, & the like can make him run late and you're fine with a neighbor helping out, but you'd just appreciate being looped in? My neighbors & I help each other with pick ups at least once a week - it's just a matter of including your spouse on the SOS text you send to the neighbor when asking for help. I'm sure he could get in the habit and if you let him know you're not going to make an issue of it, he has no reason not to.

And somehow I just glossed over #4. Now that I see it - that would bug me. He should have told you of the plans ahead of time or once he got home if it was an unplanned stop.

It's a lot easier to tell your spouse up front - hey, I have social plans you aren't going to love. do you object enough to ask me not to go? - and then hear the spouse out, decide for yourself knowing how much it does or doesn't bother your spouse, and then live with the consequences. Hiding it, before or after, turns what would be a mild slight into a betrayal of sorts. It's much better to be up front. Maybe this is the piece your spouse is missing - sure, you might get mildly annoyed by something if he tells you ahead of time, but it'll smooth over pretty quickly compared to if he just flat out lies about it.

[Anonymous]

Funny, my wife is exactly like OP. We discussed this at length in counseling. Bottom line is, things are left out or omitted because the offending party does not want to hear "No" or be grilled every time they do something that the other party may not like, regardless of how small or insignificant it may seem. No one wants to offer up that they did something and then be hammered on it, especially insignificant things like OP posted. Even the issue of the kid being picked up by another parent. For example if the husband was at work, and the DW was running late and asked another parent to pick up her kid and hold them for 30 minutes, would it be necessary for the wife to phone the husband at work and let him know about this plan? She would just do it. As I husband I would not want to be pulled out of a meeting for such a trivial issue. If I wanted to know where my kid was I would phone my wife who was responsible for them at that time.

Bottom line is, when DH feels he can tell DW anything of minor issue and she will not judge, probe, or nag, then he will tell her more. If not, its just easier to avoid these issues and conceal them. I bet for the 4 here, DH has avoided many times more that she did not discover by snooping through his wallet or garbage. For him, that is probably a good trade off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Funny, my wife is exactly like OP. We discussed this at length in counseling. Bottom line is, things are left out or omitted because the offending party does not want to hear "No" or be grilled every time they do something that the other party may not like, regardless of how small or insignificant it may seem. No one wants to offer up that they did something and then be hammered on it, especially insignificant things like OP posted. Even the issue of the kid being picked up by another parent. For example if the husband was at work, and the DW was running late and asked another parent to pick up her kid and hold them for 30 minutes, would it be necessary for the wife to phone the husband at work and let him know about this plan? She would just do it. As I husband I would not want to be pulled out of a meeting for such a trivial issue. If I wanted to know where my kid was I would phone my wife who was responsible for them at that time.

Bottom line is, when DH feels he can tell DW anything of minor issue and she will not judge, probe, or nag, then he will tell her more. If not, its just easier to avoid these issues and conceal them. I bet for the 4 here, DH has avoided many times more that she did not discover by snooping through his wallet or garbage. For him, that is probably a good trade off.

Interesting. And what was your role in this dynamic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of these lies are super weird. How long is his commute? I have blood sugar drops where I sometimes urgently need food, but it's odd to me to agree to eat at home and then get food out immediately after the conversation.

+1

Also have an issue with the strip club and lying about it. All of his lies have made her distrusting. No trust, no relationship.

[Anonymous]

I'm think it's a problem, because it seems pretty likely that he also lying about other things. For me, not being able to talk openly with my husband was a deal breaker.

[Anonymous]

The first thing is no big deal...I wouldn't stress over it.

The second and third things would make me mad..I mean those are deceptive things and would be red flags that perhaps I am not married to the most honest guy. For sure, yeah...He should have told you.

The fourth issue, the strip club. Ouch. OP, you are minimizing it. He lied to you about it which is criminal in itself, but most important here is he went to a strip club w/a wad of dollar bills!! And you call that inconsequential!! Are you nuts??! Your husband is looking at naked women and throwing dollar bills in their thongs or other interesting places and lying to you about it? Even if he was upfront and honest about it, hello??! He is a married man and married men do not throw their hard-earned money at naked women. Especially while their wives are at home taking care of small children.

If you actually find this acceptable in a marriage, then you have issues as well and you both need fixing.

You have a child together.
What kind of Father/Husband throws dollar bills away like this?

Save it for your child's college fund. A much better investment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It sounds like you're looking for reasons to be angry at your husband.

No shit?