AboutDr. Dennis W. Neder Expertise I'm able to answer any sort of question related to the approach, meeting people, dating, sex, relationships, break-ups, non-legal marriage and divorce questions, and anything in between.
IMPORTANT: Please, PLEASE don't ask me, "what was he thinking..." or "why did he say..." types of questions! I DO NOT READ MINDS! There are 1,001 reasons why someone does what they do, says what they say or thinks what they think. If you *REALLY* want to know what they were thinking, saying or why they were acting that way - go ask them!
Be sure to check out my FAQ's on my website at: http://beingaman.com. You can email me directly at: dwneder@beingaman.com
Experience I am the author of the books "Being a Man in a Woman`s World I & II" and "1001 Places and Techniques to Meet Great Women". I`ve spent the last 20 years studying the art and science of every aspect of relationships, and have answered over 25,000 letters from readers all over the world. My main focus is men`s relationships with women, but I also have many female readers and answer questions for them regularly as well.
Question I have been dating an amazing girl for almost ten months. I screwed up a couple of times but we worked things out. This time was alot worse. I lied right to her face over and over in a span of ten minutes about the most petty thing. She can read me like a book. I finally came out with the truth then she threw me out. We never broke up but she says she doubts we can make it. She tells me that she loves me but doesn't want to reconcile things just for it to happen again. How do I tell her that it wont. I definatley learned that I can tell her anything. She may have gotten mad at me at first but it wouldn't be this bad.
Answer Hello Jon!
So what - are you going to lie to her yet AGAIN? That's what'll be if you tell her it'll never happen again!
Let's step back for a moment:
Ok, you lied to her. So what? Jon, here's the reality: EVERYONE; and I do mean EVERYONE, lies. You do it, your folks do it, your pastor does it and even your girlfriend does it.
Lying is such a huge part of our culture it's built right into all language systems around the world! That doesn't make it right, and yes, I know your mother told you that lying was bad, but come on here. Let's get some perspective, shall we?
Your girlfriend has lied to you too, yet she's expecting total and complete honesty from you. Is that fair? Even worse, you're doing the exact same thing! You're expecting total and complete honesty from yourself too. Since you didn't give it, now you're beating yourself up over it. Sure, that's a lofty goal and I'm glad you think of yourself as an honest person, but it's not practical.
There's another side to this issue: WHY do you feel you have to lie to her? That's a far more important question to answer.
I can't tell you how often women will actually set you up to lie to them, knowing full-well that you will and will then blame you for it and try to make you the bad guy for it. This is a very big difference between men and women: both lie at equal rates, but women are far better at covering their tracks than men. Women usually cover their tracks 6, 7 and even 8 levels deep whereas men usually only cover them 1 to 2 levels.
On the flip side, do you lie to her to keep her at a distance from you? Do you lie to her because you feel insecure? Do you lie to her because you're bored? Obviously, I can't tell you why you do this, but you need to answer this for yourself as it's a key to where you're going to go with this.
Ok, enough with that. What do you do now?
Go to her and put things into perspective. Tell her, "Ok, I lied. Here's the reality: I'm going to do it again - and so are you. Total and complete honesty is a fallacy. Trying to achieve it takes real energy away from building our relationship."
Then, you need to focus on what's really important - the relationship itself. Agree that you're both going to lie. You're both in a "state of becoming" (as we all are) and that while you're both going to work on things and try not to lie to each other, that's not going to become the focus of your relationship. Instead, you're going to focus on constantly trying to give the other person good reasons for telling the truth. You're going to build security and connection into the relationship so that neither of you feels you have to lie to each other. When you do, you'll brush it off and realize that it's not important because you're building something much, much larger.
Best regards...
Dr. Dennis W. Neder
President
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Remington Publications
BAM! TV
818.334.8826 http://beingaman.com http://beingaman.tv
Publishers of "Being a Man in a Woman's World I & II"
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