Читать книгу The Yummy Mummy’s Family Handbook - Liz Fraser - Страница 25

I don’t tell my husband about naughty purchases. I’ll lie and say I got it in the sale, or that somebody gave it to me. It’s silly, because we share money, but because I don’t work I feel guilty—but I need my little treats!

When is a lie not really a lie, but a slight rearrangement of the facts, an embellishment of the truth or a carefully edited version of events? What if telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth would cause more hurt and upset than telling a little, tiny fib?

Well, as with all relationships, whether with a friend, a daughter, a mother or a husband, there are times when not quite telling it exactly as it happened seems like an attractive option. I have often fibbed to my kids that the swimming pool is closed for lessons or that the telly is broken when what I really meant was: ‘I don’t want to take you swimming because I waxed my bikini line yesterday and it’s gone a bit red’, or ‘The telly is all mine tonight because I want to watch Gosford Park again to stop me thinking about the three litres of water I’m retaining in my thighs!’ I don’t worry about this kind of little white lie (LWL). Telling the truth would require hours of explaining myself and apologising, and my life is so crammed with doing things for them that I just have to say NO! and put my own interests first every so often to avoid going insane. Anyway, it’s not in the same league as telling them, oh, I don’t know, that I won an Olympic gold medal at swimming or I invented television, is it? It’s just a convenient, harmless, occasionally convenient untruth.

With husbands, LWLs are more serious, and should be used with caution. The very nature of your relationship means that you should be able to say everything—everything—to each other with-out any fear that you will be sent to the doghouse for a week, or that he will bear a grudge.

This is all to do with trust. If you don’t trust one another 500 per cent and know you will be forgiven the occasional misguided handbag-buying session or catastrophic poker night, then you really are going to have a lot of work on your hands to keep this relationship going for very long.

LWLs erode this trust. Perhaps only a very little bit, but it’s the tiny cracks that always lead to serious splits. Keep things open and honest, and you should have a much stronger partnership to work with.

Confront it. If you feel uncertain about something he’s told you, or feel uneasy or suspicious about something, for goodness’ sake don’t keep it to yourself. I have had a few paranoid moments like this, when I’ve found mobile phone numbers in his trouser pocket as I empty them before a wash, or if he says he’ll be home by 11.30 and is still out at 4 a.m. when I get up to go to the loo. In the wee hours (is that why they’re called that?) everything can seem a bit bleak and I convince myself that he’s in the arms of a childless, nymphomaniac sex-kitten. When I ask, there is always an embarrassingly logical, provable explanation, and I have to eat humble pie for a day. But I’m always glad I asked, and he’s always happy that I did—and to tell me I’m a silly girl who should know better.

Beware of habit-forming. One problem with telling the odd porky is that it can become a habit, and before you know it you have become completely used to bullshitting your way out of many a tight spot, and you lose sight of what’s true and what isn’t. This is a very slippery slope towards almost certain disaster in the marriage department. Keep a check on yourself, and if you think you are falling into bad habits then get a grip and try to mend your ways.