Recently I became aware that a man I was seeing had a serious girlfriend which he had neglected to mention. Thankfully, I had only seen this man a couple of times before I sensed there was another woman involved in the picture. Rarely are my psychic proclivities wrong. Though it was not a surprise, it was a huge disappointment that this seemingly honest and expressive man I held in high regard could be so duplicitous. But it was not just his sin of omission which was egregious, it was the extent of his deviousness in his lying that shook me. Had this man been straight with me, I would have been upset instead of devastated.
His cover story was more than just a white lie, it was what I refer to as electronic psychopathology-a sophisticated manipulation using emailing and/or texting to elicit a sympathetic response by invoking pernicious deceit. The elaborate lie this man concocted to break his date with me involved him having to leave town to rescue his son who had a car accident. Using his son, a car accident, and portraying himself as a responsible father struck me as predatory. The insidiousness of this predation was evoking the natural tendency to suspend my disappointment in favor of overriding concern for him and his son's welfare. Surreptitiously, when I stumbled upon this lie, he admitted he had been seeing his girlfriend for the past two years. Previously he denied any other current relationships with other women.
The problem with lying to a high intuitive is, even when the lie sounds incredibly believable, we find out the truth anyway. All intuitives have a GPS for bullshit. When confronted with this lie, my suitor responded with, "Wow, I am sorry, but I was tired", and "had you asked me I would have told you the truth". Rationalizing deception with more lies and excuses just makes matters worse.
This man is an ex-Catholic and was an altar boy. All Catholics have been trained in the sacrament of Confession by saying an act of contrition. An act of contrition is a pronouncement of being heartily sorry for committing a grievous act against another. It is the beginning step of showing remorse, knowing how your injurious conduct harmed another, being willing to make amends, and resolving to correct the errors that led to the offense. In an attempt to reach this man's conscience, I wrote him this email:
"As a lapsed Catholic I think you can still appreciate an act of contrition. The act of contrition I am speaking of is not loaded with Catholic dogma, the insincere I'm sorry speeches, or the I'll be smarter next time lesson. What I am speaking of is for you to understand how your actions have affected not only me, but your girlfriend (whom I suspect is unaware of your philandering), and most importantly yourself. It is an examination of how your behavior is injurious, that is, harmful and wounding to all parties concerned, including yourself. But admitting the problem and just saying your sorry is not enough: one has to make amends. The process of making amends is to acknowledge the source of the harm done and firmly intend to not engage in it again. I can't help but feel your girlfriend would be deeply distressed if she knew what you were doing. One of the amends would be to work on your relationship with her or leave it if it is not working. In any case, I would encourage to acknowledge this and your desire to see other women. Wanting to see other women is not bad in and of itself-it is the deception and deviousness in which you employed that borders on psychopathic and is frankly quite scary. I hope I am wrong about you, but I don't think you're that far gone yet. It is your deviousness that has hurt me the most. When your said, 'I'm sorry, I was tired' or 'you should have asked me about other partners', you are rationalizing and absolving yourself of any responsibility of how damaging your conduct has been. It as if you had perfect justification for creating an elaborate lie. These lies just don't hurt the women around you but ultimately fracture you both psychologically and spiritually."
I'll never know if this made any impact on this man but it did on me.
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