Lies, Damned Lies...

My husband lies. If he didn't, I wouldn't have anything to write about here. Come to think of it, I wouldn't even have a husband. But still, he lies.

Most of his lies are of the benign "Of course you look good in that dress" type, which is why he has so many loyal friends -- he likes to make people feel good about themselves. I'm not much good at that game, perhaps because I was raised by people who were critical to a fault. As kids, we got the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the unvarnished truth, every day, all the time. As a result, I can be sort of harsh -- one of the reasons why I did so well in the big city, but, according to my husband, why I found it hard to make friends in the small town.

A lot of my husband's lies are more like exaggerations, especially when it comes to money. He grew up dirt poor, and has an almost pathological need to prove that he's risen above his humble beginnings. Thus, he inflates the value of everything -- for example, my Christmas present this year. He bought me a beautiful pair of pearl drop earrings, and forgetting that I do the bills, told me that he paid almost double what he did for them. Even at the price he paid, they're by far the most expensive earrings in my jewelry box. Still, he wanted me to think that they were more expensive (better?) than they really are. Much worse are the times that he puts off paying bills -- which is why I took over that chore -- so he can feed his free-spending habits. Hell, it's more important that his buddies think he's flush -- gotta pick up that round of drinks, gotta buy everyone's dinner -- than it is that the power company is sending us a final notice for our overdue electric bill.

I could understand and even overlook the little white lies and exaggerations if I didn't know how easy it is for him to tell big fat whoppers. Like the time I asked him point blank if he had slept with The Other Woman (more about that later) and he gasped in horror and said "God, no! Why would you think that?" I had a giant flashback to that conversation a couple weeks ago, when he told me, casually, that he was using her as a job reference. "Why," I asked, making no secret of my disdain, "Since you were always her supervisor, would anyone care what she thinks?"

I pressed him for a better answer after he tried to explain it away by telling me that "my field is just different from yours." When his business partnership fell apart six weeks before our wedding, his partners basically threatened to have him arrested for embezzlement to cover some pretty nasty conduct of their own. Because he'd had the foresight to bring home copies of paperwork and back up computer records, he was never seriously worried about criminal charges. When the partners filed a civil suit to enforce a covenant not to compete in his contract, however, the gloves came off. After a couple months of over-heated threats, the judge dismissed the suit out of hand because his partners were not willing to submit their books and records to prove damages. This is all a matter of public record.

Still, because it ended badly, and because he's still worried that they might, out of spite, bring up the specter of criminal charges, he lied on his resume. Not a little white lie, but a big, fat whopper. He changed the name of the business, and told all prospective employers that he sold his interest in it over a disagreement on business practices -- not technically true, as they never gave him money for his shares, but close enough -- and that he didn't believe they were still in business. In the process, he promoted The Other Woman to a full partner and told his new boss that she also sold her percentage and moved out of the area -- not even close to the truth, though she does now live 100 miles away. As a full partner, he explained, she is the perfect reference.

I didn't press him to tell me how he got her to agree to back up his story. I know he didn't go see her, and it doesn't look like there were any calls between them on his cell phone. I suspect that he sent her a couple flattering e-mails -- how've you been, what's new, I sure miss you this time of year, remember all the fun we had -- to butter her up before letting her know that, oh, by the way, I'm following my wife to the big city and need someone to verify this gaping hole in my resume, and since you were there, and since those bastards also treated you badly, won't you help me? She must have said yes, because he got the job.

It's hard to resist my husband when he's telling those sweet little lies. It's his big fat whoppers, however, that have all the consequences. I found that out the hard way.

The Wife Who Knows