Deception In Intimate Relationships

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Deception is an incredibly common factor in intimate relationships. The closer two people get to one another, the more transparent they should be in order to develop a healthy relationship. Although this is ideal, some form of deceit will exist. Studies suggest that “one out of three interactions” between partners will contain some form of deception (Aldeis & Afifi, 2015, p.228). Although deception and lies seem to be the same, they have different meanings. Lying is a form of deception that simply states something that is untrue. Deception is a more tactful way of avoiding the full truth and concealing information. Although society knows that deception is wrong, we continue to do deceive the one’s closest to us. The focus is to reveal the types, …show more content…

There are several tactics that partners use to lie or deceive one another. One tactic is the “white lie,” which is deliberate deception that “aids the listener rather than the speaker” (Peterson, 1996, p.280). An example of this would be a husband insisting that his wife’s haircut looks great, even though he truly doesn’t feel that way. These “white lies” are usually innocent and can even be beneficial to relationships by avoiding unnecessary conflict. Another deceptive tactic is “omission.” This tactic is significantly more severe and can lead to the lack of interpersonal trust between to individuals. Shockingly, the omission tactic is “perceived as deceptive only when the violation pertained to topics rated as severe” (Horan & Dillow, 2009, p.150). An example of this tactic would be a woman refraining to tell her boyfriend that her ex was at a party she attended. Instead, she would talk about all of the other people that were there while excluding her ex. The tactic is incredibly deceptive because “the statement itself is not factually false” but could lead him to falsely accuse his girlfriend of wrongdoing if he found out (Peterson, 1996, p.280). A deceptive tactic …show more content…

One major factor that motivates deception is simply to avoid conflict and the fear of partner disapproval. This is a major sign of relational dissatisfaction. Another factor is reciprocal deception. If one feels that their partner is deceiving them, then they are likely to act the same. Even if they are not actually concealing anything from their partner, he/she may want to return that feeling of being deceived back to their partner as a form of retaliation. “While in relationships, individuals believe their relational partner will be honest with them,” so when an individual has difficulty reading their partner, he/she is likely to assume they are being deceived (Horan & Dillow, 2009, p.148). It is also fairly common for partners to use deception to get out of intimate moments. If an individual’s use of deception in a relationships becomes habitual, then it’s very likely that he/she is creating a virtual reality, which is a psychological issue. Overall, the motivation to deceive a partner is because of the fear of what full disclosure would do to the

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