When and Why Partners Should Lie to Each Other

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Relationships built on trust are arguably one of the most important factors to relational longevity. After all, if you can’t trust your partner, who can you trust? But research suggests that lying to your spouse in a very specific way may be beneficial for your relationship. Deceptive affection may be an effective and common strategy that people use to maintain their relationships.

Deceptive affectionate messages (DAMs) are messages that either convey affection that one doesn’t feel in the moment or occur when a person withholds affection from their partner. At first glance, this doesn’t sound like the type of behavior that could help a relationship. But whether we like it or not, lying is a natural part of the human experience, and DAMs may be used to help keep a relationship going.

Interpersonal lying occurs every day, and the most common reason why people lie is for someone else’s benefit. For example, you might tell your wife that her new dress is slimming or tell your husband that his sourdough bread is tasty. If everyone were radically honest in every interaction, our relationships probably wouldn’t be very rewarding.

In our romantic relationships, DAMs may simply represent a relational maintenance behavior, something we do to keep our relationship going. In a study exploring DAMs, 57 US adults recorded their DAMs over seven days. Examining their daily diaries, 90 percent of the sample reported using DAMs in their romantic relationship a little over three times per week.

In the same study, participants also responded to open-ended questions to gain insight into their motives and strategies for using DAMs. As you might imagine, DAMs are enacted through both verbal and nonverbal behaviors. A verbal expression of DAMs might be telling a partner how much fun you had spending time together, but you are exaggerating. Nonverbally, partners may hold hands, kiss, and give quick massages to a partner even if they don’t feel like it.

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The most common reason participants used DAMs in their relationship was their own emotional state. For example, you might simply be in a bad mood because of something that happened at work, but you don’t want to hurt your partner's feelings, so you cuddle with them anyway.

Or you might feel jealous about your partner spending more time with their friends but push those feelings down and hug them hello.

Knowing the ways that people communicate DAMs is informative to relationship research, but perhaps even more pertinent are the reasons why people use false affection. Below are the three top motives for why people use deceptive affection with their partner:

1. Deceptive affection is used to save face. People will communicate affection even when they are not feeling it to mask negative feelings like embarrassment or jealousy. By doing this, individuals are protecting their image. Similarly, individuals will lie to protect their partner’s image, like being affectionate with them after they did poorly at work to make them feel better.
2. Deceptive affection is used for conflict management. Sometimes people will pretend to be affectionate to avoid conflict or settle a fight. Conflict-avoidant individuals may say “I’m sorry” and hug their partner to quickly solve a conflict, even if they still feel frustrated.
3. Deceptive affection is used to manage emotions. Habitual affection is one way to manage emotions. For example, saying “I love you” might be routine when getting off the phone or leaving the house for work. This is a quick phrase used to make a partner feel cared for, but if you didn’t say it, your partner would notice and feel hurt. Another commonly used phrase is “I miss you.” Romantic partners may use these types of routine statements to make their partners feel cared for even if they don’t actually miss them at the moment.

It appears that people don’t regret using DAMs in their relationships. In a study on recalled DAMs, thinking about a time when a DAM was used did not impact individuals’ heart rate or blood pressure when compared to recalled honest, affectionate messages. However, not all deceptive affection is beneficial. In the bedroom, DAMs used during sexual activity related to less sexual and relationship satisfaction.

There are several major takeaways you should have after reading this post. First, not all lying is inherently bad and is a natural part of the human experience. Second, deception in the form of affection may be a strategic way to help maintain your relationships. And third, deceptive affection during intimate moments, like the bedroom, when sincerity and vulnerability are integral, is not helpful to your relationship.

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