2103: My Boyfriend Lies Right to My Face and I Want to Believe Him by Evan Marc Katz on Deception in Relationships

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[00:00:59] This is Optimal Relationships Daily Episode 2103. My boyfriend lies right to my face and

[00:01:05] I want to believe him by Evan Mark Katz of EvanMarkKatz.com. Hello everybody and welcome

[00:01:12] back to ORD with me your host and narrator Greg Audino. And I'll keep this intro nice

[00:01:17] and short for this Saturday show. So let's get into this Q&A from Evan Mark Katz's

[00:01:21] site as we optimize your life. My boyfriend lies right to my face and I want to believe

[00:01:31] him by EvanMarkKatz of EvanMarkKatz.com. My boyfriend and I have been together going

[00:01:38] on four years. We have moved in together and overall it seems that we are making the

[00:01:43] steps to build a loving future together. Until that is the beginning of February.

[00:01:49] While doing some maintenance work on his computer, I came across explicit pictures of his

[00:01:54] sister's friend. He claimed he had asked her to stop sending them and had only saved

[00:01:59] the pictures as a way to ensure she would. I accepted his explanation as I have never

[00:02:04] had reason to distrust him in the past. Well, a couple months later, I found an inappropriate

[00:02:10] picture of a female co-worker whom I thought had a crush on him. I talked to him about

[00:02:16] this, trying to be as emotionless and non-confrontational as possible. I explained to him that I can't

[00:02:22] stop some girl from sending him pictures but he has the power to delete them and put

[00:02:27] a stop to it. Since that talk, I found other pictures of his friends in various stages

[00:02:33] of undress. We had a huge blowout about it and I told him I'm going to leave if it doesn't

[00:02:38] stop. He begged me to stay, says he's so sorry that he didn't mean to hurt me, doesn't

[00:02:44] know why they sent him pictures, etc. I'm pretty sure he's not physically cheating on

[00:02:50] me. We spend almost all our time together and besides these pictures, he behaves normally.

[00:02:56] Our intimacy is good, we go out, we genuinely enjoy each other's company. So what's his

[00:03:02] deal? Does he just want to get pictures of girls he knows for fun? I mean, I don't care

[00:03:07] what he watches on the internet. That's fantasy and healthy, but I do have a problem with

[00:03:12] inappropriate photos of girls he knows. I just need some perspective as to why he's

[00:03:16] doing this and is this a valid reason to end our relationship?

[00:03:21] Nicole, you've come up with a real doozy Nicole. I mean your boyfriend, of course. Not

[00:03:27] your story. You ever heard the adage, fool me once, shame on you, fool me, you can't get

[00:03:36] fooled again. Wait, that was the George W. Bush version. What I meant to say Nicole, is

[00:03:42] that your boyfriend is playing you for a fool and at a certain point the responsibility

[00:03:47] falls upon you to take action. That point was about three women ago. Now when you're dealing

[00:03:54] with a four-year relationship in which you are living together, taking action is not

[00:03:58] something that should be undertaken lightly. Before you pack up your things and move

[00:04:02] out, you need to have an authentic conversation with him. My concern, naturally, is that he'll

[00:04:08] say all the right things to keep you, thereby setting you up for your fifth rendition of

[00:04:13] fool me once. It is clear Nicole that you want to believe in him because breaking up would

[00:04:19] send your life into turmoil because blinding yourself to the truth is easier than facing

[00:04:24] it. Otherwise, I can't think of any other reasons that a bright self-aware woman would

[00:04:29] believe a whopper. Like, he claimed he had asked her to stop sending them and he had only

[00:04:34] saved the pictures as a way to ensure she would. I don't get it. I mean, I'm turning

[00:04:41] it over logically in my head and I just can't follow. If he retains the pictures on his

[00:04:47] hard drive, it prevents more pictures from coming in. Hmm, who knew? And who knew that

[00:04:54] deleting the offending photographs was so tricky? After all, when I get junk mail that

[00:04:59] I don't want, I generally save it all in a folder marked personal. I mean, who wouldn't

[00:05:05] keep all the disgusting, unwanted photos that infiltrated his computer? But then again,

[00:05:10] what choice did he have? What with her sending those nude photographs against his will?

[00:05:15] This leads me to my favorite whopper, one that could only have been borrowed from the

[00:05:19] playbook of a four-year-old who doesn't know enough about life to lie effectively. He

[00:05:23] doesn't know why they send him pictures. Yeah, you know how women are. Forcing their

[00:05:29] bodies upon our unsuspecting innocent male eyes, no matter how much we plead with them to

[00:05:34] stop. Like last month's post from the woman whose husband left her for 18 months cheated

[00:05:39] on her and wants to come back, you've become quite adept at ignoring the same advice

[00:05:44] that you'd give to any girlfriend. As for your actual question, why is he doing this

[00:05:49] and is this a valid reason to end our relationship? Only you can determine whether this is a valid

[00:05:55] reason to end your relationship. If you can manage to not be perpetually hurt at his mental

[00:06:00] adultery, you are far stronger than most women. There are couples that believe in polyamory.

[00:06:06] He cheats, she loves him anyway. It's your call, darling. I certainly won't judge

[00:06:11] you for staying, but only if you are comfortable with these photos of his friends. As to why

[00:06:17] he's doing this? Maybe he's got a wandering eye. Maybe he's an addict, maybe he's

[00:06:23] a voyeur. You won't know any of this until you confront him directly and demand a real

[00:06:29] answer, and not some fairy tale about nasty women who won't leave him alone. And if you

[00:06:35] don't get a real answer, an actual admission that he's done something wrong and needs

[00:06:39] to atone immediately with a zero strikes policy in the future, you have to have the guts

[00:06:44] to say goodbye. Otherwise, this email is just another exercise for the sake of itself.

[00:06:51] Like the unemployed person who doesn't look for work or the heavy person who won't stop

[00:06:55] gorging, you've turned yourself into a victim of laziness and fear and willful ignorance.

[00:07:01] It's nobody's fault by your own if you get fooled again.

[00:07:08] You just listened to the post titled, My boyfriend lies right to my face and I want

[00:07:13] to believe him by Evan Mark Katz of EvanMarkKatz.com.

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[00:09:45] Okay, and thank you to Evan for providing this excerpt from his website. And of course

[00:09:50] for all the work he's let us read over the years.

[00:09:53] Evan tends to be extraordinarily opinionated and oftentimes admittedly is a bit too black

[00:09:58] and white for my taste. But in exchange like this, I think is really well suited for his

[00:10:04] more driven approach. It can be very easy to make justifications about frankly unjustifiable

[00:10:10] actions if we don't have the ability to set boundaries ourselves or have someone like

[00:10:14] Evan to give it to us straight and encourage us to do so.

[00:10:19] One thing he mentioned in this article that tends to be a good means of grounding ourselves

[00:10:24] is to consider how we would approach our friends if they were in our shoes. What we

[00:10:28] would say to them when looking at the situation more objectively from the outside. Now obviously

[00:10:34] we all have our own biases that can prevent us from seeing things clearly, even if we

[00:10:39] are generally positioned to assess scenarios like these objectively. But still it's a helpful

[00:10:45] way to redirect ourselves if we're in a situation like Nicole's, you know, unable to verify

[00:10:50] whether or not we're being fooled, but having our suspicions. So ask yourself, what would

[00:10:56] you say to a friend if they were in this situation? But that'll do it for today everyone.

[00:11:02] Thank you so much for tuning in and making another episode possible. I hope you took

[00:11:06] something from this post and that it maybe gets you thinking about what you justify in

[00:11:10] your own life and if it's worthy justification. And aside from that, I wish you a great rest

[00:11:15] of your day and I hope to see you again tomorrow for more. That's where your optimal life

[00:11:19] awaits.