Life balance YOUR GUIDE TO EMOTIONAL ISSUES AND FAMILY LIFE WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPIST EMMA KENNY
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WAYS TO SPOT A DISHONEST PARTNER
Apparently, men think they’re better liars than women. Emma explains the ways you can spot deceit – and challenge it
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esearch has found men are twice as likely as women to consider themselves good liars. Statistically, you are lied to between ten and 200 times a day. Lying is part of being human – it’s due to the difference between who we are and who we really want to be. In a marriage, one in every ten interactions between
partners involves a lie. In a longterm relationship, that goes up to one in three. Many are small, like, “I didn’t eat the last biscuit,” but for bigger ones, the art of seeking truth is being confident in challenging those we think are deceiving us. Body language is key – if your partner
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stays out all night and returns with sketchy excuses, doesn’t engage with you, avoids eye contact, or tries to blame you for being controlling, you are potentially dealing with a liar. Truthful people are cooperative, as they have nothing to hide. Truth is transparent, as are those telling it. If you accuse an honest person of telling a lie, they often react with hostility as they feel like you are questioning their integrity, which a truth-teller would hate. If your other half seems welcoming of your questioning, or calm as they give you a hundred excuses, chances are they are telling a fib. It’s in our DNA to sniff out lies as a survival instinct, so trust your gut. If you get an uneasy feeling, tell them, “Sorry, I don’t believe you”, or, “That doesn’t ring true”. It may be awkward, but it also helps to train those around you to watch telling white lies when they are in your company.
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Closer’s dating expert, Rebecca Twomey, questions whether romance is well and truly over, or if there’s a way to reinstall some old-school values
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fter six years of trying my luck – or rather, experiencing a lack of it – with online dating, I’ve found the one thing that’s missing from my life, other than the obvious absence of a boyfriend, is romance. I do not mean a one-liner on WhatsApp. I mean real, old-school charm and courtship. It appears I’m not alone in my craving, either, as a new survey has found that half of Brits believe their parents’
generation had more romantic love stories than we do, with a quarter jealous of those tales. And who can blame them? Everything feels so disposable now. With dates readily available at the next swipe right, everything I’ve experienced makes me think that no one feels the need to make the effort with one individual. I’m hard pushed to think of the most romantic thing someone has done for me – and to be honest, vice versa – during my
