MASK OFF: Transforming Deception’s Snags into Springboards for Change
Written by Tim Tedder
Infidelity shatters trust, and rebuilding it requires more than a vow of “never again.” If you are the one who strayed, your responsibility in healing is twofold: first, to embrace fidelity (sexual and relational trustworthiness going forward), and second, to embrace authenticity (a practice of vulnerable honesty). Fidelity without authenticity is hollow. Your spouse may see you staying within the boundaries and keeping commitments, but if you’re not showing up openly and authentically, trust may remain elusive.
Your old patterns of disconnection or secrecy are snags; they hold back your progress toward trustworthiness. And snags, if examined honestly, can become springboards. They expose the ways you’ve been protecting yourself at your partner’s expense, hiding knowledge they had a right to, creating a false reality that robbed them of making choices based on what was real. If you’re willing, each form of dishonesty can show you exactly where you need to change.
Let’s consider the various ways Involved Partners compromise the truth about their secret behaviors. Which ones are familiar to you?
Lies of Commission
Let’s start with the obvious: direct falsehoods. Saying “No, I wasn’t with her” when you were. Insisting “We never touched” when you know you did. It may have felt like self-preservation, but what you really did was steal reality from your spouse. You forced them into a world where their instincts couldn’t be trusted, where they doubted themselves more than you.
The snag here is obvious: lying to cover shame or avoid consequence. But it can become a springboard if you learn to risk honesty even when it terrifies you. A confession like, “I’m scared to tell you this, but here’s the truth,” is the beginning of authenticity.
Lies of Omission
Not all deception is spoken. Sometimes the dishonesty is in what you leave out—the late-night text you don’t mention, the weekend trip you pretend never happened. You offer most of the story, but keep the incriminating parts to yourself.
When you omit, you once again rob your spouse of the ability to live in reality. They feel like someone trying to put together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. The snag here is selfishness: you protect yourself from exposure while prohibiting your spouse from making informed choices about their own life.
The springboard is learning to give the whole truth, even when it isn’t asked for. You begin to ask yourself: If the roles were reversed, would this detail matter to me? If I leave out this information, will it leave an incomplete or false impression? If the answer is yes, then it belongs in the open.
Trickle Truth
Few things harm recovery more than dribbling out the truth. First, you say it was “just talking.” Weeks later, you admit to a kiss. Later still, you confess to the weekend away. Each new piece doesn’t just update the story, it rewrites the whole reality, leaving your partner feeling deceived again and again.
Trickle truth is often disguised as protection: “I didn’t want to overwhelm them. I was waiting for the right time.” But that’s self-protection, not care. It’s a selfish attempt to manage another person’s pain while keeping control of the story. Each omission is another theft of reality, intensifying the trauma of betrayal.
The snag here is control, but the springboard is courage. Choose disclosure over delay. Work with a counselor to prepare if you must, but commit to sharing a complete story rather than rationing it out piece by piece.
Minimizing
Another way truth gets compromised is through minimizing. “It wasn’t that big a deal.” “We didn’t go that far.” To you, the point may be to soften the blow and shrink your shame. But to your spouse, minimizing is another theft—it tells them their pain doesn’t matter, that reality isn’t as serious as they think.
The snag is the instinct to downplay. But the springboard is the strength to sit in the weight of what you’ve done, to say, “This was wrong, and it mattered.”
Deflection
Some avoid truth by steering attention elsewhere. When pressed with questions, you might respond with, “Why are you so obsessed with details?” or “This is about your insecurity, not what I did.” Deflection works like a magician’s trick: redirect the gaze so no one notices what you’re hiding.
But your partner notices. Deflection creates confusion and destabilizes their trust in themselves. Again, the selfishness lies in choosing your comfort over their clarity. The snag is distraction; the springboard is discipline—learning to answer directly, without evasion, even when you’d rather squirm away.
Justifying
Self-justification is one of the most insidious forms of dishonesty. You start rewriting the history of your marriage, making it worse than it really was, while idealizing the affair, making it better than it really was. This revision gives you relief from guilt but robs your spouse of the marriage they actually lived.
The snag is the lure of rewriting reality so you don’t feel like the villain. The springboard is the humility to admit, “I wanted something I shouldn’t have wanted. That doesn’t mean our marriage was worthless.” It means stepping back long enough to gain an honest perspective on your marriage—the good and the bad of it—with an acceptance of your contributions to its problems.
Blaming
Blame is another mask for dishonesty. “If you had paid more attention, I wouldn’t have strayed.” “If our marriage had been stronger, this never would have happened.”
But blame is theft, too. It shifts the weight of your choice onto your partner and denies them the dignity of seeing the affair for what it was: your decision. The snag is the impulse to dodge responsibility; the springboard is ownership—the ability to say, “This was my choice, not yours.”
Stonewalling
Sometimes the dishonesty is in silence itself. Refusing to answer, hiding behind “I don’t want to talk about it,” or shutting down emotionally when the conversation grows uncomfortable.
Stonewalling might feel like control to you, but to your partner, it feels like abandonment. You block their attempts to step into reality with you, leaving them alone with their questions. The snag is fear of exposure; the springboard is vulnerability. You learn to speak even when silence feels safer: “I don’t know how to answer, but I’ll try.”
Gaslighting
The most damaging compromise of truth is gaslighting, twisting reality so that your spouse questions their own memory, instincts, even sanity. “You’re imagining things.” “That never happened.” “You’re too insecure.” Gaslighting isn’t just a lie; it’s abuse. You’re not only stealing truth but replacing it with a false version that leaves your partner doubting themselves and becoming emotionally unstable.
The snag here is manipulation. The springboard is validation: choosing to honor your spouse’s experience even if you don’t agree with every detail: “I see why you felt that way. Here’s what actually happened.”
What Authenticity Looks Like
Authenticity is more than the absence of lies. It is the daily practice of vulnerable honesty:
Answering questions directly, without hedging.
Offering the whole truth, not just the asked truth.
Admitting fears and shame instead of hiding them.
Volunteering transparency (sharing calendars, phones, accounts, etc.) not as punishment, but as a gift.
Saying, in essence: “You deserve reality, even if it costs me. I will not ask you to heal in the dark.”
The Risk and the Reward
Every shade of dishonesty—commission, omission, trickle truth, minimizing, deflection, justifying, blaming, stonewalling, gaslighting—is selfish at its core. Each one protects you at the expense of your partner, hides knowledge they deserve, and prohibits them from making choices based on reality. These are the snags that keep healing stuck.
But they can become springboards. If you let them, each dishonest pattern can show you the exact place you need to change and grow. The moment you risk honesty, even when it costs you, you step into authenticity. And when fidelity and authenticity come together, they create the only ground strong enough for trust to grow again.
