Are you less than truthful with them? Tell them bald-faced lies? Somewhere in-between? And if so, why do you feel it’s necessary?
E.g.:
“No, I don’t like girls that look like that.”
“I was only going 5 over the limit.”
“We were just friends in college.”
“I forgot about that ATM withdrawl.”
“I was working late.”
(Not that I’ve used any of these, you understand. 
)
Well, at times I’ve used 3 of the ones you mention. Last night I casually mentioned during a conversation w/ friends in her presence, that I’d visited Scores (a well known NYC strip club) last year. The rest of the night was spent defending myself on “breach of trust” issues. Truth is, the place sucked, but I’m going to hang for it anyway.
I will lie to my wife under two circumstances:
If asked to keep a confidence that does not directly affect her and then asked point blank about it. (For example: If Bob confides in me he’s having trouble at work with his boss and asks me to keep it quiet. If my wife would then ask me “Are any of your co-workers having problems at work?” I would probably say “no.”
I try to do big romantic things for my wife. Sometimes, in the planning of these things, I need to “distract her attention” from what I’m doing, so that it will be a surprise. I may lie to do this.
Zev Steinhardt
Who sometimes lurks on these boards and whom I love deeply and passionately?
Of course not 
[sub]and if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be along the lines of your examples. Why lie about trivia?[/sub]
I have to go basically with what Zev said…if planning a surprise party I’m obviously not going to tell him about it…
I don’t lie to him about anything else, though. What the hell kind of a messed up relationship would THAT be, if I couldn’t be honest with my spouse?
I think it depends on how you define “honest” and “lieing”. I do think that people are entitled to privacy, and sometimes lying is the only way to keep the other person from inadvertantly invading it. For instance, I might be thinking about a particulrly thorny personal problem that I am not ready to talk about yet–I like to orginize my thoughts and let them stew for a bit sometimes. If my husband asks me what I am thinking about at such a time, I lie and say “nothing”. I am really saying “none of your business”, but that is a confrontational way to go about it. And saying something out of a self help book like “I am considering some things that I will probably want to discuss with you later but not right now” just sets up a weird mood and a set of expectations–he will wander around for two days wondering when am I going to bring up whatever it was, while I may have forgotten it, if I resolved it to my own satisfaction.
Also, sometimes lies are needed to avoid making the other person feel obligated or whatever when you do something nice for them. Being completly honest about how much bother something is is not a good thing for a relationship (as long as the bothering for each other is going both ways). So I say “No, I don’t mind getting up and making you lunch and driving it to work since your coworker didn’t show and you can’t leave.” Is it a lie? Yep. I mind, but I don’t think that a relationship is served by forcing the other person to be aware of that fact. I am sure he tells me lots of little lies along these lines as well, but I don’t know exactly which ones, which is rather the point.
Generally, I am honest with my wife. I think that is important. No intelligent point in lying to her. She should be that one being that a man can turn to and say, “Look what I’ve done…”(either negative or positive) You can also do that with the the dog I guess, but somehow that seems less important.
I think fear is the emotion that makes people lie, and I’ve never feared my wife.
There are, however, four questions to which I might not give an honest answer:
“Do you think I’m getting fat?”
“Do you think this dress makes me look fat?”
“You’re not going to get me a gift for Christmas (Valentines Day, birthday, anniversary…) are you?”
“You haven’t forgotten our anniversary (my birthday) have you?”
I may not fear her, but I am not stupid.
{by the way, love zevs answer)
My ex could probably state “oh, no, I didn’t lie to her” with a straight face. Yes, he told me the truth. “I didn’t end up going to a meeting, I went out on a date with another woman and I feel really bad about it” (this said to me while I was at home recovering from second degree burns covering my torso).
Me: “well, it’s been a year since you last cheated on me”. Him “no, it hasn’t, remember when I was in Muskegon last summer without you? well, I had this one night stand with a stranger”.
(anyone wondering why he’s an ‘ex’???)
Anyhow. Not currently married to my long term SO of 15+ years, but in the current situation, my take on the ‘do you ever lie’ question is to reword it to mean:
do you act in an honest manner with your loved one, behaving in ways so that you do not intentionally inflict emotional or physical harm on them by act or omission?
And, to that, yes. Do I tell him every little thing that happens to me during the day? no, that’s absurd. Do I tell him what I’m giving him for his birthday? No, but I do make it a point to tease him that I got him something that he’ll really, really enjoy…
Would I betray some one else’s confidence (in the way demonstrated by zev)? nope. But, OTOH, if some one said something to me like “can I tell you something and promise you won’t tell even SO” I’d probably make some qualifier in it (I wouldn’t want to be in the position of hearing something from one person that would affect my SO w/o being able to tell him).
I haven’t helped, have I?
No details, but suffice to say this:
I lied once. He was devastated (by the lie, not what I lied about). I will never forgive myself for causing the pain I saw in his eyes. I will never, ever do it again.
Zette
(PS- I even tell him if I lost something or dinged up the car)
No.
Now, I don’t consider the confidences a friend told me to be any of his business anyway and will tell him so (in a nice way, of course) if he asks.
Everybody who tells anything knows that “me” is Haley and Jaime. Everything I know, he knows. Not because I think to myself “OOOHHH! this is juicy. I have to tell him!” I just don’t have a choice. I can’t keep anything from him. I can’t really explain why, it’s just always been that way. I guess because he is the first, and pretty much only person I trust 100%.
Why, thank you wring
**
That wouldn’t work for me. For some reason, I happen to be a “good listener” and people often come to me with problems.
Even though people don’t often tell me “…and don’t tell this to Lisa,” I usually feel that unless given explicit permission to say something, it’s out of bounds for me to blab it to anyone, even my wife.
Zev Steinhardt
I won’t tell him about presents ahead of time, or anything that’s meant to be a surprise for him.
Other than that, I tell him everything. I simply cannot keep things from him. Even if I wanted to, I can’t lie to him (I have the same problem with my parents. That’s why I was always such a goodie-two-shoes.) When it comes to other people’s secrets, when someone says, “Don’t tell anyone,” I will say, “Can I tell Derek?” Usually, they don’t mind, since whatever it is rarely has anything to do with him. If they said it wasn’t okay (it’s never happened), then I wouldn’t tell him. But to me, that’s not “lying.” That’s just not telling him someone else’s secret.
I would never lie to Squid unless it was something passive like not telling him something that a friend wanted me to keep secret.
However, if I am not asked to keep something secret, then I will probably end up telling him, because we share pretty much everything. I’m positive he feels the same and he tells me a lot of stuff about his friends.
Squid is against even passive lying… for instance his response to: “Does this outfit make me look fat?” is “No, your being fat makes you look fat.” :eek:
Yes, he can be brutally honest at times. I love him anyway.
I am 100 % honest UNLESS it will hurt her feelings.
IE “No,honey…implants look so…fake…Pamela Anderson does nothing for me”