Woman's Hour - Why we lie, The Traitors star Amanda Lovett, Lies told by families, Lying to your partner

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

Why do we lie? And what is happening in our brain when we do it? Nuala asks psychologist Dr Sharon Leal, Senior Research Fellow and Member of the International Centre for Research in Forensic Psychology at the University of Portsmouth and Professor Tali Sharot, director of the Affective Brain Lab. a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, and the author of The Optimism Bias.A 2019 study by Portsmouth University found that men were more than twice as likely to consider themselves expert liars who got away with it. But women can be just as good at lying. Nuala speaks to two women who are very good at it! Amanda Lovett, from the BAFTA award winning BBC gameshow The Traitors, won legions of fans for her steely ability to lie during the show, and Kirsty Mann is a writer and comedian - but she’s been keeping a very big secret from some of her comedy pals. She has a show about having a double life is called SKELETONS and is playing at the Edinburgh Fringe.Some lies are bigger than other and can have a huge impact on your life. Nuala talks to writer Miranda Doyle about exposing her family's lies in her memoire Book of Untruths, and a listener we are calling Ravi, explains why she lied to her family about moving to the US for love.Plus, you can’t read a tabloid newspaper without some form of cheating scandal filling the headlines. But what makes someone lie to the person they love? Nuala asks Natalie Lue, a boundaries and relationships coach, and author of The Joy of Saying No, and writer Rosie Green, author of How to Heal a Broken Heart and host of podcast Life’s Rosie about the big and little lies we tell in relationships.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Sophie Powling

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Hello, this is Nuala McGovern, and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Well, today we are looking at lies. We know that the consequences of some lies can be catastrophic. We have seen lies be the downfall of politicians, movie stars, even corporations. But today we're delving into lies in our personal lives. Why do we do it? And can we tell if somebody is lying to us? Well, we're going to find out what's happening in our brains when we lie, and we will explore also the lies we tell in relationships. Have you, for example, ever been guilty of saying, I'm fine, when really you are not?

We're going to hear why it's not just the big lies that can derail a relationship. Also, fans of the hit BBC TV series, Traitors, should also keep listening because we have the Traitor star, Amanda Lovett, the Welsh glamour, as she calls herself, who no one suspected of lying. She did it proficiently. And comedian and writer Kirsty Mann, she wants to take her moment on Woman's Hour to reveal a lie that she has been telling for many, many years.

I want to know about the lies you've been told or the ones you have told. Maybe one that changed your life. We are not live today, but we would still love to hear your stories. So to text Woman's Hour, that is 84844. Text charged at your standard message rate or on social

media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website. We would love to hear from you. But, let's get to some facts. Did you know, on average we lie twice a day? But some people do it a lot more and there are others that don't do it at all. But we do know that we learn to lie between three and four years of age and it's seen as a big developmental

milestone. So why do we do this thing? Quite often it seems. And what's happening to our brain when we do it? Well, with me to answer those questions, our psychologist, Dr. Sharon Leal. She is Senior Research Fellow and member of the International Centre for Research in Forensic Psychology at the University of Portsmouth. And also Professor Tali Sharot, Director of the Effective Brain Lab.

She's a Professor of Cogn professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and the author of The Optimism Bias. You've both studied lies, so let's jump right in. Sharon, what about that figure? Two lies a day on average. What sort of lies are we talking about? I think in general there you're talking about mainly, I would say, white lies.

I mean, we call some lies that act as a social lubricant. So if we told the truth all the time, we wouldn't have any friends. It would just be, it would be rude and the interactions would be awful. So it's probably what we call white lies to make people feel better more of those than than other high stake or serious lies and we learned that quite young learn it very young i mean um with uh with children i heard a story about um somebody talking to her children and saying that basically you know you've got to pretend you like the gift. You've got to pretend you like it. So the child gets the gift from the parent and looks at it

and doesn't know what to do, looks at the mother and says, I don't know what to do, Mum. I do really like it. Because they're so used to expecting not to like it. So they're the social lubricant. They're told very young, yeah. They figure that out. But what about other types of lies? What other sorts are there?

There's lots of different names, believe it or not, for all sorts of different lies. In our research, we tend to distinguish between what we call high-stake lies and low-stake lies. So the high-stake ones are where you're really invested in the receiver of your lie believing you so it might be that your liberty is going to be affected such in courts and things or you're going to lose money or in a relationship as you're talking about relationships your partner

might leave you if they don't don't believe you and find out the truth that's the lies we research low state lies are more when there's no real consequence for you know for the individual if they're not believed so it's not you're not going to have a terrible time if you're not believed and we don't really research those but with within those brackets you've also got black lies and white lies and black lies are the ones that just benefit the sender. So that's the only person that benefits for them. And white lies tend to be more ones that benefit the receiver. So what I'm hearing there is really about the outcome

is a really important part of the lie as well. It is. Has there been research into the differences, if there are any, when it comes to lying between men and women? There has been quite a lot of research and men do tend to lie more than women. It used to be believed that men would tell more black lies than women, but actually a recent meta-analysis has just shown that they also tell more white lies than women. But actually, a recent meta-analysis has just shown that they also tell more white lies as well. Aha.

But Tali, let me turn to you. So what's going on with humans when they lie? Right. So when you lie, you have to do a few things. It's quite effortful, actually. You have to first suppress the truth, right, inhibit the truth. Then you need to first suppress the truth, right? Inhibit the truth. Then you need to invent something new. And those two kind of things can conflict. That will result in a sort of emotional

arousal. And so if you kind of look at the brain activity while people lie, you probably will see two things in most individuals. One is this kind of signal of emotion, which we see in a region of the brain called the amygdala, which is a small region. You have two, every side of your brain has one, about it's deep inside your brain. And so that region is really important for emotion. And then you also see activity in frontal regions because of this effort that it takes to coming up with something that is new and suppressing what you know is true. You think people would do it less if it's so much effort? Well, I mean, this is all kind of relative. And, you know, there's a lot of individual differences,

right? Individual differences in how effortful it is. For some people, it's less effortful, partially because they do it a lot. So, you know, if you do something more often, it becomes less effortful, you become better at it, like any other skill. And also, you know, Sharon talked about white lies and black lies. So again, that's, that's, there's a lot of differences there. Are you just saying I like the gift when you don't like well, there's a lot of differences there. Are you just saying, I like the gift when you don't like? Well, that's not as effortful, right? There's some effort there. And I mean, I really like what Sharon said about kids. It's effortful for them because they're not used to it as much. And for them, all of these kind of like manipulations are a little bit more effortful

in general. Of course, there's individual differences. So most individuals usually feel bad when they lie. But if you kind of get used to it, there's nothing curbing your dishonesty. So you feel the freedom to lie more and more. That's so interesting. Sharon, let me pop back to you. How easy do you think it is to tell if someone is lying? It's not very easy at all, actually. We know from research that most people, including professional lie catchers, hover around 50% accuracy if they're just trying to detect lies. There's an over-reliance on people looking at non-verbal behaviours.

And, for example, they're looking for nervousness often. But because it's actually, especially if you are invested in the lie, the cognitive load aspect takes over and you don't typically see these signs of nervousness. So what would that verbal behaviour be that you're looking out for? Basically, if you get people to talk, that's a big thing. Because the more they say, then, you know, words are the carriers of the cues to deceit. So if they say enough words, you'll understand more. But truthful stories tend to be more detailed, more complex than lie telling stories. Lies are obsessed with keeping their story straight and consistency.

Whereas a truth teller will just go to their memory and reconstruct what they're saying. A lie teller will just try and repeat what they've said to you before because they want to be consistent and also they're trying to think about keeping their story straight. You do work, I understand, Sharon, with police on serious crimes.

And I'm wondering, has there been anything that surprised you about that, whether it comes to gender or not, but in that sphere of lying? I mean, I've been asked by police to comment on some serious crimes. For example, the Joanne Le case in in murder in the outback

but um basically what i would say is that i do notice in those cases is that females tend to be expected to behave in a certain way rather than males that people expect females to be very emotional in these sorts of cases so if you took the joanne lease one she's um she was considered not to be extremely emotional at first and they found that very suspicious and the same with joanne woodward the nanny that was accused of murdering the baby in her care the first thing the first responding policeman thought was that she wasn't very nervous. She seemed too relaxed.

She didn't seem emotional enough. So I think they focus on non-verbal behaviour. But what we do is we actually, rather than working with police, we train them. So we train groups of police and professional lie catchers and yeah training them basically why it's important to ignore non-verbal behavior and interview correctly tally let me turn back to you um we talked about young children you know three or

four they already understand this social lubricant lies uh And though people kind of want them to understand it, they're still taken to task at times for telling little lies. Should parents call them out? I think so. And it's a tough one, right? But in general, I think you need to nip it in the bud. Because, you know, what our data shows is that you can start with these very small lies and they become bigger and bigger and bigger. So you really want to educate children that lying is not a good thing. Now, that being said, there is a difference between lying for your own sake versus lying for someone else's sake, right? So when I say nip it in the bud, I mean, you know, if a child lies about doing their homework, they didn't do it,

they say they do it, right? Or they say they didn't eat the cookie and they ate the cookie. So I think those, you really need to call them out on that. When it comes to lying for the sake of someone else, it can be a little bit tricky. And there is a distinction here. And I think adults make it and I assume children make it as well. And what we find in our data is that when you're lying for the benefit of

someone else, you don't feel bad about it. And therefore, it doesn't escalate, because there's nothing to escalate. There's no kind of emotional negative response to suppress that then causes you an escalation. So I think you can make that distinction. You know, if a child says, I like the present, what they didn't like the present, that is a little bit different. And I'm not sure that that would lead to other more harmful, harmful lives in the future. I know how I would feel if I were caught in a lie. Is it the same for most people, Tali, from little kids to adults? I'm sure there's individual differences here. And I think one interesting response is those people who kind of lie consistently, and when they're caught in the lie, they actually don't admit it, even when it's so obvious.

You can think about some politicians, right, that will, the truth is so obvious, but they stick to their lie, even when the evidence in front of us is clearly suggesting that they're lying. What about you, Tali, lying? Do you do it often? I actually don't,

and you don't know if that's the truth or that's a lie. I don't know whether that's true or not. I have no idea. And I am looking at you, but as we know, that can the truth or if that's a lie. I don't know whether that's true or not. I have no idea. And I am looking at you, but as we know, that can't tell me anything, the physical cues. Yeah, I'm very bad at it. And I do it very rarely.

As we know now, that if you did it more often, you'd be better at it. What about you, Sharon? Yeah, of course, I do lie, but as little as possible. Again, I don't like it and I don't think I'm very good at it. But I know that actually that's the case. Most people think they're bad at lying

and they're much better at it than they think they are. And before I let you go, you know, this came up just a little bit earlier and I wanted to come back to it. Like the word nobody wants to be called a liar and people don't even like to be kind of called out that they told a lie what is it about that word that's so powerful yeah i think it's it comes from biblical times basically that you're you know you're you're bad if you lie you know people

hate to be called a liar we've even changed the term in our research now to lie tellers and truth tellers because both do, most people do both. So we avoid calling people just liars because they hate it. That's so interesting. Lie tellers. Yeah, just because it doesn't sound so permanent

as liar, liar sounds like that's it, that's you. Oh, like it's a temporary phase. I was a lie teller, but now I'm a truth teller. Dr. Sharon Leal, thank you so much. And also Professor Tali Sherrott getting us started talking about why we lie.

I want to move on now to talk about good lie tellers. Is that the new term I'm going to use now? A 2019 study by Portsmouth University found that men were more than twice as likely to consider themselves expert liars who got away with it. But that doesn't mean that women can't be just as good at lying. So let's speak to two women who are very, very good at being lie tellers. You might remember Amanda Lovett from the BAFTA award-winning BBC One game show The Traitors. The Welsh glamour, as she called herself, won legions of fans for her steely ability to lie during the show. Also Kirsty Mann, a writer and

comedian, but has been keeping a very big secret from some of her comedy pals. I guess we'll call it a lie of omission. Her show Skeletons is playing at the Edinburgh Fringe at 5.50pm at the Pleasance Courtyard. That's the 2nd to the 27th of August. That'll be fun. Amanda, let me start with you. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. Also, I think I have to describe just for people who haven't seen the show. It's a reality TV game show. 22 strangers competing for a chance to win £120,000. You were one of the three players

known as traitors and you got to eliminate one person every night from the other players. They were known as the faithfuls. And your aim was to stay undetected until the end of the game. But the faithfuls were trying to figure out who the traitors were. It was very good TV, I have to say. And every night the contestants would banish one person

who seemed to be the most likely traitor during a high stakes round table where anyone could accuse anyone. You spent your days proficiently lying to the people all around you. Did you expect to be so good at it? No, no. I actually watched it. When I actually watched it back, I thought, and my girl said to me,

God, Mum, you're really good at lying, aren't you? And I thought, whoa, yeah, I am. I'm, you know, playing the right part. But I enjoyed it. It was such fun lying and getting away with it. It really was. But did you, I mean, how much mental effort did it take? Because we were hearing a little from our previous guests, you know, on the how effortful it can be to suppress the truth?

Not at all. Not at all. No, I think the element, I was quite lucky in a way because I wasn't questioned a lot because the other cast members totally trusted me. Why do you think? Why? I think because I was the mum figure. We all

want to trust the mother figure. You know, we want to feel protection there. So they weren't directly asking me the question are you a traitor? It was sort of like are you? No, you're not really. So I didn't even have to answer. But

the element of a good liar is to gain trust with everybody else because if you trust someone you're not going to question them but as you gained their trust there were some friendships that seemed to be tight you know and that you liked one another I mean was that hard to lie to somebody who was trusting you and who liked you? It was. It was getting more difficult towards the end because we did get to know each other personally on different level. So it was getting more difficult towards the end. But it was a game. It was a game. And that's the way I had to play it. And, you know, good liars protect what they want to protect. And I was protecting my identity. How did the other contestants react afterwards?

I mean, you hoodwinked them, big style. Yeah, I think even when Wilf sort of put me up because I had... And Wilf? Wilf, the other traitor. When he suggested that everybody looked at me because nobody, my name hadn't come up. Even when I was standing there before I announced I was a traitor,

the cameras couldn't see this, but they were all going, well, I don't really think it's you. So, I mean, I didn't see their reaction until it was aired. But, you know, anyone that's watched it or seen, they all were amazed by it. And what did you do with your face? Like in the sense of, you know, like it has to be bare faced lies that you're telling. Yeah, well, I think us, well, I'm not generalising all us women,

but a lot of us got to paint our face and get up and go out to the big world every day and play a facade you know that we're happy perhaps when we're not when when the house is upside down we've got to go out there and we've just got to do our jobs and we've got to become that person and yeah I think I've had life experiences where I was able to paint that traitor face on. Has your reputation as a fantastic liar followed you into your real life now? Well, when I went back to a state agency, a lot of people were saying, oh, well, you know, they knew who I was. Can I trust you to sell my house? And I said, well, can you trust me not to sell your house? Has it been good for business? It has been good for business. I've actually given

up my day job now. So you're a full timetime liar I am some liar yeah some liar we all love a liar well hold that thought I want to turn to the woman who's sitting beside you and that is Kirsty um lies of omission Kirsty you have a secret you want to reveal I do so I am a comedian I started off in the creative industry as an actor. I went to drama school. I did music theatre. But I have another job for when I'm between jobs. But I keep it secret. And I've been keeping that job secret for 10 years. But I've decided to come clean. So my other job is I'm a doctor. I've been living a double life. No. Amanda, your face. It's the round table. Everybody just wants to sort of come out with the truth on a round table.

So they were like, you know, until quite recently, my agent didn't know. My improv team with who I've been working for seven years, they didn't know. Like loads of my friends didn't know. There are still loads of my friends that do know. They all know now. Yeah. Well, I feel so weird coming onto public radio and declaring this thing that I have kept so private

and so close to my chest for so many years. It's very strange. Very strange feeling. Overwhelming, I'm sure. It has been quite overwhelming. I know the feeling. Liberating. Liberating. strange very strange overwhelming i'm sure it has been quite overwhelming i know the feeling liberating okay so you have just revealed it on woman's hour but i mean this is a an onerous job a doctor at the amount of training to get to that level how on earth have you managed to lead that double life of comedian slash doctor without the comedy side knowing um well it's been it's been insanely busy i've been insanely busy for

a long time and it's got busier and busier and busier until the point where it sort of became unsustainable and that's the point at which i was like i'm gonna have to come clean this is too much actually um but um I think so the way I have managed this is if somebody says to me well I should say I'm very uncomfortable with lying I don't like it I've always been somebody that doesn't like getting in trouble felt like that ever since I was a child like I just hate being told off it's awful so the idea of like being caught in a lie and being told off would be dreadful so what I would do is if somebody said to me what have you been up to I would pick something true and I would say oh I've you know I've just done this gig or I uh was just been working on this film or oh my god have you

watched Love Island and or you know I'd pick something we talk about exactly we talk about Love Island we know what have you been up to? And you immediately move the conversation on, distract, distract. And if they said, what have you been doing today? I would say, oh, you know, stuff. The usual. Yeah, the usual. Drank a lot of coffee. Did a lot of walking.

Did a lot of standing. Did a lot of sitting. She could have pulled in a shift before she came here. Right. And then and I would just omit the bit where I say, well, I also gave five anesthetics and went to two cardiac arrest you know i just don't say that bit so i would say that i have i haven't i would strongly contest that i have lied i would say that i have withheld information information that other people that was not relevant to the receiver right i wonder will everybody feel like that

when they hear it well it's quite interesting my friends yes so that's one of the reasons why i kind of wanted to come clean before because there are leaky taps it hasn't been a particularly well kept secret um in certain circles and so i felt like i wanted to get ahead of the information coming out to kind of try and get ahead of the damage that keeping something like that from your friends for 10 years might do but on the on the whole people have been really understanding so I recently told go ahead a friend who um said oh well yeah I guess I because she's an actress she said yeah I mean I guess I didn't I didn't tell you when I worked at Boom Cycle I was like yeah great and then I was talking to

my hairdresser who I've been seeing for you know 10 years and she said I totally get it is it because you didn't want to feel illegitimate in the creative industry I was like that's exactly it and she said I have kept the fact that I play football at an international level for my country because I don't want to be excluded from being I don't want to yeah I don't want to be excluded from being, I don't want to, yeah, I don't want to exclude myself from being invited to do hair at Fashion Week. Isn't that crazy? Because that was going to be my question. And I think my listeners' question is like, why?

Why did you not tell them? Yeah, because I felt like I wouldn't be taken seriously. That sounds mad. I wouldn't be taken seriously as a comedian. But I felt like I wouldn't in the creative space, that I would lose out on opportunities that people would go okay well oh we got that wrong she doesn't belong in this box anymore let's take her out of that box and we'll put her in that box and I wanted to be in both boxes I was happy in the comedian box and I

wanted to stay there and I was really happy in the doctor box and I wanted to be in both and I felt like if I didn't give people a reason to question whether I belonged they wouldn't question it I'm thinking of the juggling I suppose that you're doing mentally perhaps also physically has seen from Mrs. Doubtfire was coming into my head right but um I do understand that you even kept this up during your wedding when people are meeting each other from different parts of your life. That was so stressful. Oh my gosh, that was so stressful. So I thought, oh no, there are so many people in my life

that don't know I'm a doctor. Right, I'm either going to have to go to great lengths telling all of these people and going through the explanation and I can't bear it. So it's easier just to not invite them and offend them. And I just... Did you do that? that yeah and so we just

had a kind of smaller wedding and then there were some people who I really couldn't get away with not inviting so I just have like the medics at one end of the room and then the comedians at the other end of the room and then I just like turn the music up really loud it was like I just really hope that none of them will speak to each other although they won't be able to hear each other if they can like she's a what? No, I misheard that. So that was deeply, deeply stressful. But I got away with it. Go ahead, Amanda.

But sometimes I remember the first lie I ever said was to my friend's mum. Because I stayed out and she said, right, you've got to phone your dad now. He's got to come and pick you up and blah, blah, blah. I was only about six or seven. And I knew, because we run pubs and clubs, that I'd have a row for staying out. So I pretended to pick up the phone and I put the receiver down, pretended to speak to my dad on the phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put the phone down.

My friend's mum said, oh, is your dad on his way? Yes, yes. So I'm going to ride my bike now and he's going to meet me. So I lie to protect myself. So not that it's right to lie, but sometimes in certain situations you have to avoid saying the truth. Or, like, I can, you know, I'm just saying. It sometimes happens. Yeah. So my my at worst lie by omission is to protect something that I thought was going to be jeopardized if I declared it and it didn't hurt anybody. And if it ever came to a point where it was going to hurt somebody, then I would have declared it.

But obviously, I recognize the ridiculousness of the situation, which is why I wrote a show about it, because I did it for simplicity. Call Skeletons. I did it in pursuit of simplicity. I was like, keep things simple, keep things separate. But of course, I made things, I completely failed. I made things incredibly complicated for myself. I ended up living this like mad, farcical, sitcom-esque life. And so that's what my show is about.

But I also recognize the importance of being a truth teller in my job as a doctor how important that is and how I take that very seriously. How does it feel to have unburdened yourself of the lie of omission? I feel extremely anxious but I think I had to take the leap and I just think I have to look into the future and feel excited yeah well now they have heard it on woman's hour Kirsty Mann a writer and comedian thank you for sharing it all with us and Amanda Lovett of course from uh the traitors who has given up the day job thanks for joining us we're going to um turn to another type of lie now, really, or another sphere, I suppose, that we also find.

And we've looked at some of those maybe lighter aspects of lying. I don't know whether Kirsty would agree with me there, I think, with the anxiety she was feeling about revealing that lie of omission. But there are some lies that are bigger or darker or lies that impact members of a family, for example. Miranda Doyle found that out after the death of her father. Her mother revealed that he had been a serial cheater. The father she thought she knew disappeared in an instant and she's written a memoir. It's called A Book of Untruths.

It's her family story told through a series of lies. We also have joining us a listener we're calling Ravi, explaining why she lied to her family about moving to the States for love. We have Ravi and Miranda both with us. Welcome to you both. Miranda, let me start with you and the book or a book, should I say, of Untruths. What drew you to tell your story in this series of lies? A memoir needs truth, and I come from liars, and I've lied quite a lot myself. And so I wanted to develop a relationship of trust with the reader by holding out my hands on the cover. And tell us a little bit about your family then, because I've just given a tiny snapshot there.

Yeah, so my father came from a large Irish family, single parent. He was number six of eight, very chaotic. They're much more interested in survival than manners. And my mother came from a Presbyterian Scottish, very mannered and very worried about etiquette. And so these two sort of chaotic the chaotic and the other came together and it was very hard to pretend happy families in that scenario but was that what was being pushed you know we all grow up I think with the narrative of what our family is whether that's true or not there's sometimes like the family narrative uh that is pushed forward by the parents. I don't know what yours was.

Well, definitely. My mother really, really wanted it to feel like a happy family. And I think it's because her growing up was so unhappy herself. She was illegitimate and probably felt very unloved and wanted it to be different for the family that she was a mother to. And yet she'd inherited with this philandering husband two children, one who'd recently lost his own mother and the other who was adopted. So there was a lot that was very difficult to pretend it could be easy to be happy. But tell me a little bit more about your father and the lies that you found out about him and when that happened.

So he'd only been dead a couple of months, I think, and we were on one of those terrible holidays, maybe. Many of you have been on them where a caravan is involved in a lot of rain and my mother had not slept well and she dreamt in the night of holding my father over the kitchen sink and she told me wringing his neck like a chicken and then she after saying that said that he had cheated on her with a friend that I knew well. And I'm still eating from her cutlery now. She gave it to me.

I mean, I wonder whether that's the connection with the kitchen sink and his neck. But, yeah, he'd always cheated on her very close to home, which I think was really difficult. But you didn't have any idea of that growing up? Well, I should have done. I should have done. But you didn't. No, I adored him. I thought he was wonderful.

So all this truth telling came after his death. Yeah. So you have to revise your whole thinking of your dad, maybe. Yeah, it's like someone's bombed the house. Yeah, there's kind of no recovery from it because you can't do that when they've died, and that's sad. And I don't know why she chose to wait till then. Did you ever ask her?

No, I think I was just too irritated with them both yeah um so yeah our relationship thereafter wasn't very good either and I think that's what's so courageous about telling the truth um it takes a lot of courage and it is it has it has implications that we never can guess at yeah because I think what we were hearing really at the top of the program as well how much how serious the lie is depends on what the outcome is and I think what we're hearing is the outcome of certain lies by by your, perhaps lies of omission by your mother, in the sense that they didn't come out until a certain point. There is also an aspect of this, Miranda. Your father donated his brain to science.

Yeah. Why? And tell us also about... Well, no, it wasn't because it was big or clever or anything. It was because he had a very um sort of aggressive cancer and so they were doing a research into um they injected it with the herpes simplex virus so i went to see it and i would have said i would have said to everyone absolutely it was around the research and i was really interested in that. But actually it wasn't. As a family, being buried in Ireland is really important.

And my intention was to walk out of that hospital with his brain in a bucket and chuck it overboard on the ferry to Ireland. With what emotion? With huge rage. I was furious, absolutely furious. Be buried in Ireland, yeah, here you go. But you left the brain behind? Well, gratefully, there was a very elderly pathologist who'd done the post-mortem, and he said,

I'm really sorry, you cannot take that with you. It has the same consistency as Semtex. It could explode. No, but I just wouldn't get through security. So it's still there. Because, I mean, I'm just thinking back as well to the brain discussion at the beginning about like what happens to the amygdala when we lie

and things like that. Well, his looked like Swiss cheese because it had such a big amount of cancer that it was very old Is there a way I think the answer to this is no but is there a way to reconcile with your father I know he's dead

but with the original memories of him I think because some of them must have been true Yeah I mean I think he was adorable and very very very attractive. And no wonder he got laid so often. And I suppose I'm furious with him because I had to compete with all of these other cute women. But I think I've recognized now I'm a bit older that he accepted me for who I was.

And I don't think my mother was able to. And so I really value that. Hmm. Sorry, it's probably... Go ahead, Emma. You know, we don't expect our parents to lie to us, do we? You know, you don't expect or to have lived this life full of lies. You know, they are what nurtures us to be adults and to be us.

So I can imagine it being really hurtful. You know, my dad passed away when I was very young. There's questions, not about lies, but questions I'd love to ask him and it's so annoying when they're not here and you just want to sit as an adult and say, why did you do this? What made you do that?

Yeah, you throw out the answers. Ravi, you emailed us with your story. You told a big lie, I think it's fair to say, to your family. Do you want to tell our listeners what it was and why you did it? Yeah, it came back to what Dr Sharon Leal said earlier about high stakes lies.

So my lie is actually over 35 years old 30 years old so I went to uni in the 1990s fell in love with a British white man and in those days being culturally you know as an Asian woman mixing with white guys maybe not been so acceptable um so I recognize there might be retaliations for me potential loss of life in the sense of family wanting to, you know, we hear about dishonorable killings, honorable, I don't like to call them that, dishonorable killings, etc. Yeah, so we concocted a lie, myself and my partner, where I made out that I lived abroad. We sent the letter, we had friends abroad who sent the letter back to the UK, and there was two whoppers, as you would describe them in that particular letter one being

I've never lived abroad or in the in the US particularly and the second lie was I had other people to protect because I had a couple of siblings who were at university and some still at home and I wanted to have give them the opportunity to have their lives so I wrote in the letter that you know I love them I deeply regretted not telling them. However, they'd all known from the moment I'd met my partner. You know, I was thinking about the doctor and the stroke comedian and people often ask you, oh, you know, do your family find it acceptable? And if I don't know people very well, I often go, oh, yeah, it's fine. It's a very easy one to brush and move on.

It's made me become very good friends with people like I've got something I need to tell you because it's a real big part of me it's my identity but I got to know you so well I want you to hear this that you can only go so far in the friendship without revealing that part I think that comes to a point where the tipping point where you some you're really good friends with somebody and you're like I don't want to live my life as this constant lie which it is, it's always humming in the background. So it's still humming so the letter went

your parents, from your parents' perspective they thought you had moved abroad with this man, you weren't going to, and I put this in inverted commas, shame on the family your younger sisters or older sisters all knew about the relationship you your parents think they don't um you're not speaking to your parents in any meaningful way at the moment no no that's correct yeah that is correct yeah so i don't have a relationship with them i'm assuming

they think i live abroad but i think yeah i mean I've always seen my family's for me as a wider context than just mum or your dad there's cousins there's aunts there's uncles there's you know your siblings I think that connection keeps you connected to your family so it's not always been about has to be the central being has to be your parents don't get me wrong for the first two or three years I probably really mentally struggled and I probably didn't even realize I have probably you're very depressed because those kind of words don't exist in the vocab in the 90s um but now you kind of go yeah life's been good let's not unsettle anything for anybody do they still think you're in the states yeah basically that like continues like I said it still hums over 30 years later.

Hums it's more like roars. It's a drum it's a constant beating drum in the background. And I would imagine if that happened 35 years ago as you mentioned your parents must be getting on at this stage and do you expect the status quo to continue? I think I do, yeah. I sometimes work out and calculate their age and I kind of go, will they accept this? And I've kind of realised that sometimes people are stuck in a point of time and maybe that's how they're stuck. Even though I recognise, you know, most Asian families

are really diverse and really open, I think my parents, being that part of the older generation, still have those views views and I think why would you want to hurt them I suppose I've had to grieve for them and gone through the grieving process so I sometimes think why open that can of worms that let it sit there what I'm struck by they're listening to you Ravi not your real name I should say but it's what we're calling you today um that you don't want to hurt them yeah I mean what I kind of go I have empathy within my sympathy because you're part of a community you know you have your respect you have your pride and I kind of go why would you want to hurt anybody in this lie this isn't a lie this is just about personal freedom and falling in love with this is like a falling in love with story it really isn't it and so you don't want to hurt anybody so I sometimes think some things are better left and a line has been

drawn that you kind of go it's best just to leave it as it is I wonder actually if I hop back to Miranda for a moment would you have preferred if nothing had been said about your father absolutely absolutely I think I think that's very wise truths are difficult back to you Ravi um why did you want to tell my listeners and me your story today I suppose it's that thing of lies aren't always about being good it's not always about being bad but you can tell stories like you said that are you know high stakes but they can you know they're to protect everybody and so they can be good as well the bad bit I suppose is you have told a lie I find lying really hard to do if I'm honest I shouldn't say that because that in a sense makes it sound like a lie doesn't it but it's that whole notion of I find

lies struggle I don't really enjoy it so I kind of maybe because I've told one such big whopper in my life so I sometimes find that lies are both good and bad it doesn't have to be the extremes of either end maybe that's why I wanted to tell the story that after some badness came a whole life of goodness for everybody and that lie isn't a bad life though it is still there today because it helps to protect a lot of individuals. So interesting. Ravi, thank you for sharing it with us. And of course, Miranda Doyle as well. Right. I'm going to stay with lies. You might not be surprised to hear that infidelity is one of the most commonly cited reasons for divorce in the UK. This is according to the Office of National Statistics. And you can't really read a newspaper or magazine for too long without some form of cheating scandal

filling the headlines. But what does make somebody lie to the person that perhaps they love the most? Maybe you can think of a time when you lied to your partner. It could be something like, yeah, I'm listening, or I didn't see your text. It doesn't have to be big lies, but it also can be, of course. I have with me two women who've experienced lies in intimate relationships. Nat Liu is a boundaries and relationships coach and the author of The Joy of Saying No. Rosie Green is the author of How to Heal a Broken Heart and the host of the podcast Life's Rosie. I think what we're hearing over the past hour is that the most common lies are little white ones. Somebody called them social lubricants. Do they matter? Let me start with you, Nat, and then I'll move to you, Rosie.

Yes, they do. I get it about the whole social lubricant thing. But the thing is, is that we all have a reason why we tell lies. We've learned to do it. It's a habit. It's something that we have. For instance, as a child, I was told it's really important to tell the truth. If you tell the truth, you won't get into trouble. So you tell the truth and you do get into trouble.

So then you work out as a kid, oh, hold on a second. People don't like it when you are honest. The truth gets you into trouble. It's important to tell people what they want to hear. Boom, you're a people pleaser. So what you have then is in our intimate relationships is people believing that, oh, that's just a white lie and it becomes really like death by a thousand cuts because it's one thing if you can go oh it's

it's occasional it's another thing when actually you're telling people what you think they want to hear you are not being honest about how you feel what you need need, what you want, what you expect. You're not actually being honest about who you are. And that means that's the block to intimacy because your person says to you, what do you want to do? I want to do what you want to do. What do you like? I like what you like. Was that good for you? Yeah, that was good for me. You're lying all the time. And we say, oh, we're doing this for the benefit of others i don't want to hurt feelings but actually once you start telling lies in your relationship you're cutting the other person off from intimacy so even those smaller lies not even the bigger ones that i'll

get to in a moment you you think they matter i think that in the long run they do if they're becoming if it's look if I turn around and I say to my partner surprise we're going to I don't know Beyonce concert I know we were talking about Beyonce a lot recently okay that's you know I may have told some lies to keep that a surprise right it's a different thing when

I'm being asked are you okay with this? what do you need from this whatever and I'm telling lies about that and that is where we run into problems it's so interesting I hadn't thought about the connection between being a people pleaser and telling lies but but you outlined it so well I understand you lied about your favorite film for two years I did so this was before I reformed. I mean, this has gone back probably 16, 17 years now. But I was seeing a guy, and to be fair, it was all part of one big lie anyway,

because he had a girlfriend and we worked together. And for some reason, I thought that saying that my favourite film was the same as his would advance my cause and make us similar. So I said that my favorite film was city of god do you remember that i do it's quite um intense it's very intense it's gritty brutal and do you know what right it is good but it wouldn't even be like in my top 20 of favorite films i'm gonna be honest my favorite films joint favorites are coming to America and ghost. So it is vastly different. But I lied about that for two years

because I thought that it would make me more attractive. It would make it seem like we had more in common. And to be honest with you, I lied really in all of my romantic relationships before because that's what I thought dating and being in a romantic relationship was about. It seems to be kind of fitting into their way of being is what I'm hearing. You twist yourself into a pretzel and you find that you don't even realise that you're lying anymore because you think that you're being what you think is a good girlfriend.

You think that you're making yourself a potential attract you know if we're not in a relationship yet well saying that I'm this or that or that I like this or that they're going to want to pick me or maybe I'll become wife material but the thing is is that you eventually hate yourself and you become somebody that you're not also the person doesn't really get to know you they get to know a version of you that you're trying to portray. So you're living a lie. And do you think women do that more than men in relationships? I think, look, we're all guilty of telling lies. But I would say that as women, we are in particular socialized and conditioned to be people pleasers.

We're told to be sweet and meek and mild. You know, don't do things that make you look slutty. You know, make sure that you do the things that are going to attract. You know, don't do things that make you look slutty. You know, make sure that you do the things that are going to attract, you know, a partner and win people over. And so we are more predisposed to it, I would say, certainly from the point of view of people pleasing, simply because it has been our survival. You know, we are brought up in a capitalist, sort of patriarchal, sexist, ageist, all the systems. So, of course, we lie because we think, well, if I, back in the day, you thought, well, if I don't lie about these things, I'm not going to get a husband. Let me turn to the husbands.

Rosie. Hello. I was talking about small lies, but you know what? Why don't I just move straight on to the big ones? Your husband had an affair. How did you find out about his lies? I found out through WhatsApp, you know, so the classic, you know, I actually knew, like I knew something was happening. And I think that's just really interesting. I'd never had that feeling ever before. We've been together for 26 years, Mara for about 15. And what was really interesting is I I knew before I knew you know um but you know

it's so interesting talking about truth and lies because for me I became obsessed with knowing the absolute truth and you know what had happened what you know where had they met what had they done but I think you know is that's the brain's way of coping actually my relationship had imploded it was done you know so actually it didn't matter whether they'd met in all bar one at 9 30 on friday night but it mattered to me because somehow i thought that finding out the truth would make him admit it you know was that what was behind it that that he would had he not admitted it he hadn't admitted it until that point and then he had to admit it. But still, I think we talked about it earlier.

He still held his line. Right. Drip feeding the truth, like little bits and pieces to you. So you think that you have the whole story. Yes. And I think that's a very common thing in affairs, isn't it? That people will tell you a certain, they'll sort of almost release bits of the truth.

So, yes, I've got an intimate relationship. Yes, I've had an emotional affair. Yes, I've had a sexual affair, but it only happened once. Yes, I've had, you know. And, you know, I feel like I have to go back to what Miranda was talking about, because, you know, I now feel like I'm talking about the truth here,

but I've got children, you know. And so am I damaging them by not by telling this truth? But I also have a whole community of women who need to talk about, you know, how they feel after someone has lied to them having an affair. So I have this conflict all the time with truth and lies. Yes, about where you should be speaking out or where you should be staying silent, if that's such a thing. But it does lead me to ask you, how did you feel? I actually went into shock. So I think it's really interesting.

It was like all those kind of movie moments. I sort of left my body. I felt like when I confronted him. When you looked at the WhatsApp message? kind of movie moments I I sort of left my body I felt like you know when I confronted him when you looked at the whatsapp when I looked at the whatsapps I I said to him you know you need to come outside we need to talk about this children eating breakfast you know and I just remember I I sort of I felt like I was watching it from above which I've since learned is a very classic reaction to like extreme situations so yeah I I kind of left my body I sort of felt like I was

watching it from above I you know I was shaking and then for the next I don't know four or five months you know I couldn't eat anything I couldn't sleep I couldn't you know and also how much of the truth did I tell my friends and my support system because I was trying to keep it I was trying to keep it just us in case we could rectify the situation you know so it's all about truths and lies and then I was trying to keep it just us in case we could rectify the situation. You know, so it's all about truth and lies. And then I was trying to work out exactly what was going on. And I think the human nature is just, you know, really wants to know where it stands.

So I was grappling with that constantly. And that for my body and my mental and physical health was very detrimental um what so i think that shock that you're talking about it was really in a way in one way it's discovering the lies but in another way it's kind of having the truth that you felt in your bones confirmed absolutely and i think you know knowing that that feeling in your bones is just so interesting and i know we talked about visual cues. But actually, I mean, to me, it was like an Elvis song. He just lost that loving feeling.

I could see it. You know, I knew that he wasn't looking at me in the same way. And I actually knew he was very angry with me, I think. And so it's all those things that you, you know, you expect someone's going to react in a certain way. But, you know, I think that the more react in a certain way but you know I think that the more almost the more moral someone is when they're lying that they're really angry because they're having to hide that you know they're having to justify it to themselves what was

the point then that you felt I don't know being able to detach yourself from those terrible feelings that you've described so well? Or move on, if that's the right phrase. I remember going for dinner with my dad and he was like, you just have to detach. I was like, it's just not that easy. But actually, I think that's why I'm here talking about it, you know, because I realise it may be painful for my children. It is painful. You know, I have empathy and sympathy for him you know I worry about him as well in this but why I think because I I understand why he's lied you know and I understand that a lot of our relationship actually exactly as you were saying was about us not talking about those ugly truths and I'm I was you know equally complicit in that you know so i don't i'm i have a sympathy for him uh which makes me

feel guilty about talking about it but all these women who have been through the same thing especially all the gaslighting you know they need to know that this is what happens because you look at someone who you've loved and trusted the person you've trusted most in the world who's lying barefaced totally straight at you. And it just messes with your head so much. And not, I'm sure, just with that person, but I'm thinking with other future relationships. What do you think now when you hear Rosie's story? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I mean, my heart goes out to you.

And everything that you're talking about, I think, is so much of what we go through when we discover that not only have we been lied to, but I feel like there's the lie and there's the time before the lie and there's the time afterwards. Because lies are very, very triggering for people. I think this is something that a lot of us were very quick to justify. Well, you know, and cheating is one where people will go, well, I didn't tell you because I knew how you'd react. First of all, please make that make some sense. Yeah. Or, you know, I didn't want to hurt your feelings.

I was trying to protect you all. I'm trying to protect the family. Well, you you've destroyed it. And I'm a child. Well, I'm not a child now, but I found out that my father had conceived another child behind my stepmother's back. She won't mind me saying it. He passed away anyway, six years ago. I was mid-twenties when I found out. It devastated me when I found out. I'm glad that I know the truth, but it's taken us years to process that. And it

was such an unsettling, like it had a ripple effect this this lie this deceit so it does it has a profound effect on you afterwards it takes a long time to trust yourself again but also you struggle to trust others just before i let you go rosie you're the author of how to heal a broken heart so you did heal absolutely i did and you know i feel like now i've learned all these lessons that I would not know. Self-awareness, you know, and I feel actually, in a way, it was one of the best things that happened to me. Yeah. Why don't we leave it on that optimistic, uplifting note.

Nat Liu, Boundaries and Relationships coach and author of The Joy of Saying No. Rosie Green, thanks so much to all my guests who have chimed in and gave us so many slack-jawed, gobsmacking moments during the programme as they revealed various aspects of their lives. Thanks so much for listening to Woman's Hour. That's all for today's

Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, it's me, Jade Adams and I'm back with a second series of Welcome to the Neighbourhood. This is the Radio 4 podcast, where myself and a celebrity guest like to have a nosy round social media groups from up and down the country. Bit of a strange one, but I am looking to get rid of a secondhand coffin. My mum has found this little metal box in her garden. Can anybody local please remove three stitches out of my neck? This series, I'm joined by some top people, including

Nick Grimshaw. It's a grenade! Izzy Stutty. That's my favourite reply. And self-esteem. If you think I should cover this one up, we should see my other one, bloody hell. Head to BBC Sounds to find brand new episodes of Welcome to the Neighbourhood with me, Jade Adams. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories

I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.