Tyler is talking about polygraph tests aka “Lie Detector” tests and whether or not they are beneficial in helping partners heal from betrayal trauma after an affair. Tyler shares some experiences from a few of his past clients and how it worked for them when the details of the partner’s infidelity were thought to be less than complete.
November 7, 2022
today we're going to be talking about polygraphs and whether or not they're beneficial in the process of disclosure and discovery with betrayal trauma i get this question quite a bit in my practice about how to go about rebuilding trust and often one of the things that comes up with rebuilding trust is how do i know if my partner is actually telling the truth and my partner is being honest that's a natural question that comes up that's frequent it's really hard to answer because you don't really have much to put your finger on by way of something tangible you know your partner could come to you and say i swear i'm being honest now i've been honest for the last month or the last two months i haven't lied to you at all but a betrayed partner doesn't really know that because they've been told that before in the form of gas lighting so often in an effort to try to rebuild trust there's a process that couples will go through called disclosure where the betraying partner will offer what's called a full disclosure where they outline the history of all of the things that they've done that maybe they've kept under the surface and then in the process of that disclosure there will be some questions that can be asked and then often there's some other steps to the disclosure where there's some sharing of feelings and sharing of some commitments and some acknowledgement and practice of empathy towards the the spouse who's been betrayed and acknowledgement of how they might be feeling often times in the disclosure process it's recommended to do a polygraph to in essence put the stamp of approval on the disclosure itself and today i want to talk with you a little bit about the pros and cons of doing a polygraph so are polygraphs effective generally yes a polygraph will work when you ask you know usually for just a couple of questions per polygraph it's generally effective and it will generally measure whether or not somebody is being honest uh the challenge is what questions are you going to ask that are going to be the most meaningful because you only get a couple of questions per polygraph and then the next question is is that if i've been betrayed before i'm already prone to seeing things from the negative light in order to protect myself so even if a polygraph comes back as positive as my partner is being honest there can be a tendency to not believe what was said anyway so the question is is the polygraph going to be helpful at rebuilding trust and then a second question to that that i often get is how many polygraphs is too many polygraphs because i have some couples who will sometimes go through and do multiple polygraphs over multiple years where it's almost like a yearly thing they go back in and they redo another polygraph and for some couples that works really really well and for other couples it doesn't seem to work well because at the end of the day trust is rebuilt in more than just some tangible proof effort it's rebuilt with consistent effort and action over time with a genuineness in the in the actions that i'm taking to rebuild that trust and to work on my own recovery so if you want to polygraph i in my practice don't often recommend polygraphs but i also don't discourage them if you feel like it's going to be helpful in the process of rebuilding trust and you feel like you know what i really need that and i want that stamp of approval what i would say is that it's the approach to the polygraph that's going to help rebuild trust as much as the polygraph itself so if i've betrayed my wife and my wife comes to me and says hey i'm really kind of feeling well here's an example a wife comes came to me just this last week and she said i'm actually really feeling connected to my husband i feel like he's being honest in the way he's handling his recovery i actually feel like i want to open up to him more and be more vulnerable but i'm scared to do that and i'd like to have him do a polygraph and so i went to him and i asked him to do a polygraph and he got defensive and he said he's already done three of them and he doesn't want to do them anymore and it actually made me feel worse and that's the key it's the defensiveness that was the part that didn't feel good that didn't help build trust but if she would have gone to her partner and her partner would have said hey you know i i'm more than happy to go do another polygraph you know i'm willing to do that and i want whatever you need for your safety and for for whatever can help rebuild trust even though i don't really feel like it's necessary anymore that would be rebuilding trust because there'd be honesty in it but there'd also be willingness the key word here is willingness am i willing to go do whatever it takes to rebuild trust while still keeping my values and if i'm willing to do that that's going to be the thing that helps in the restoration of the relationship and the restoration of trust so me personally i don't often see a real benefit to the polygraph sometimes it's really essential for some couples it's really up to your preference but understand why you're doing it and understand that it's not likely to be the complete answer it can be part of the answer but it won't be the complete answer so hopefully this is helpful you guys have a great day thank you so much for being here with me if you found this to be valuable for you please hit the like and subscribe button if you're facing particular struggles that you need help with or roadblocks that you're running into please submit a question i'd be happy to answer it for you [Music] you