MadameNoire Featured Video

Corbis

Corbis

When you hear the words “trap” and “manipulation” regarding relationships, it’s often people stating the ways in which some women put men in a tight corner by getting pregnant and having a child to hold over a man’s head for years to come. Maybe even the ways in which sex can be used to get money and other things out of a guy. But rarely do people talk about the ways in which men “trap” and “manipulate.” Especially not the ways that men emotionally trap women in relationships. This is done through lies by omission, also known as, exclusionary detailing.

It’s the idea that someone misrepresents themselves in order to bring about a mistaken belief.  Lying to paint the prettiest portrait of one’s self–a false portrait. A man who wants you to think he’s an upstanding guy, that he’s on the level of the kind of man you are seeking, and that he has his stuff together, might deceive you into believing that all is well (and clean) in his life. He’ll prey upon your vulnerability (you seeking Mr. Right via a dating app or being upfront about wanting a serious commitment) and try to get in where he can fit in. He’s a fraud, and sadly, many of us don’t realize we’ve encountered this kind of man until it’s way too late.

Like one of my best friends. As awesome as she is and despite having so much to offer as a partner in a relationship, she has consistently been approached by married men. All of whom failed to disclose the fact that they were, by law, taken. I remember one guy who tried to approach her at a party thrown by a mutual friend, only for that mutual friend to come through at the end of the night and tell my BFF, “Um, he’s actually married.” When my girlfriend approached the man about his lies, he tried to explain that his wife was actually still living in Nigeria, and it was a marriage he was trying to get out of. He wanted sympathy and an open mind from my friend, but she wasn’t offering it because he lied from the moment he met her.

Then there was the most recent love interest whom she dated for months. He seemed like a good guy with a big heart, but that’s probably because he was sharing it with another woman. Like the Nigerian fellow at our friend’s housewarming party, this new guy actually waited until the relationship was over to divulge that he was married. Yes, he is married to a woman who lives abroad and also claims that he doesn’t want to be married to her anymore. (He married her to help her stay in America, but she went back to Grenada with their son.) He would go on to claim that she wouldn’t sign divorce papers. He disclosed this information after requesting my friend’s help with a legal matter. That so-called “baby momma,” was actually a wife now coming after him for child support since he wanted her to sign divorce papers.

And I’ve known plenty other women who’ve encountered guys who had a wife and two children waiting for them in Guyana while they tried to play bachelor. Another who introduced a girl to his father only to have a serious long-term girlfriend he hid in the background. And another whose angry ex called a friend of mine to say that she was pregnant and that there were many secrets her prospective romantic interest had failed to tell her. In all cases but the latter, these women were heavily in like, sometimes on their way to being in love with men who thought it would be easier to lie and create a fake facade than to be honest and upfront about who they were and what they had to offer. So these women were left in more pain than usual when they cut things off because they thought they’d found a good catch. And sometimes they were left second-guessing whether or not they should leave their relationships because they were so attached, despite having fallen for a lie.

And this is more common than you think. Even famous women like Tasha Smith and Tichina Arnold have both married and split from men who painted themselves as one thing, only to waste years trying to hide the truth that eventually came out: They were liars. Such bad liars, that in the case of Smith, her marriage was annulled after five years together because her husband had been married five times, had scores of children, and hadn’t paid his taxes in 10 years. All things he failed to divulge to her before asking for her hand.

I tried to relay these stories to my fiancé, specifically the one about the married men who had lied to my BFF, and he seemed confused.

“But if he’s trying to get out of the marriage, it’s not really that bad, right?” he asked. “He’s making an effort and the wife won’t move on.”

“No, because he never told her during their relationship that he was married,” I responded.

“Ooooooh, I didn’t know that. Well…that’s not good,” he said.

And he’s right. It’s not “good.”

I was left sad for my friends, and for women in general, who often get the worst rap in this dating game (we’re angry, bossy, too independent, blah, blah, blah) while the fake facades put on by some men are ignored. Sad that men who want to draw them in lead them on to believe that they genuinely care and are available when they’re really out here living a lie. Sad that when you try to do a background check on a man, people look at you like you’re crazy–and then these things happen. Sad that instead of just being honest about the fact that their personal lives are not in the best place and giving women they’re interested in a choice to decide whether or not they can hang, they deceive them into falling head over heels.

In case you were wondering, I don’t have a resolution for all this. I’m just as boggled and upset about it as anyone else, and wonder how we as women can guard ourselves while attempting to be “open,” as people tell us we should be when it comes to “letting love in.” How do we balance healthy skepticism with going into a situation trying to be trusting? How do we take a man’s word as the truth when it seems so many lie in the attempt to have their cake and eat it too?

In reality, dating is exhausting. The movies and TV shows would have you believe that folks are supposed to sweep you off your feet, and sh-t is supposed to be happily ever after. But no one talks about how much of a risk it is to put yourself out there in the quest for finding love. Especially when there are master manipulators out here willing to prey upon your search.

Have you ever found yourself emotionally trapped in a relationship? Has a guy made you believe a lie about him only for it to come out in the messiest of ways? 

Comment Disclaimer: Comments that contain profane or derogatory language, video links or exceed 200 words will require approval by a moderator before appearing in the comment section. XOXO-MN