Completed Vipassana course. Now feel really guilty about lying in the past.

[vipassanastudent55]

I completed a Vipassana course recently and benefitted greatly from it. One of the things was I was able to look at myself and understand all my flaws. One problem I had was that I would tell lies. The lie I am feeling most guilty about at the moment was told over 1 year ago.

The lie was that I downplayed the number of sexual partners I had when asked by my girlfriend. She's an innocent girl and was a virgin until dating me. I on the other hand had a dark history. From drugs, crime, casual sex, even visiting brothels were in my history. Know that I don't do any of those things and these were stupid things I did as a young man full of ignorance, greed, craving. When my girlfriend 1 year ago asked how many girls I had slept with, I told her 3. The number is higher than that of course. I look at my motivation for lying, at the time it was a reflexive strategy because it was so uncomfortable for me.

I have thought many times whether I should tell her the truth. I don't want our relationship to have any deception but at the same time I'm concerned about the amount of pain it will cause her and our relationship.

I don't lie anymore and haven't lied in years. Part of me is telling me to leave the past in the past, but the other part is telling me to be truthful to such a wonderful, innocent girl.

I am completely faithful to her and devoted to her. I never thought after the meditation course I would see the painful reality. I just know this incredible revealing of my dark past would crush her. As I am trying to walk on the right path and practice right speech I am trying to find the answer to what to do. Does one go back and rectify the past to achieve right speech? Or does one understand that he use to be ignorant and have aversion but has now taken measures to avoid these things. What is everyone's opinion on this matter? Thank you.

[SarathW]

Stay in the present moment.
Do not worry about the past, future or the present.
You can't rectify the past Kamma.
Observe the five precepts and understand the Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta.
Only a Sotapanna is assured the future enlightenment and the free from born in a woeful state.

[Ben]

If it comes up again then you should tell her the truth and also explain why you lied when she first asked you. In the meantime, live a dhammic life and adhere to the precepts.
Kind regards,
Ben

[vipassanastudent55]

Thanks for the replies. My mission is to live a pure life now and hope my conscience gets lighter. My mind is so agitated I can't even meditate but as all things are impermanent I hope to sit through this and be the best person I can be. I was so scared and do feel shame. Thanks again. Much Metta

[Siha]

I have thought many times whether I should tell her the truth. I don't want our relationship to have any deception but at the same time I'm concerned about the amount of pain it will cause her and our relationship.

No, don’t do it! You are absolutely right to be concerned about the pain it will cause her. If you’ve vowed not to lie any more and are being successful in this, then there’s no need to go raking over the coals. In a matter like this, concealment will more often lead to a happy outcome than honesty. So my advice would be: don’t tell your girlfriend about your past recklessness, but don’t tell her any lies again either. When women try to poke their noses into their boyfriends’ or husbands’ past loves, they need to be told to mind their own business. Your big mistake was treating your girlfriend as if she had a right to know.

Here is a good cautionary tale from the life of Tolstoy:

Even the most submissive wife would have found marriage to such a colossal egotist hard to bear. Sonya had sufficient brains and spirit to resist his all-crushing will, at least from time to time. So they produced one of the worst (yet best-recorded) marriages in history.

Tolstoy opened it with a disastrous error of judgment. It is one of the characteristic follies of the intellectual to believe that secrets, especially in sexual matters, are harmful. Everything should be ‘open’. The lid must be lifted on every Pandora’s box. Husband and wife must tell each other ‘everything’. Therein lies much needless misery.

Tolstoy began his policy of glasnost by insisting that his wife read his diaries, which he had now been keeping for fifteen years. She was appalled to find - the diaries were then in totally uncensored form- that they contained details of all his sex life, including visits to brothels and copulations with whores, gypsies, native women, his own serfs and, not least, even her mother’s friends. Her first response was : ‘Take those dreadful books back - why did you give them to me?’ Later she told him: ‘Yes, I have forgiven you. But it is dreadful.’ These remarks are taken from her own diary, which she had been keeping since the age of eleven. It was part of Tolstoy’s ‘open’ policy that each should keep diaries and each should have access to the other’s - a sure formula for mutual suspicion and misery. The physical side of the Tolstoy marriage never recovered from Sonya’s initial shock at learning her husband was (as she saw it) a sexual monster.

Paul Johnson: Tolstoy: God’s Elder Brother