217: The Perils of Telling the Truth

Hello everyone, I’m Dr. Marie Murphy, and I’m a non-judgmental infidelity coach.  If you are cheating on your partner, or having an affair, or engaging in anything you think counts as infidelity, I can help you deal with your feelings, clarify what you want, and make decisions about what you’re going to do.  No shame, no blame, no judgments.  When you’re ready to resolve your infidelity situation in a way that’s truly right for you, there are two ways you can have me as your coach.  We can work together one-on-one via Zoom, or you can enroll in my self-guided course, You’re Not the Only One.  To get started with either of those options, go to my website, mariemurphyphd.com.

Okay.  I just want to say right out of the gate that the title of this episode might be a little too dramatic, or maybe even a little misleading.  In calling this episode “The Perils of Telling the Truth,” my intention is not to suggest that telling the truth is inherently perilous.  And it’s actually pretty funny that I’m talking about the “perils” of telling the truth today, because I’d been putting together an episode that will probably be titled, “The Truth (Might) Set you Free.”  And I’ve been putting that episode together because although I’ve talked many times about how it’s your prerogative to keep truths to yourself, and what I consider to be the hyper-fetishization of honesty in American culture and perhaps in other cultures too, I haven’t talked as much about how telling the truth can at times be quite useful.  And I was planning to do exactly that!

But then, something happened.  A situation came up in my life in which I took it upon myself to tell the truth about something, and I felt extremely proud of myself for doing so.  Actually, proud might not be the most accurate word.  Maybe self-satisfied is a better way of putting it.  Maybe even kind of smug.  And as I’m thinking about it now, maybe even a teeny bit vindictive.  I’m going to tell you about what happened, and you’ll see what I mean as the story unfolds.

And actually, ironically or perhaps extremely appropriately, this story I’m going to tell you that illustrates the potentially complicated nature of telling the truth is a story that I’m not 100% sure I should be telling you.  It’s a story that involves other people and other entities, and although I’m not going to share anyone’s identity and I’m going to blur the specifics of some of the details, I do have some misgivings about sharing this story at all.  But I’ve decided that I think the potential benefits of sharing this story outweigh the potential drawbacks, so here we are.  Hopefully god won’t smite me for telling this story.  If my next episode doesn’t come out in two weeks, well, that might be why.

Before I launch into the whole thing, I want to let you know that my story isn’t about infidelity per se.  Is it applicable to infidelity?  You bet.  And at the end of the episode, I’ll give you an example of how my story relates to one aspect of many infidelity situations.  But if you don’t want to bother listening to anything that isn’t a direct discussion of infidelity, this is your cue to turn this episode off and listen to a different one.

So here’s what happened.  Some weeks ago, or maybe even a couple of months ago, this practitioner that my spouse sees for various things recommended that he go on a plant medicine journey.  And he was totally up for it.  Just for context, he and I both have histories of consuming various substances for recreational and mystical purposes, but both of us had been almost completely retired from that kind of stuff for some time.  So we aren’t people who are, like, doing ayahuasca ceremonies every other full moon or anything like that.  But nor were we unfamiliar with psychoactive plants.  And even though I’ve kind of gotten to a point in my life where I am not particularly interested in consuming psychoactive substances – I can barely handle caffeine these days – I was interested in going on a plant medicine journey, too, because lately I have been really wanting to get beyond my default state of consciousness.  

So, somehow or another, my spouse found out about this plant medicine ceremony that was going to employ a particular plant that in the past, I was very, very happy to consume on occasion.  In the past, my intentions for consuming it were both recreational and spiritual, and my experiences consuming this particular plant were always extremely positive and therapeutic, even at their worst.  So I was like, yeah, okay, I will totally sign up for this plant medicine journey.  Sounds good to me.  This sounds like exactly what I need.

And then I found out that this plant medicine experience was going to be hosted at a space that I am very familiar with, and visit quite regularly, and I was very happy about this for a number of reasons.  This particular space is lovely, in many ways, and stuck me as a good setting in which to have a mind-altering experience.  Another plus was that this venue is really convenient for my spouse and me to get to, so that struck me as a huge win for all kinds of reasons.  So I was like, great, I’m in.  Sign me up for the plant medicine journey experience thing.

But then, something started to happen at the venue where the plant medicine experience was going to be held.  I go to this place a couple of times a week, and when I go to this place, I often situate myself in a particular spot.  A particular corner of the room.  And I’ve been doing this for years.  And something funny was starting to happen in this particular corner of the room.  It was starting to smell bad.  Now, at first, I thought that maybe the issue was that _I_ smelled bad.  I visit this space for the purpose of moving around in a particular way, and so my first conclusion was, wow, when I sweat, I smell even worse than I thought I did.  I smell TERRIBLE.  Like, INSANELY terrible.  And I was rather disturbed by this.  I mean, I know my body produces smells, just like everybody else’s does, but this smell was astonishingly bad.  And for a few weeks I was genuinely concerned about myself.  

But then, somehow or another, I came to the conclusion that I just couldn’t possibly smell that bad.  I got to a point where I felt confident ruling that out.  So my next consideration was, well, maybe it could be the thing I always bring with me when I come to this space – which might or might not be my yoga mat.  Maybe that item smells really, really bad.  But I was able to rule that out pretty quickly.

Then it finally hit me.  One day, it struck me with unmistakable clarity that there absolutely had to be a dead animal under the floorboards.  There absolutely HAD to be.  Suddenly I was SURE of it.  And as soon as I was sure, I was SURE.

So I talked to the people who run the space, and they said yes, you’re not wrong, but there’s nothing we can do about it other than rip out the floor, and we’re not going to do that.  And I said yes, of course, I understand that when these things happen, it’s really difficult!  And they assured me that the smell would just go away over time – and, more specifically, that it would be gone by the next week.

This is where the trouble started.  As soon as they told me that the smell would be gone by the next week, I took the liberty of deciding that these people were out of their goddamn minds.  I was like, there is absolutely no way that the dead rat, or whatever the thing is that is rotting beneath the floorboards, is going to just stop smelling bad.  That is not my experience with dead things.  They don’t just stop smelling bad.  You have to do something with them or about them.  Ideally, you remove them from wherever they’re located, and if appropriate, you give them a nice lovely burial.  Or you get rid of them some other way.  But you don’t just leave them stuck where they are and assume that they’re going to stop reeking of rot.

So I was feeling a little incredulous that these people thought the smell was going to just go away on its own.  I was like, “This is bullshit!  Or maybe it’s just magical thinking!  They are not thinking about this situation correctly!”  

At this point, I took it upon myself to inform the leader of the plant medicine experience that there was a dead rat stuck under the floorboards of the venue where the plant medicine experience was going to be held, and that it smelled really bad, and that the people who run the space were convinced that the smell was just going to go away on its own, but I very much doubted that that was going to happen.  I conveyed my message in a pretty measured way – I allowed for the possibility that perhaps the smell wouldn’t affect the proceedings if we avoided a certain corner of the space.  I suggested that the smell just might go away, as the people who manage the space suggested it might.  But I made that last comment in a pretty snarky way.  I was feeling a little vindictive.  I was pissed that nobody seemed to want to do anything about this dead rat smell situation, so I was going to do something about it myself.

And the plant medicine leader person took me very seriously, and thanked me for letting them know.  And the venue for the plant medicine experience ended up being switched.  More on that later.

Now here’s the thing that I want to make really, really clear.  When I shared the truth of the dead rat situation with the plant medicine journey facilitator, I was CERTAIN that I was doing a good thing.  I was EXTREMELY confident that I was telling the truth, and telling an important truth, and telling it at an appropriate time.

But was I?

Here’s what I DIDN’T do before I confidently spoke this truth.

I didn’t check out the smell in other areas of the space.  Like I said earlier, when I go to this space, I almost always park myself in a particular corner of the room.  And it’s a pretty big room!  I didn’t bother to check out the smell – or lack of smell – in other parts of the room.  Moreover, I didn’t even consider the possibility that the smell might not be an issue in other parts of the room!  It didn’t even cross my mind to do those things before I proudly informed the plant medicine journey facilitator that there might be an issue with the chosen venue.

I also didn’t consider the possibility that the smell really might go away – or at least dissipate – on its own.  I didn’t Google “How long do dead rats smell bad for when they are trapped beneath a floorboard?”  I didn’t do anything like that.

Now, were my intentions good in telling the truth?  Sure.  At least to an extent.  The smell, in part of the room, was REALLY bad.  Really, really, really, really ridiculously bad.  And if having the plant medicine experience in that room had required all of the participants to smell that smell for multiple hours on end, I am quite sure that that would have been a very bad thing.

But in telling the truth that I told, I was really only telling a portion of the truth.  The bigger truth might have been that if a certain area of the space were avoided, nobody would have even noticed the smell.  I wanted to be the hero who saved everyone from having inhale the perfume of dead rat.  But by arranging the group in a certain way within the space, the dead rat smell might not have been an issue at all.  I didn’t consider that before I spoke up.

And so the venue was changed, and while I don’t know for SURE that it was changed BECAUSE of my warnings about the odor issue, I have reason to believe that the change very well might have been made because of my warnings about the odor issue.

After that happened, I did the due diligence I should have done before I spoke up: I assessed the smell situation in other parts of the space, and sure enough, the odor was undetectable to me if I moved far enough away from the offending area.

By that time, though, the announcement of the venue change had been issued, and the date of the plant medicine experience was drawing close, so I just let the matter go.  I had said my piece, and theoretically the leader of the plant medicine journey could have gone to the space and assessed the smell level throughout the room and come to their own conclusions about the acceptability of the venue.  And who knows, maybe they did do that, and maybe they decided that the smell was indeed a deal-breaker.  I didn’t inquire about that, so I don’t know.  And might folks with more sensitive noses than mine picked up on the smell no matter where they were situated in the room, had the journey indeed been held in the room?  There’s no way for me to know that, either.

Here's what I do know.  The plant medicine journey was moved to a location that was far less appealing to my spouse and me, for two reasons.  One, it was harder to get to from where we live.  This wasn’t a deal-breaker for us, but the convenience of the original location was REALLY appealing, and the new location was decidedly less appealing to us.  Also, the venue space was a lot smaller, and I was pretty sure that this was going to be a bummer before I even saw the space.  I like my space, people.  I don’t like being smushed up against other humans without sufficient breathing room.  And the idea of being in very close quarters with a group of strangers ingesting psychoactive substances together kind of took the wind out of my sails.  Once I found out that I was going to be in a small space that was inconvenient to get to instead of a big space that was really easy to get to, my enthusiasm for the plant medicine experience waned a little bit.  But I was still very much dedicated to participating in the experience.

So we made our way to the new space on the designated day at the designated time, and while there was no smell of dead rat or dead anything else within the space, the quarters were pretty cramped.  And, personally, I wasn’t too thrilled about this, but I was like, whatever, I’ll be okay.  I might not consider this ideal, but I can deal with it.  Plus, I situated myself and my spouse right underneath the only window within the room, so we had direct access to fresh air.  I knew that was a good decision, but it might have actually been a GREAT decision.

Eventually, everybody arrived, and the experience got underway, and we all imbibed our potion of the plant medicine, and when it started to kick in I was like, okay, this is some really strong shit.  I very quickly started to experience the kind of visuals that, twenty five to thirty years ago, would have dazzled me.  But I wasn’t dazzled.  I quickly became exhausted, and I quickly realized that I would much, much rather be at home on my couch with my dogs and my spouse than in that room, tripping my face off, and stuck there for at least another several hours.  One of the conditions of the experience was that nobody could leave until the experience was declared to be over.  And we had an approximate end time, and I knew we were hours away from that, so pretty early on, I got into the mode of riding out my unenjoyable experience of the plant medicine as best as I could.  I wasn’t freaking out.  I wasn’t about to lose my shit.  I just was having an unpleasant experience, and I knew I could hang in there and go along for the ride, and in a way, that was as fine with me as it could be, but it was also challenging.  There was absolutely nothing enjoyable about the experience for me.  And that surprised me, but that was really beside the point.  The point was just to hang in there and make it through.

As I was hunkering down and making it through my not-so-fun journey, somebody else in the room started to have what is sometimes known as a bad trip.  And from what I gathered, it was a very, very, very bad trip indeed.  If you can imagine the details, you can imagine the details.  And if you can’t imagine the details, well, let’s put it this way.  This person was having a very, very hard time, and the people around this person were probably having a very hard time witnessing this person having a hard time.

The facilitators of the experience took the person who was having the tough experience off to another room, but that room was adjacent to the room the rest of us were in, and the walls weren’t particularly thick, so those of us still in the main room had at least some idea of what was going on next door.  And although I couldn’t hear all of it, both because I was trying not to listen for the sake of staying out of other people’s business, and for the sake of just getting through my own not-so-pleasant journey, it was pretty clear that this human was not having a great experience of the plant medicine that day.  Not at all.  

And of course, this person’s experience ended up having a pretty big impact on the whole group’s experience.  Hearing – or partially hearing – what was going on with this human was a thing, and it was an ongoing thing.  For probably a few hours.  And then there was the fact that all but one of the facilitators had gone off to tend to the person in need, leaving a lone facilitator in the main room to tend to the rest of us.  Later in the evening I spoke with the facilitator who had been left to hold down the fort, and this person indicated to me that being left in charge in this way, with all of the mayhem going on in the next room, was pretty challenging indeed.

The upshot is, we all survived.  But it was a rather harrowing few hours or so.  Eventually, the person who had the meltdown was led back into the main room, and to my immense relief, eventually the whole experience was brought to a close.  At the end we were all invited to share about our experiences and the poor person who had the massive episode apologized in a rather heartbreaking manner to the whole group for negatively impacting everyone’s experience.  And to their credit, the facilitators stepped in and said basically, you know, our humanity contains multitudes.  Being human isn’t all rainbows and unicorns and cupcakes all the time, and that’s okay.  We can be with our darker parts, individually and collectively, and be okay, even when it’s hard. 

I went up to this person later and, with their consent, gave them a hug and said I hoped they were doing okay.  They responded with more apologizing, and I sincerely told them that they had nothing to apologize for.  

What I wondered, as you may have guessed by now, is whether or not I might have had something to apologize for.  I wasn’t going to say this to the person who had just come down from what was probably a terrifying experience, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not things would have been different if I hadn’t spoken up about the dead rat.  There’s no way to confirm this of course, but I strongly suspected and still strongly suspect that if we’d been in a bigger, less claustrophobic space, the plant medicine journey would have turned out differently for everyone.  I can’t help but imagine that if we’d had more actual space, and been in a room with a very different feel and layout, that the person who went to the dark side wouldn’t have found themselves going in that direction.  There’s no way I can know that for sure, of course.  But I DO know for sure that if the same thing had happened in the original space, there would have been a lot more room to defuse the situation.  Literally more room.  There would have been more physical space, and thicker walls between the rooms, and different ventilation, and a very different environment within and outside of the building.  And my speculation is that that would have been better for everybody.  Again, I can only speculate about that.  But I can say with certainty that being in the other space would have been better for ME.  My spouse also later emphatically stated that he would have much preferred to be in the other space, too.

In a way, the truth is kind of like a medicine.  Actually, I think that some people would be less equivocal and just say that the truth IS a medicine.  And medicines are interesting things!  The right medicine at the right time can cure you of what ails you!  The right medicine at the right time can save your life!  But even a medicine that is great when administered appropriately can cause harm when it’s administered inappropriately, or if it’s given when it isn’t called for at all.  Kind of like plant medicine!  Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it just isn’t.

Telling the truth is one of those things we sometimes consider an absolute good, or a good that we think trumps all other potential goods.  And one of the things this story illustrates is that we can get caught up in a truth-telling fervor, and we can become convinced of the importance of telling a particular truth because telling the truth just seems like such a good thing.  In the moment when I told the truth about the rat smell, I really thought I was doing a great thing.  But perhaps the greater thing would have been to assess the situation a little more thoroughly first.  It might indeed have been true that the dead rat smell was pretty bad in one corner of the very large room, but it might have also been true that the rat smell was undetectable beyond a certain distance from it.  And that might have been the more important truth in this situation.  But that didn’t even cross my mind until after I’d opened my big mouth.

So where does this leave us in regards to telling the truth?  Buddhists commonly suggest several things when it comes to truth-telling.  They talk about asking ourselves if or when telling the truth is necessary.  They talk about ensuring that we tell the truth at the right time.  They talk about telling the truth for benevolent reasons, and with kindness.  They talk about telling the truth for reasons that are conducive to harmony.

And I think all of this guidance is lovely, but I think it misses something.  I think it doesn’t account for the multiplicity of truths we might be able to tell in any given scenario.  In my case, it was true there was a very bad dead rat smell in one corner of a big room.  But, as I later discovered, it was also true that the bad rat smell was not detectable throughout the room.  Which truth was more important?

Thus, another question I suggest we consider when we’re figuring out how or if we’re going to tell a particular truth is, “Is this the most useful truth I could tell in this situation?”  Or, “Is this the most important truth for me to tell in this situation?”  The answers to those questions might be yes!  But if they aren’t a clear yes, the next questions might be, “What truth, or truths, might be more useful or more important for me to tell in this situation?”

So let’s tie this into infidelity situations, finally.  A lot of times when I’m working with folks who are married and want to leave their marriage in part because they’re having an affair and they want to pursue a non-affair relationship with their current affair partner, the question of “Do I have to tell my spouse about my infidelity?” will come up.  And usually the more important thing to tell your spouse is that you don’t want to be married to them anymore.  Worrying about whether or not you should tell the truth – or certain truths – about your infidelity may be a total distraction from the main task at hand.  Which is to tell your spouse the truth about what you want in relation to your marriage.  If you don’t want to be married to your spouse anymore, that is, in my opinion, the single most important truth for you to tell them.  Are there exceptions to that?  Maybe, but I sure can’t think of any off the top of my head.  Other truths might be important, too, but if you’re married and you don’t want to be married anymore, telling your spouse that truth is paramount.

Okay.  There is SO much more to be said about telling the truth.  In fact, I would love to go off on a whole bit about whether or not it’s even useful for us to talk about “the truth” as if it is a fixed thing, or a monolithic thing.  But I’m not going to do that.  We’re going to leave this here for today, with emphasis on the point that I don’t intend for today’s episode to be the final word on anything related to truth.  I’ve shared the story that I’ve shared today because I think it raises questions that are really important for us to consider, but truth is a vast, multi-layered topic, worthy of consideration from many different angles.  And this is but one of those angles.

So, on that note, if you are grappling with telling truths, or not telling truths in relation to your infidelity situation, let’s talk.  I can help you figure out how you truly WANT to handle the truths of your situation, and how you want to convey – or not convey – those truths to others.  And of course, I can help you with alllll the infidelity-related stuff.  When you’re ready to put the drama and difficulties of your infidelity situation behind you, let’s get to work.  There are two ways you can have me as your coach: you can enroll in my self-guided course, You’re Not the Only One.  Or we can work together one-on-one via Zoom.  To get started with either of those options, go to my website, mariemurphyphd.com.  I can’t wait to meet you.

All right, good humans.  That’s it for today.  Thank you so much for listening.  Bye for now.