Karma Cycle

screenshot from Twin Town cult movie
used within international fair use policy
for for educational purposes 

“Would you lie to the police to protect my family?” By which she meant her parents. 

Her asking me this question told me everything about her family. 

“I am honest, I don’t lie. It’s a spiritual discipline I base my life on; to align with truth.” 

In retrospect she interpreted this as my lying to her. She does not believe honest people exist and assumes claims of honesty to be a manipulation, what she calls ‘face’. 

“So what you are saying is you would not lie to the police to protect my family.”

“Why? What have they done?”

“Ah er Nothing. That’s not the point I’m trying to make is would you lie to the police to protect my family.” 

She has asked me three times now. I am being pressured into giving an answer even after having already given an answer. It was not the answer she wanted to hear so she kept on repeating the question. To her mind it is evidence she is being kind to give me another chance to get this right. 

“I suppose it depends what they did. I might turn a blind eye to some stuff but if they did anything serious I would have to report it.” 

“So your answer is no.”

She is pressuring me and putting words in my mouth.

“That’s not what I said. No, you’re right, I won’t lie if someone breaks the law I would be honest about it.”

“Even if it were a member of my family.”

“I already explained. It depends how serious it is.” 

She is evaluating whether I am someone she can trust or someone she cannot trust. Whether I am family or not. She has decided I am not to be trusted because I am honest. I find this difficult to accept because my way of thinking is I cannot trust people who are dishonest. Trust and Truth are interrelated in how I assess people. 

Her disappointment is evident despite her attempting to hide it quite well. I do not need to ask her the same question because it’s obvious what her answer will be. How we do not think alike about this. 

By being the one asking the questions, she has positioned herself as the one in command. 

“Have your family done anything seriously illegal?” I asked. 

“My dad was in jail for arson.” 

“Oh. What did he set fire to?”

“Neighbours caravan. Burnt it to the ground.”

“Hey I saw that in a movie which was set around here.”

“Yeah I saw that movie. It’s all true local stories. My dad inspired that one. You should hear about the police selling drugs from their lockup, that’s the place opposite my sons school.”

“Oh.” 

This was the conversation the night I moved to a new town to take responsibility for my recently pregnant girlfriend who had successfully catfished me off the internet. 

From that moment forward our relationship deteriorated. We both recognised we were living with and pregnant by a person who we could not trust, for entrenched, polarised reasons. 

She resolved to ‘get through this’ until such time it was socially acceptable for her to move out and move on with her life. 

From that moment our relationship has been a game of her punishing me for being to her mind a bad guy who has disappointed her because she cannot trust me to protect her family. 

She moved out ‘a year and a day’ after our sons birth, true to the Wiccan creed she follows. In her own words “To live the single life of sex drugs and parties. I don’t want to be a family.” 

The way she expressed ‘I don’t want to be a family’ was a direct response to the comment I had made on day one that I would not lie to the police to protect her family. 

Despite this, I do not regret aligning with Truth no matter the consequences rather than aligning with lies no matter the consequences. 

Our son has grown up in an environment where he will have to decide for himself whether what his dad says is true or what his mums says is true. 

Dad: “I wish your mother was more honest.”

Mum: “Your dad is a liar. You can’t trust him. He will betray you.” 

This is our core relationship wound as far as I can understand it. She feels betrayed by me because I chose Truth over Lies. It has impacted us to this extent. It has impacted my son to this extent.

Welcome to Wales.

It literally is this though.
The Truth Riddle Door 
from ‘David Bowies Labyrinth’ movie
inspired by
The Palace of A Thousand Doors
in Micheal Ende’s novel
Never Ending Story.

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within international fair use policy
for educational purposes.