How Lying By Omission Harms Us and Our Relationships

Authenticity and trust are essential components of healthy relationships — so why do we sometimes omit the truth? And how can we stop the charade?

Sally Clarke
3 min readMay 7, 2021
Image by Brett Jordan at Unsplash

Lying by omission is a special kind of betrayal.

It’s passive-aggressive, it’s cowardly, and does just as much damage as full-blown outright lie.

Lying by omission defined

Lying by omission is this:

“Leaving out one or more important facts in order to foster a misconception.

This includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions”

This lack of transparency undermines communication, and directly impacts our experience of trust and respect in relationships, whether with friends, family or colleagues.

Lying by omission sucks. So, why does it happen?

What motivates lying by omission?

Some might argue that it is done to avoid causing hurt or pain to the other party. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings”, that kind of BS.

But what’s really happening, is cowardice on the part of the person who is lying. More specifically…

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Sally Clarke

Wellbeing & burnout author, expert, writer & speaker. Global adventurer. she/her www.salcla.com