夫妻之间为什么会存在谎言?

Pressed for specifics, my male sources finally owned up to fudging the truth about working late (to meet friends at a bar, sneak in a ballgame or take a walk alone). They also said they fibbed about how much they drank at a party, how fast they drive, whether they find their female friends attractive, how much they like their significant other's cooking or outfits -- 'After she's changed 10 times, you'll say yes to anything to get out the door' -- and yard work.

'I sometimes fib about trimming limbs off the trees in the yard,' says a small-business owner in Kentucky, who admits he's been known to go overboard with a handsaw. 'I tried to tie it to crop circles once, but I really don't think she bought it.'

Two weeks ago, he sawed off a limb, leaving a huge white stump. Desperate to hide the evidence, he climbed a ladder with a brown magic marker and colored the wood in. 'She never saw it!' he says proudly.

OK, just hold on a moment. Doesn't anyone remember Pinocchio? The Bible? Their mom? Lying is bad, especially when the recipient is your life partner. Do I really have to explain this?

So why is everyone so busy manipulating the truth -- even if they don't always consider it lying?

'It's a matter of survival,' says Ed Dunkelblau, a psychologist and director of the Institute for Emotionally Intelligent Learning in Northbrook, Ill. 'If you don't fib, you don't live.'

In other words, sometimes lies -- at least the little ones -- can help our relationships.

For starters, they allow us to avoid conflict. That's why James Carbonara told his then-girlfriend he had to take clients to dinner (he was playing poker with buddies), ate turkey sandwiches for lunch (he preferred burgers and pizza) and craved iced tea (he needed an excuse to get out of the house to sneak an occasional cigarette). 'The No. 1 reason guys lie is so that women don't get mad,' says Mr. Carbonara, a 28-year-old investor-relations officer in New York.

For Tanner Lenart, a little lying has prevented a lot of arguing during her five-year marriage. The problem? Her husband's favorite T-shirts, which have holes and no arms (he cut them off). 'I am sure they are very useful when you are working in the brush in Texas, but they have no place in our cute little neighborhood in Salt Lake City,' says Ms. Lenart, 30, a law student.

So she hides the T-shirts, including one from an asphalt company and a 'screaming green' one from a scuba shop in Oahu. When her husband asks if she's seen them, she says no.

Joshua Lenart takes the deception in stride. 'As long as she doesn't throw them away, it's OK,' says the 31-year-old university English teaching assistant. 'I'll look under the bed or behind the dresser, make sure they get washed, and put them back into rotation.'

Fibs can help us protect a loved one, as Sadie Alexander of Paris, Texas, can attest. She concocted a doozy to get her husband to see the doctor. He had a hernia in his testicle, but was too scared to get it checked. For two years, she says, he ignored it and it kept growing.

So one night after the kids went to bed, she sat him down on the deck and told him she'd had a checkup that day. 'If there's a little lump in my breast, it's probably nothing, right?' she asked him.

'He went ballistic,' says Ms. Alexander, 35. She says her husband bellowed about how he couldn't live without her and insisted she go to a doctor immediately. She let him rant for a while. Then she calmly told him, 'I didn't say I had a lump in my breast. I said, 'If I did, should I see a specialist?' You are the one with a lump. And the doctor says it could kill you.'

'It worked like a charm,' says Ms. Alexander. Her husband agreed to see a doctor and had surgery several weeks later to repair the hernia. (He declined to be interviewed.)

OK, that's a bit extreme. But, let's face it, there are some things we are always going to fib about to the people we love.

'We all want to be truthful, but there is such a thing as tact,' says Wayne Wilson, a retired financial executive in Seattle. When his wife asks how she looks, he always tells her she is beautiful. 'A bad hair day isn't going to change your life,' says Mr. Wilson, 64. 'What's to be gained by saying something negative to someone that is of such fleeting importance?'

His wife says she is just fine with his confession. 'After 15 years of marriage, we both realize that maybe we have exaggerated at times,' says Tamara Wilson, 48, who owns a public-relations agency.

Her standard lie? 'Oh, you're so strong.'