# Would you ever request a polygraph test?



## Machjo (Feb 2, 2018)

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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

I figure if I have to polygraph her she is probably not worth staying with, as my life with her going forward is probably going to suck for a long time. Life is too short. That's just me. I wrote a post on her once to that effect and got lambasted for it.


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## WilliamM (Mar 14, 2017)

My wife would fail miserably. 

She would always fail because she panics when questioned.

One thing about someone who lies a lot, like my wife, is you can't really be sure when they might be actually slipping in something true.


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## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

The willingness to take a polygraph indicates a willingness to come clean, making excuses for not taking one looks like guilt. I suspect it works better on people who are basically honest, but fell into an affair or had a one night stand. 

Often times the fear of taking one forces more trickle truth out, and the confession occurs on the way to the test.

At the very least you should try and convince OMW or OWH to force their cheating spouse to take one, and supply them with a name and contact info.

Tamat


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## minimalME (Jan 3, 2012)

sokillme said:


> *I figure if I have to polygraph her she is probably not worth staying with*, as my life with her going forward is probably going to suck for a long time. Life is too short. That's just me. I wrote a post on her once to that effect and got lambasted for it.


No I wouldn't request one.

Do I really want to share my life with someone I have to interrogate? No, I don't.


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## Edo Edo (Feb 21, 2017)

No. If the day ever came that I'd have so little faith in my wife's word that I would consider asking for a polygraph, there'd be no point anyway...


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

Edo Edo said:


> No. If the day ever came that I'd have so little faith in my wife's word that I would consider asking for a polygraph, there'd be no point anyway...


Yeah I agree. But I have come to learn that their are many people who really care about the marriage more then anything else.


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## Machjo (Feb 2, 2018)

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## Machjo (Feb 2, 2018)

sokillme said:


> Yeah I agree. But I have come to learn that their are many people who really care about the marriage more then anything else.


I have no doubt that some, unwilling to do use their own minds to determine the probable truth, would force their spouse to take a polygraph test and blindly accept the result even if all logic showed the suspected spouse to have probably told the truth about having been faithful.


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## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

Often it's not the actual polygraph test but how the person acts prior to it. We have people on this site who in the past scheduled a poly for a spouse and that spouse initially agrees then a couple days later look at browser history and it's full of searches on how to beat tests. You have spouses put the hard sell on how unreliable they are and then you have the parking lot confessions when instead of going in for the test the start telling the truth at the last minute. 

So is the benefit the test or the looming test to let a guilty person stew? I don't put much stock in an actual test but I can see the benefits of requesting one to push a person into being truthful.


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## Machjo (Feb 2, 2018)

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## NJ2 (Mar 22, 2017)

I did request my H take a poly when I suspected he was having an affair.(I had an A 25 years before- which I had come clean about) He had recently lied about many things. He took it and passed the "infidelity" question but failed the "cheating" question. His explanation was that decades ago he had kissed several girls after dancing with them when on a few drunken boys weekends. He had not had intercourse so thats why the infidelity came up that way but not the cheating.

I continued to have doubts because I had no way of knowing if "kisses" were in fact BJ's . If a few girls werent in fact dozens, or if decades ago was actually months ago...

I scheduled a 2nd poly which he somehow convinced the examiner not to give him- bizarre really. The examiner said I wouldn't be satisfied no matter what the answers were so it would be unethical for him to administer and charge me for the test.

It did end up that I was diagnosed with a relationship type of OCD - obsessed with thinking he was doing something bad (cheating) and compulsed to continuously search for signs of his cheating. I am on medication which helps somewhat...but knowing that the initial lies were in fact really lies, (about going to a girls house several times to help her with odd jobs,..deleting phone logs and texts between the two of them, using a different phone to call her so I wouldnt see the number).prevents me from fully seeing things from a "disease" perspective. I get that the obsession and compulsions were bat **** crazy- but I'm not convinced they werent based on something real.

H and I continue to work on the marriage through IC and MC. Things have been better than they have ever been. Someone ( a waitress at a restaurant/bar we like to go to ) commented that they were shocked to find out we had been together for 37 years- they thought that by the way we were when we were together that we must be a fairly new relationship.

90 % of the time our marriage is now what I'd always wanted it to be - there is a kindness and respect for each other we laugh together more, we have fun, we feel like a real team-10% of the time I feel like we are both acting in a play and that underneath there is this ugly truth unspoken between us....I know he is a liar, he knows I cheated on him......


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

T/J

Oh, he definitely cheated on you as well, NJ, with whatever he did with these girls that was short of PIV -- that's for sure. So it wasn't a case of just he lied and you cheated. Also, the marriage was bad when you cheated and good when he cheated. No excuse obviously but the problem in your marriage absolutely is not all on you. Not even close. I'm glad your OCD where he's concerned is under control but there was a very good reason for it.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

I don't believe they work. 

Even if I did, I wouldn't ask for one. All it can prove is that they didn't do the things that you are asking about, not that they won't don them in the future. It also shows that trust is gone - so what point staying. 

Guilty or not, I would divorce if asked to take a polygraph.


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## Andy1001 (Jun 29, 2016)

Machjo said:


> I have no doubt that some, unwilling to do use their own minds to determine the probable truth, would force their spouse to take a polygraph test and blindly accept the result even if all logic showed the suspected spouse to have probably told the truth about having been faithful.


Speaking as something who has built polygraphs in the past,you may as well be reading tea leaves for all the good they are.The original ones worked on skin resistance,when skin is damp it has a lower resistance and electricity flows easier.So if you were lying,supposedly you would sweat and increase the flow of electricity between the electrodes.It worked on the same principle that an electric shock is more dangerous if you are standing in water.
Modern ones are far more complex,using mri and cat scans,measuring blood pressure,respiration,pulse etc.If you get to ask the subject hundreds of questions then certain traits will emerge but in most cases you only get to ask three or four questions so the test is easily fooled.
If you are the type of person who can be angry while outwardly appearing calm then you can fool a polygraph for long enough to pass the test.

If someone is determined to have their spouse take a test then you must spring it on them,do not give them the chance to research how to fool the test.Do not ask the question have you cheated,instead ask how many different sexual partners they have had in the last year.Ask was sex better with their affair partner than with you.In other words don’t ask the questions that they are expecting.
You may get what’s called the parking lot confession but other than that they are meaningless.


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## 269370 (Dec 17, 2016)

Polygraphs are not my thing. Monograph maybe...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cashcratebob (Jan 10, 2018)

I am of the opinion, having taken a few polygraphs due to work, that they are most effective on people with whom honesty is a deep seeded ethical value. Where if they were to lie, it triggers a physiological response. For people who lie all the time and have desensitized their bodies to the act of lying, it is probably useless. 

That is unfortunate in my estimation; you aren't going to catch the really bad folks with a lie detector and you are only going to brow beat the honest people. 

With that in mind, a lite detector would be effective on me and my wife if we got to that point. But I am lazy, and would likely just use my own investigative skills apart from a lie detector in order to get the truth. However, I can appreciate the closure/openness a test might provide.


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## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

One other point, at least for me, is that even if I do divorce I want the truth, and depending on what happened physically the other persons will pay more or less.

Tamat


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## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

CrashCrateBob,

You wrote, *I am of the opinion, having taken a few polygraphs due to work, that they are most effective on people with whom honesty is a deep seeded ethical value.*

Having taken one myself I agree with what you said, I think it would work on my W as she feels guilty and horrible about having cheated on me. All the more so because of how much she enjoyed it in that moment and how it emptied her love for me to this day. 

Tamat


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## Nucking Futs (Apr 8, 2013)

cashcratebob said:


> I am of the opinion, having taken a few polygraphs due to work, that they are most effective on people with whom honesty is a deep seeded ethical value. Where if they were to lie, it triggers a physiological response. For people who lie all the time and have desensitized their bodies to the act of lying, it is probably useless.
> 
> That is unfortunate in my estimation; you aren't going to catch the really bad folks with a lie detector and you are only going to brow beat the honest people.
> 
> With that in mind, a lite detector would be effective on me and my wife if we got to that point. *But I am lazy, and would likely just use my own investigative skills apart from a lie detector in order to get the truth.* However, I can appreciate the closure/openness a test might provide.


Wait, you're lazy so you're going to do the work yourself? I'm not sure you have a firm grasp on being lazy. :wink2:


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

Machjo said:


> I've read a mention of a polygraph test in another thread and wondered if you would ever request one.
> 
> As for myself, if I ever suspected my spouse of cheating, while I might analyze the facts before me to determine whether or not I can trust her, I would never request a polygraph test. What happens if she's telling the truth and the test shows a false negative? Would I really want to go down that path? Plenty of other far more reliable determiners exist. The most reliable one is logic. If she contradicts herself, then while that doesn't prove she cheated, it at least proves she didn't tell the truth, either unintentionally (due to poor memory) or intentionally. Then it's just a matter of figuring out which through more questioning. If she lies, that would break trust regardless of whether she cheated. One could say lying is a form of cheating in its own right. But I'd never rely on a polygraph test as a substitute for my own mind. Your thoughts on this?


Because polygraphs are not always accurate, they would not be very helpful to me and so I would not request one.


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## cashcratebob (Jan 10, 2018)

Nucking Futs said:


> Wait, you're lazy so you're going to do the work yourself? I'm not sure you have a firm grasp on being lazy. :wink2:


Lazy was probably the wrong word. Figuring out where to go, paying for it, dealing with the "it may not be accurate" statements coming from experts, coming up with accurate questions. I'd rather just get truth using other means. I'm not discounting their worth though.


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## toblerone (Oct 18, 2016)

i think if the time would come that the possibility that the subject of a polygraph would come up, that's when it's time to cut my losses and get the **** out


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## NJ2 (Mar 22, 2017)

Openminded said:


> T/J
> 
> Oh, he definitely cheated on you as well, NJ, with whatever he did with these girls that was short of PIV -- that's for sure. So it wasn't a case of just he lied and you cheated. Also, the marriage was bad when you cheated and good when he cheated. No excuse obviously but the problem in your marriage absolutely is not all on you. Not even close. I'm glad your OCD where he's concerned is under control but there was a very good reason for it.



Hey there Openminded!- I know he cheated but I dont know the details. There are things I could accept and things that would be a deal breaker. The uncertainty still messes with my head and today was a particularly bad day-I spent all day doing compulsive searching and note taking-Finally I called a friend and went up to the farmhouse to inrterrupt the looping. I agree he behaved just as terribly. I blame his lies for setting this OCD thing off. Most days are pretty good though. Hope you are well 

slight thread jack over


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## Cletus (Apr 27, 2012)

Why go to the trouble when I can just read the tea leaves?


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

NJ2 said:


> Hey there Openminded!- I know he cheated but I dont know the details. There are things I could accept and things that would be a deal breaker. The uncertainty still messes with my head and today was a particularly bad day-I spent all day doing compulsive searching and note taking-Finally I called a friend and went up to the farmhouse to inrterrupt the looping. I agree he behaved just as terribly. I blame his lies for setting this OCD thing off. Most days are pretty good though. Hope you are well
> 
> slight thread jack over


I am, thanks. 

You're a good person, NJ -- and a very helpful poster. I hope you'll come back and post with us more often.


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## donny64 (Apr 21, 2012)

I've taken several while in the testing phase with law enforcement agencies, have taken several while working in law enforcement, and have witnessed a couple dozen or more. My opinion is I might request one, but would not trust one.

The poly is an aid used by an investigator to get to the truth. And to either rule something out with a fairly high probability (probability being key word), or rule them in with a fairly high probability. There is nothing definitive about it. At all.

I know from the testing phase that polygraphs can be "unfair" to a candidate. I went through it. I know when I am being truthful. And when a machine tells me contrary to that when I know better, that's all I need to know. But departments don't care if it is "fair", only that it is a tool to sort out a number of lying and undesirable people with a fairly high probability. Those unfairly caught in the snare are nothing more than collateral damage. Some of it is to be expected. It's a numbers game. They may lose a few good ones along the way, but they will also weed out a fairly good percentage of bad ones. However, the reverse is also true. They may keep a large number of good applicants, but a few bad ones...perhaps real bad ones...will slip through the cracks.

I use that example because it is closest to why you'd use it in a suspected infidelity situation. When you are using it as an "absolute" when making a decision, good people will be lost, and bad ones will get through. Period.

I would not want someone basing a life decision regarding me on the outcome. I would only request one from someone else as a last resort. But in my mind there are better ways to get to the truth, and I could never trust the results. I'll not be basing any life decision on the results of a polygraph. Period. I've seen enough to know better. 

Sometimes it could be the only way to find out about long past indiscretions. But you run the risk of getting erroneous results. 

With current or recent infidelity, there are far better options. PI's, VAR's, tech trail, etc. The best way to get the truth out of someone is to get it when they think nobody is watching or listening. The key is to being able to "be there" when they have that belief, and then get them talking about it or doing it.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

Machjo said:


> I've read a mention of a polygraph test in another thread and wondered if you would ever request one.
> 
> As for myself, if I ever suspected my spouse of cheating, while I might analyze the facts before me to determine whether or not I can trust her, I would never request a polygraph test. What happens if she's telling the truth and the test shows a false negative? Would I really want to go down that path? Plenty of other far more reliable determiners exist. The most reliable one is logic. If she contradicts herself, then while that doesn't prove she cheated, it at least proves she didn't tell the truth, either unintentionally (due to poor memory) or intentionally. Then it's just a matter of figuring out which through more questioning. If she lies, that would break trust regardless of whether she cheated. One could say lying is a form of cheating in its own right. But I'd never rely on a polygraph test as a substitute for my own mind. Your thoughts on this?


*No polygraph test needed to satiate my sense of well-being!

My very own "gut instincts" are preeminently the best lie detector that there is in all the world! *


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

I not only would, I actually did request a polygraph. Our MC at the time suggested it. My then-husband readily agreed because he said it would be a great way for him to prove that he was being honest and that he'd never had a PA with his EA partner. He wanted to ease my fears so that we could move on with our lives. I viewed it as a useful investigative tool that might help me get to the bottom of a few things. 

And it worked.

Oh, we never got around to him actually taking it. The night before it was scheduled to occur, he finally confessed. Not to the PA I suspected he'd had with his EA partner, but to a string of affairs going back to the very beginning of our relationship. Twenty-one years of serial cheating. Without that last-minute confession, I might never have discovered who he really was. Or it might have been years until I did. I figure that polygraph saved me years of my life that I might otherwise have wasted with him. It was so valuable, in fact, that I actually mailed the check to the polygraph examiner I'd hired, even though we didn't actually have the test and he refused to bill me. Best money I've ever spent.


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## Walloped (Feb 14, 2018)

I did. It was very helpful.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

WilliamM said:


> My wife would fail miserably.
> 
> *She would always fail because she panics when questioned.*
> 
> One thing about someone who lies a lot, like my wife, is you can't really be sure when they might be actually slipping in something true.



that is not how polygraphs work. they would spend a while asking her several different types of questions first, in order to establish a baseline. they would even ask her to tell intentionally lie as well. at most, if she is the kind of person who's mind races often, then her anxiety would cause the test to come through as inconclusive (unless she has a very inexperienced tester). 

they dont measure responses against a set grade book. they measure them against the baseline of the person being questioned. so, it doesnt really matter if the the person taking a polygraph is anxious or calm. they create their own grading criteria.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

personally, i would ask for a lie detector test more as a statement than to get the truth. and for its psychological value(parking lot confessions). DNA testing children when you are pretty sure they are yours is something i view along the same lines.

not much tells a spouse in clearer terms that they broke your trust than requiring they subject themselves to a lie detector test and DNA testing the kids. it is a statement that says "yes dear, i trust nothing that comes out of your mouth anymore because of what you did. it was THAT bad."


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## Walloped (Feb 14, 2018)

As'laDain said:


> it is a statement that says "yes dear, i trust nothing that comes out of your mouth anymore because of what you did. it was THAT bad."


True. But it is not a punitive measure. 

The goal is to be informed. Either that you finally have the truth and now know what you are actually dealing with or that your WS is still lying, which means they are putting their own needs and self-preservation aheadmof yours. 

A polygraph can induce the truth since the BS may think it’ll all come out anyway (my case). Or as someone mentioned there’s the parking lot confession, or they take it and pass. That doesn’t make them a remorseful spouse. Just that they finally told the truth (I’m not a big fan of the “they lied but learned how to trick the poly so they passed” school of thought).

Anyway, a poly is a tool. Nothing more. Some find it useful (I did) and others don’t. Like any other tool.


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## UpsideDownWorld11 (Feb 14, 2018)

I'd never request a Poly. If your marriage hinges on a machine, its already too far gone. Besides, what will happen? If they fail, they will just tell you poly's aren't reliable. And nothing has changed. If they pass, they will say told you so, but you already know Poly's can be beaten with the right techniques that anyone with access to Google can check out. So nothing changes, you still will be suspicious. The best you can hope for is a parking lot confession and thats about all they are good for, but the chances of getting a lying cheater to confess that way probably isn't that high. They can just take the test, hope they beat and deny deny deny if they fail. In the end you just have to trust your partner, and if you can't do that then its probably time to find a divorce lawyer.


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## WilliamM (Mar 14, 2017)

As'laDain said:


> that is not how polygraphs work. they would spend a while asking her several different types of questions first, in order to establish a baseline. they would even ask her to tell intentionally lie as well. at most, if she is the kind of person who's mind races often, then her anxiety would cause the test to come through as inconclusive (unless she has a very inexperienced tester).
> 
> they dont measure responses against a set grade book. they measure them against the baseline of the person being questioned. so, it doesnt really matter if the the person taking a polygraph is anxious or calm. they create their own grading criteria.


Mary always panics when she is being tested, and she pretty much always lies. I can't say she always lies, because she might slip in something true sometime.

But she is a pathological liar, and lying is her go to action. There have been times she has been able to explain a little of what goes on in her head when I ask a question. It is truly amazing to me. The probability something true would come out of her mouth is next to zero.

So if every answer she gave was a lie, how do they calibrate the test?


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## WilliamM (Mar 14, 2017)

She said to add, just for clarification, once she gets nervous she would be unable to answer the question "what is your name?" Her name would not be what comes out of her mouth when she tried to answer.

I had run into that sort of thing a few times during the first 5 years of our marriage, but just chalked it up to her being cheeky. She says men will let a cute little girl get away with just about anything, so nobody caught her until I tripped to it.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

UpsideDownWorld11 said:


> I'd never request a Poly. If your marriage hinges on a machine, its already too far gone. Besides, what will happen? If they fail, they will just tell you poly's aren't reliable. And nothing has changed. If they pass, they will say told you so, but you already know Poly's can be beaten with the right techniques that anyone with access to Google can check out. So nothing changes, you still will be suspicious. The best you can hope for is a parking lot confession and thats about all they are good for, but the chances of getting a lying cheater to confess that way probably isn't that high. They can just take the test, hope they beat and deny deny deny if they fail. In the end you just have to trust your partner, and if you can't do that then its probably time to find a divorce lawyer.


A lot of times they just take another one. 

I agree with you. What good is a marriage without trust, how can trust when you need a machine to verify that trust. Trust is earned or lost. My own peace of mind would be more important then the marriage itself.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

WilliamM said:


> She said to add, just for clarification, once she gets nervous she would be unable to answer the question "what is your name?" Her name would not be what comes out of her mouth when she tried to answer.
> 
> I had run into that sort of thing a few times during the first 5 years of our marriage, but just chalked it up to her being cheeky. She says men will let a cute little girl get away with just about anything, so nobody caught her until I tripped to it.


they probably wouldnt even finish a test on her. if they cant even establish a baseline, then anything they come up with would be inconclusive.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

Walloped said:


> True. But it is not a punitive measure.
> 
> The goal is to be informed. Either that you finally have the truth and now know what you are actually dealing with or that your WS is still lying, which means they are putting their own needs and self-preservation aheadmof yours.
> 
> ...


not sure what you mean by not a fan. 

it is not very difficult to defeat the polygraph. i will never trust one to tell me the truth, they really cant do that.


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## Machjo (Feb 2, 2018)

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