15+ Innocent Lies That Had a Huge Impact

Sometimes a lie is not an act of betrayal, but of love, protection, or even survival. There are times when the truth can do more harm than tweaking the facts a bit. Here are stories of people who hid the truth, altered reality, or changed the facts, but with the best of intentions. Some of these lies prevented heartbreak, others saved lives, and a few had unexpected consequences.

• More than 10 years ago, a friend called me and said, “Help me! I met a girl at university, and it was love at first sight. But she’s very sophisticated, and I want to surprise her. Write a poem for her as if I’d written it, please”. I was kinder and gentler then and thought, “What’s wrong with that?” So I wrote it.
  The girl was really interested in my friend. In the next three years, I wrote poems for their first date, for her birthdays, for the day he proposed to her, for their wedding day, for the day of their first anniversary, and so on. After that, somehow, I had no time for poetry. I was caught up by family life, everyday life, whatever...
  And on their tenth anniversary, that girl, who is now his wife, gave him a beautifully designed album with these poems sewn together in a binding with his name on the cover. At that moment, I was very happy for him. They have a wonderful family, and my friend is a wonderful husband and father.
  And when he tried to apologize to me for the book, saying it was a hoax, I simply replied, “Look at all you’ve been through and created together since that first poem! And it’s unlikely that she loved you just for the poems, because you haven’t written any more for a long time, but she still looks at you with the same loving gaze.” But this secret remains between us. © Anastomus / ADME

• My husband has heart problems, so my children and I don’t tell him everything. For example, the story of how my son barely escaped a shark attack on a trip and miraculously came out with only scratches is a secret. Or how my daughter almost married a con man. Or how a “taxi driver” two years ago tried to take me into the woods, but I literally jumped out of the car while he was driving.
  I can’t imagine how scared my husband would be with all these stories. But for the sake of his health, he still thinks we are a normal family with a bit of a boring life. Ward 6 / VK
• I told my best friend I won a vacation in a raffle and wanted her to come with me free of charge. We stayed in a nice hostel, did lots of fun activities, and I paid for it all with a “pre-paid credit card from the raffle.”
  I didn’t win anything, I booked it all myself and paid everything for her because she deserved a break, and I knew she couldn’t afford it, nor would she have accepted me paying for her. I would do it again because she deserves the absolute world. © 247mumbles / Reddit
• My son told me about his wife coming to him in tears, because I had once accidentally called her number while talking to my husband about her. She stayed on the line to hear what I “really” thought of her, expecting the worst because that’s been her experience of family.
  Apparently, she was quite touched by the things I said, and my son told me it gave her a confidence boost that lasted weeks. So I do it more often now. Neither of them has any idea I do it on purpose, though. They just think I’m getting old and worse at managing my tech. © Kindly-Article-9357 / Reddit

• My father had very serious eye problems, which threatened to make him completely blind. He refused to have the operation because it was “expensive”, “what if they do it wrong”, and other excuses. The operation was indeed expensive.
  I told him that in a private clinic, they now give free advice and give super discounts to pensioners (in fact, I spent a month looking for a good clinic and a good doctor). And my father agreed to be examined. After the appointment, I quickly signed him up for surgery. He was stunned, of course, but he agreed.
  Yes, I paid a considerable sum for everything (examination, consultation, and surgery). And my father still thinks that the examination was free and the operation cost us very little. But he’s got his sight back, and that’s the most important thing.
• When I was pregnant with my first child, I was admitted to the hospital. During the ultrasound, the doctor said out loud the baby’s diagnosis. I asked what it meant, and the answer I got was, “Your job is to lie down and shut up!”
  I didn’t have internet on my phone at the time. I called my husband in tears, telling him the “diagnosis” so he could look it up on the computer and see what it was. My husband called me later and said, “It’s not nice, but it’s nothing serious.”
  I gave birth. Three months after the baby was born, my husband insisted on an unscheduled ultrasound. I was surprised, but agreed to go. The doctor looked at him, said everything was fine, and asked me, “Why did you come here in the first place?” My husband said, “That’s the diagnosis they gave us.”
  And then we saw the doctor’s eyes opening wide, “They must have been confused. With a diagnosis like that, children don’t live.” And my husband replied: “I know that...”
  It turns out that the diagnosis we’d been given was that a newborn baby could live for a maximum of eight hours. My husband didn’t want to tell me. For the two months before the birth, he lived through hell.
  When I called him and told him I had given birth, he watched the clock for eight hours straight.... In order not to go crazy, he played a computer game. He says he never went through so many levels in that game again. © 4econi83 / Pikabu

• I fell in love with a guy, and he kept going back and forth between me and his ex-girlfriend, so I lied to him that I was pregnant. He married me, and I got pregnant almost immediately. No one noticed the “set-up”.
  So 25 years have passed, and today my husband says to me, “I’m so sorry I made you nervous then, choosing between you and my ex! What a smart, beautiful daughter we have! And you and I have such a good life (which is true). I dreamt today that I married the other girl: what a nightmare that was!” I guess sometimes lies come in handy.
• My mother’s parents (my grandparents) have been divorced for many years and don’t communicate much. Unfortunately, my grandmother is seriously ill and there is little hope for her recovery.
  But I feel even more sorry for my mother, who is suffering a lot because of this. It also bothers her that my grandfather doesn’t care much about my grandmother. I wanted to reassure her, so I told her that on New Year’s Eve, my grandfather said to me, “It’s a pity grandma won’t be celebrating with us,” although he didn’t say anything of the sort.
  My mother burst into tears and told me she was very happy. I just wanted to cheer her up, and I succeeded. © ShevaxDDD / Pikabu
• I am a teacher, and I am off for the summer. I get to spend all that time with my 4-year-old daughter and my son, who is not quite one yet. My wife works full-time.
  My son is just starting to talk, and my wife and I have a friendly competition going to try to get him to say “Dada” or “Mama” first. What she doesn’t know is that while she is at work, I spend the day talking about her and saying the word “Mama” a lot. We have been working on it together for weeks.
  The other day, she walked in the door after getting home from a long day, and he looked at her and said “Mama” clear as day. She was so happy and rubbed it in my face (playfully) that he said “Mama” first. Even did a little happy dance. I’ll never tell her. © AUSpartan37 / Reddit

• “YI love your macaroni and cheese dish! I totally get why you’re so proud of it!” My wife’s culinary fail, which she has the audacity to call macaroni, is basically a dry congealed mass of bland horror.
  Imagine a champagne cake that looks great from twenty feet. As you get closer, you realize it doesn’t smell like cake...I have been pretending to enjoy this culinary horror for the last twelve years.
  I would have squared with her years ago, but my poor Bunny is so proud of her miserable cooking skills, and I just don’t have the heart to let her know that everyone hates it. Even my Labrador sniffs at it and reluctantly chokes it down. So, even Penny doesn’t have the heart to break the news to her. © The_Best_Yak_Ever / Reddit
• I got a small raise a few months back, which equated to something like an extra $70 a paycheck. I didn’t tell my wife about it because I put it towards paying off the debt we have. If I had told her, it would have been allocated to her lazy brother. © blazinazn007 / Reddit
• “Sure, we can get your dream puppy!” The only reason I said yes was due to the fact that it’s really hard to get that specific breed of dog here, and he had been on a waiting list for three years. We had a 3-month-old at the time, I was still recovering from a bad C-section, and my partner was about to not be home for six months.
  I’ve owned dogs over the years, but haven’t had a puppy ever as an adult, so that took a lot of getting used to. Don’t get me wrong, the dog is great and all of the work I put in was worth it, but the first four months he was with us were rough.
  I had to do all of the training, take him to all of his vet visits, walk him an hour daily minimum, socialize him a lot, clean up all of the messes while taking care of an infant solo, keeping house, and trying to hold down a remote job. It was a lot, to say the least. © TheDollyMomma / Reddit

• I remember when my little brother wanted to take dance classes. He was 8 and I was 16. My parents were totally against it. My father said dancing was for girls, but not for real men.
  And I felt sorry for my brother, so one day I pulled out my savings and signed us both up for dance. I had to lie to my parents: we told them we were going to take painting lessons together.
  15 years have passed since that day. My brother now works as a choreographer abroad, teaches children, performs, and earns good money. Every week, he sends me something, but he only sends letters to my parents. He says that I was the only one who believed in him, and that it was only thanks to me that he became what he dreamed of. © Caramel / VK
• Once I was talking to a colleague at work, and he mentioned that he had a rare blood type: AB (IV) Rh-. This was memorable for me because I have the same.
  A year later, there was an accident at work, and this colleague was seriously injured, so they called an ambulance. Everybody wanted to go with him, but the ambulance wouldn’t let anybody in. I don’t know why it occurred to me, but I lied that I was his wife and went to the hospital with him. They took my colleague to the operating room, and they hit a major artery while I waited in the corridor for the operation to finish.
  Literally 10 minutes later, the surgeon ran out into the corridor and shouted to the nurse that he urgently needed AB (IV) Rh-blood, that they were losing him. The nurse shrugged and said, “I think we’ve used everything we had on the other patient”. Of course, I told them I had his same blood type, so they drew my blood and were able to save him.
  This situation brought us closer, we became friends, then we started dating, and now we are married. And every year, on August 16, he tells me, “Thank you for lying then, as if you were my wife. If something happens, now you won’t have to lie.” © Mamdarinka / VK
• I have a big family: my husband and I have five children. We have a good income and a spacious house. My husband has more than 20 relatives, and we celebrate all holidays in our house. I am expected to cook a variety of dishes, but nobody ever tries to help me.
  I once became so tired of cooking for so many people that I ordered food in a restaurant. Everyone said the food was soulless and tasteless, although they ate it all. Well, at the next celebration, I ordered food again, but I strictly forbade my husband and children from saying that I had not prepared it.
  I lied to my guests with a clear conscience, saying that I had been cooking all day. And then they all praised me, saying that homemade food is completely different, much tastier than the last time, which I had ordered from the same restaurant. After that, I realized that some people don’t like the taste of “home cooking”; they like the taste of suffering. Now I always order in. © Mamdarinka / VK

• My husband has large feet, large enough that there are only a few places I can buy him shoes. All this to say that his shoes are expensive. He also grew up poor. He stopped being able to find his shoe size in stores before he was in high school.
  And before he met me, he always only had one pair of shoes at a time, and sneakers were his everyday/work/dress shoes. And because getting each pair was so difficult and costly, he’d often wear his shoes until they had holes in the soles before replacing them.
  When he was studying to be a mechanic, I got him a pair of steel-toed boots for his birthday. I splurged and got a good brand that would last for years. He recognized the brand and knew what they sold for, and he demanded I return them.
  So I lied and said I had bought them months before during a sale. I had paid full price. I’ve bought him “sale shoes” several times since then. One time, he even cried because I had gotten him a second pair of sneakers well before his old ones needed to be replaced. © keelhaulrose / Reddit
• My father is convinced that lilies were my late mother’s favorite flower, because their wedding venue was filled to the brim with them, and she was supposed to be the one who picked the flowers. He got her lilies for every birthday, anniversary, and whenever she was in the hospital. When she passed away, the funeral was full of lilies, and he still sometimes puts a vase of lilies beside her urn.
  The thing is, my mother once confessed to me that lilies weren’t her favorite flower. She was fine with them, but she preferred morning glories and sunflowers. My domineering grandmother told her those weren’t classy enough for a wedding and hounded her about it until my mom gave in and let her pick lilies. My dad got her lilies every day of their honeymoon, and by the end of the week, she’d gone from annoyed to deeply touched.
  He didn’t know the backstory; he just wanted to make her happy, and in doing so, he kind of stripped the negative association away from them. She told me she liked that he gave her lilies more than flowers themselves. They turned from a symbol of being ignored to a sign that somebody was thinking of her happiness. © yeweebeasties / Reddit
• My in-laws dreamed of naming our baby, so I lied that I was expecting a boy. My mother started whining, “Name him after my father. Honor your grandfather.” My mother-in-law insisted, “If it were a girl, you could do as you wish. But the boy will continue our family tradition, so we will choose the name”.
  They began arguing, so my husband and I stayed out of it. And then I gave birth to a girl, and everyone was so shocked that they didn’t even interfere. We quickly named her what we wanted, and it was too late to argue. Another good thing that came out of it is that we don’t have a mountain of pink clothes, because the grandparents bought gifts for a boy. So that’s just as well.

Growing up, our parents were our ultimate guides, teaching us about the world—even if they had to get a little creative with the truth. Here are 12 of the funniest, strangest, and most surprising “lies” parents told to our readers that they wholeheartedly believed in childhood.