When Is Lying To Your Spouse Okay?

by Chris Bodenner

Conor's post on dating deceitfulness reminds me of this classic bit from Chris Rock. Money quote:

You can't get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act, sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you're not meeting them. You're meeting their representative. [...] Women the biggest liars. Masters of the lie, the visual lie. Look at you. You got on heels; you ain't that tall. You got on makeup; your face don't look like that. You got a weave; your hair ain't that long.

He then segues into how men in relationships "live a lie" for hiding their porn. It's a topic Dan Savage often addresses in his podcast. He once wrote:

If you must marry her--if you love her and stuff--then you'll have to do what millions of other men in your shoes do: Tell the wife what she wants to hear, hide the porn, and pray you don't get caught.

He basically sees it as a necessary, even considerate, white lie; if one spouse hates pornography, then the other has an obligation to keep him or her from stumbling upon it. And the anti-porn spouse should not go looking for it either, Savage says.

Honesty of course is paramount in any relationship, but I suppose that approach is reasonable in the case of an irreconcilable couple, as long as the offended spouse does not actually consider porn cheating (a question tackled by Ross in a great Atlantic piece last year). Any readers have a particularly thoughtful take on Savage's "see no evil" approach? Is it ever okay to lie to your spouse?