The Top 10 lies happy husbands tell

5. 'I tried to call you.'
Why he tells it: self-defence

All men secretly think they're saints - or exceedingly nice guys, anyway. We can't understand how women could ever be disappointed with us, given the glorious single life we've willingly given up. So when you get angry because your husband didn't call, or he turned up late, the excuses kick in. You're complaining about a small, specific crime; his lie is his way of saying, 'But doesn't it matter that my intentions were pure?'

'Whenever I do something wrong, my wife totally overreacts and gets hostile,' says Jason, 34. So, essentially, lying is damage control. When we sense undue distress, we assume our petty crime can't account for it all. Rather, your complaint must be the tip of an iceberg of criticism, and a simple apology may be admitting to more than we bargained for. If we confess to forgetting to phone you when out with the boys, will you take it to mean we didn't think about you once all evening, or that we were glad to be away from you? Far safer simply to pretend that the phone went dead.