I took an "infidelity statement polygraph" today and failed.   

The examiner asked my wife to ask up to ten questions and I would have to create a statement based on each question. I told my wife prior to the test that I was uncomfortable taking the test in this way. And that I would prefer a specific test regarding infidelity. After talking with her, she gave me the guilt trip on taking it...so I did. 

I was asked during the test, which was in my home by the way. A question that really confused me, the examiner asked "Have you ever lied to get something" and I told the truth I said yes. Then he told me that I answered the question wrong. And asked me would people consider me a liar and I said no. He then instructed me to answer no the next time he asked this question. 

Then he asked me if I intended on lying about anything on my statement and I said no. Then he asked if I wanted to mislead him about my answers on the statement. 

I took a total of three tests, the 1st he said was unusable to to answering the questions the way I had. On that test I scored 0-+1
The second and third tests I took I was all confused about the questions he told me to change my answer on that I was all screwed up, I ended up -8 on both the second and third tests. I thought that I would do better on the 2nd and 3rd tests because I was more comfortable. But that was not the case at all. 

The worse thing about this test is that he can’t tell me or my wife which question I "LIED" about but just something in the statement made me uneasy. WOW, what the hell good is the test if it can’t tell you what you lied about or in my case that I didn’t lie at all! 

I tried to explain all this crap to my wife, but needless to say she wasn’t buying any of it! I asked to be retested, and will get that chance in a couple days. This time we are doing a different type of test, with fewer questions all on the same topic.  I hope that telling the truth is good enough here. 

I have a question hopefully someone can answer it. When I think off the questions (that I am not lying about) my heart drops immediately.  I am not lying about the answer but I cannot control my heart, is this creating the false positive? Is there anything I can do about that? I have so much riding on this I just cant help my natural reactions to the question! 

Please help!

Mikedog,

Polygraph "testing" has no scientific basis. It's thoroughly discredited junk science. Trying to figure out why you failed this invalid test is kind of like trying to figure out why a coin toss came out tails instead of heads. If your wife trusts the lie detector more than she trusts you, then perhaps you should be looking for a good divorce lawyer.