My wife recently suspected me of cheating on her. Knowing full well that I did not, I agreed to take a polygraph. Prior to this all I knew about polygraphs I learned from TV shows. Like most Americans, I thought they were infallible.

The operator  (a former cop) brings me in and starts what I took to be idle chit-chat. Turns out that was the pre-interview where he was trying to assess my demeanor and reaction to his questions which turned uncomfortable quickly. He asked questions that were just perplexing. Turns out that my wife had sent him an email explaining all of her suspicions and made me look like I was a philanderer.

Then he strapped me up and proceeded to question me. His control questions were "Since the age of X, have you ever hurt anyone who trusted you?" I confidently answered "No." as I have never intentionally, physically hurt anyone which I thought he meant. Turns out that was the "wrong" answer. His other control question was "Between the ages of X and Y, did you ever hurt anyone who trusted you." Again, I answered no, thinking he meant physically. Because, he thougth I was lying, when he compared my reactions to the relevent questions, which were significant, and my non-reactions to the control questions, I answered confidently, he assumed I was lying.

He told me to leave the room, and my wife went in. He told my wife that I lied on all the questions. He told her I was 90% lying. He then told her "out of a possible 5000, he got a 900." He even went so far  to tell my wife that I was a "sexual deviant". WTF?

So now my wife thinks I am an adulterer and a pervert, and I cannot convince her of the truth. All because of a stupid machine.

In addition to sharing my story, I also have a question. What did he mean by saying "out of 5000, I got a 900"? Are any polygraphs scored on that scale? Also, I thought polygraphs either said, you were truthful or deceptive, not by degrees of deception. Lastly, was this guy out of line by telling my wife I was a sexual deviant?

Thanks, guys. I hope my marriage can survive this. It doesn't look good.

See also the personal statement of Gary Smith, who had an experience similar to yours:

https://antipolygraph.org/statements/statement-028.pdf

Black Hawk wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2013 at 3:17pm:

You could show her the Showtime program PENN & TELLER: THE LIE DETECTOR IS BULLSHIT!  You can find it on the MEDIA page of my website www.polygraph.com -

A lawsuit is silly in this situation and very impractical, as you knowingly signed up to have the tester evaluate you.  There is no guarantee of an accurate result, only his assessment of the results from the test.  I think your frustration is sorely misdirected.

First, you should blame yourself for even agreeing to be polygraphed.  Because instead of visiting someone who has a polygraph, you should have instead called a marriage councilor.  Your wife must have some reason or suspicions to accuse you of cheating and instead of directly confronting and discovering those reasons, you agree to have yourself vindicated instead.  For her to even ask for such a request is absurd and is an alarm for any rationally thinking person.  Now, because you've failed your attempt to dismiss her concerns outright, you've placed yourself in a worse situation.

Don't blame the person who gave you inaccurate results from pseudoscience, blame yourself for allowing yourself to be put in such a situation in the first place.  Your marriage was in serious trouble before these results, you need to focus your efforts on that instead.