The More Honesty, The Better Your Relationships

Privacy is OK; secrecy isn’t.

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Why aren’t people totally honest with each other? Maybe they think it will cause strife in the relationship. This might be justified or unjustified. Sleeping with the neighbor. Looking at the neighbor. Pornography. Football. Elbows on the table. (That’s a bit old-fashioned. How about using phones at the table?)

It’s not always easy to decide whether the strife is justified or not. If it is, you’ve got value issues you need to explore together. If the strife is unjustified, it’s a question of acceptance, and that can go either way: they accept how you are, or you accept how they are.

But strife isn’t the only reason for not being honest. One is shame and embarrassment. There is something you are uncomfortable sharing. It might be connected to sex or money or power; whatever it is, talking about it feels like you risk being seen as less attractive, less capable, less in some way in the other person’s eyes.

Another reason for not being honest is wanting to maintain a sense of self. In accommodating the desires of others, we lose a fraction of ourselves; we lose the sense of autonomy. But if you are in a relationship of full acceptance, you can simply be yourself.

Both these cases are about not wanting to be seen, but in a fully-accepting relationship, that is not a problem. By sharing ourselves with the other person, several things happen. The other person feels more connected, and you can attain more insight into yourself because the act of speaking makes clear what was not yet fully grasped.

You need to regard honesty as more important than shame. Whatever you are embarrassed about has to be expressed at some point because being open is an essential part of relationships. At the same time, being honest is a risk, and needs trust, which builds over time.

All this assumes you have a totally accepting friend or partner. But if you don’t, what you can do is to be totally accepting yourself. After all, if that’s what you want the other person to be, you have to be the same.

So that’s how honesty ties into total acceptance. They are partners in harmony.

This attitude of full honesty and full acceptance may require a radical reframing of your beliefs, which needs to be based on a change in feelings, so in reading this piece, look at the feelings it brings up.

Photo credit: Maude Mayes
Photo note: Wood carving of couple

Originally published at https://philandmaude.com on May 26, 2024.