(continued from last week…)

Be Honest

Tip number seven is be honest. There is honest and there is brutally honest.

I once counseled a woman who didn’t have any long term good friends. She had not been able to hold a relationship together, and the reason was because she justified beating people up with her words by “I’m just being honest. If they can’t take it, that’s their problem!” But it’s the way she did it, and that unkindness came back to bite her more than once.

That means if someone is having a tough day and they put on something that is not your favorite thing you don’t say “Oh my gosh, you look ugly today!” You need to be “directful” without being heavy handed.

When your partner knows that you’re telling them the truth, you tell them the good things as well as the bad things. You don’t hide things. They trust you on a deeper level because they know you’re honest with them. They know you care but they also know that you are willing to step up and tell them what you really are seeing, experiencing, feeling and thinking. They don’t have to guess if you’re being honest with them. They know you are.

Now just like all relationships, do we tell everything we think? Probably not. It would be trouble. It’s like the movie, “Liar, Liar” with Jim Carey. He was blatantly out front with everything he thought every moment. Children do that; adults do not. We may edit our thoughts but we are still truthful and honest in the relationship.

If you’re wondering something about your mate, ask them. Ask about everything you want to know about. If there are topics that the two of you can’t talk about, it may undermine the trust you have for each other. Does that mean you need to ask them about every aspect of their past? Certainly not. There are probably things that would be helpful, would be good for you to know about, yet do you have to know everything about everything they’ve done? No, that’s not really helpful. That’s just being nosey.

I read a survey of couples who’d been married for at least 40 years. One of the primary elements that they said helped keep them together for so many years was they could trust the other person. They knew the other person was not going to harm them. They knew that the other person considered them. They would tell them the truth. They had trust.

Trust is developed by being safe and by having a history with one another over time. You feel safe when you’re able to be honest with someone. They feel safe when they can see you being honest with them.

Communication and relationship skills are learned and they take practice. On the other hand, being honest is something everyone can do in spite of age or experience. Often you may hear people say that though they are confused or though they’re upset and they had unhealthy emotions or upsetting emotions, they may take pride in or feel good about the fact that they are truthful and they interact in a positive way with their parents, with their friends, with their mates, with those people that are most important to them.

They take time to do those things that are really of benefit to them. This is essential to your relationship. You need to have that trust. You need to make that work. It’s got to be part of your relationship. If not, your relationship will have holes.

(to be continued…)

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The Psychology Of Nonverbals
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