Honesty

This is extremely timely for me, hahaha. The Universe works in uncanny but efficient ways! :'D Thanks.

 

This is eerily timely for me too! There must be something going on behind the scenes... xD

 

If I could clap on the internet to a post, I would do just that.

 

You should make one about communication. That communication is the key to a good relationship. Know what you want and communicate it with your SO and know what your SO wants. Make clear what you expect and what you can give and your SO makes clear what he/she can give and need.

 

I have struggled in the past between honesty and cruelty though. I mean, when there is undoubtedly some negative honesty that is worthwhile being expressed at other times... it might be unnecessary.

I don't know.

 

Examples? Lies or hiding are almost always felt by the person that the info is being withheld from as crueler than just telling the truth.

 

Yes I agree, within a relationship honesty is always best... I guess what I am referring to is more like the compulsive need to make hostile observations.

I remember as a child a friend asking if it was okay to break the stick I'd brought back from a trip to my grand-parents. I thought of it as my 'special lucky magic stick' the idea taken from a Garfield cartoon.

Thinking that he was thinking of breaking the stick out of spite to get pleasure from annoying me I shrugged and said that I wasn't bothered if he broke my stick.... and so he broke my stick.

I think I realised then that hiding your feelings works to your own detriment.

Maybe if I'd told him that I didn't want him to break my stick he would have broken my stick anyway... but having lied and pretended that I wouldn't be bothered, I couldn't

Okay here's an example of honesty vs. cruelty... somebody you know is doing something, let's say being in a band that is awful... is it right to a) tell them to their face that you think that what they're doing is a total load of shit? (And why?) b) to tell everybody and anybody else EXCEPT them what a total load of shit what they're doing is.

I guess I'm being insecure and envisaging situations where people's genuine, honest expressions eventually ultimately work to the detriment of those around them.

Those are the times I guess that I am referring to - and they don't really relate to close intimate/sexual/romantic relationships... and maybe when they have happened I have lacked confidence to stand up and defend people and/or to question why somebody seems to have such a problem with something.

Maybe but maybe they're simply being honest even though their honesty is detrimental to others.

I guess what I am trying to get at is rather summed up in the expression:

'Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour'.

If valour refers to honour and honour is expressing yourself in such a way as to cause upset to others.

Or maybe I am wrong and any and every time that anybody expresses anything negative about somebody else it is actually something about themselves which is the issue and it is best worked out through at least being initially expressed even if destructively to begin being remedied.

Was Hitler being honest for example when he proclaimed his deep deep disgust of certain groups of people?

Or was he lying?

I guess the danger in lies you can quickly come to realise is that - apart from evidence from other sources - you are the ONLY person who can discern the lies from the falsehoods.

I have been closely involved with a habitually deceitful individual and it is not a pleasant place to be.

Even this site warns about the dangers of unveiling anonymity - I'm sure that there are plenty of people here who might be routinely asked questions like: 'How are you?' or 'What've you been up to?' who wouldn't want to reveal the depths that they're probing in terms of depravity and addiction.

 

You are talking about two different things here. In america if someone asks how you are, that is not really a question to be answered, so okay is almost a greeting of sorts, like hello, or have a nice day. My friend discovered this when she moved overseas and would ask people how they were, and they would proceed to tell her for 20 minutes about their day. In general these people are strangers or at best acquaintances and I do not see that as lying. Lying comes into play with friends, family and most importantly with SOs. So if my best friend is playing in a band and he or she is horrible, like people are making fun of him behind his back and I going to tell him, absolutely. But if he does not ask, and nothing is being said about him behind is back, no why would I tell him? Lying about how you feel to a SO is a huge problem, and makes relationships very difficult. Often it stems from low self esteem, meaning you don’t see you have the right to those feelings or fear being judged or left if you are honest, or people that just don’t know how to even identify what they are feeling, usually men because they don’t have that out of reference. To me I rarely confront in my own relationships the quandary of situational lying. I guess i pretty much know the difference between little white lies and not. But I am also honest to a fault, and blunt. Some people do not appreciate that, others do. If you ask me how you look or if an outfit makes you look fat, you had better be prepared for a honest answer you do not like. When it comes to deeper emotional issues in relationships, you have to be honest, that is part of being vunerable, and without being vunerable you cannot fall in love, or even be open to it. That’ s why I am so perplexed when I read about addicts withholding things from their partners. Telling them some, and not all, or not telling them. When one partner does that, that relationship is doomed to fail. How do you live constantly wondering if the other person will find out who you really are and leave you? YOu cannot possibly have a happy relationship like that.