Relationships
Committing to Honesty in Your Relationship
Is you relationship filled with tiny secrets and little lies?
Posted September 28, 2020
I was a massive liar as a kid. Once, in kindergarten, I stood up at "Show and Tell" and announced, falsely, that my family had gotten a dog. Over the next several months, I regaled the class each week with new stories (meaning, lies) about my dog. The turning point was the day I shared that the dog had given birth to a litter of puppies. Immediately, my classmates started begging to come to my house to meet the puppies.
Now what was I going to do? My nerves exploded as I realized I was going to be found out.
As an adult, you probably never make up stories or tell bald-faced lies. (If I had made up the above story 15 years later, my loved ones would've feared I'd lost my mind.) But if you count lies told in service of avoiding difficult conversations, or—as is even more common—withholding facts to avoid these conversations, you'd have to admit:
- We're pretty frequent liars.
- We try to manage the feelings and actions of others through lies and omissions.
Shock Absorbers
In a vehicle, the shock absorber decreases jolts and vibrations to make the ride smoother for everyone in the car. In relationships, the shock absorber accepts, ignores, or minimizes the thoughtless or unkind behavior of others to lessen the impact and avoid conflict.
This is often effective in the short-term. When your partner stops speaking to you for days at a time, you wait it out. When you realize your partner has avoided sex for over a month, you say nothing. When your partner announces they're going to take a job for half as much money and twice as much travel, you bite your tongue and swallow your protest. You silently calculate how you can make up the difference.
Certainly, in every partnership, there are times when it's best just to let something go. But keep in mind, it's impossible to both be the shock absorber and commit to radical transparency. If you’re operating as the shock absorber, you're communicating the following:
- Your thoughts and feelings don't matter, and you don't expect anyone to take them into account.
- You're willing to accept any level of bad behavior to avoid conflict.
- You don't believe you could have a connected, dynamic, honest relationship, so you're keeping your expectations low.
Of course, this is not what you're trying to communicate at all. The real issue might be that you don't know how to have productive conflict.
You likely tell yourself that you're lying or withholding to avoid causing others pain or worry. In truth, it's typically our own painful feelings we try to avoid. Paradoxically, lies told to make things easier have the opposite effect. Half-truths and omissions create a wedge in relationships that block intimacy. The sense that something isn't being said erodes trust.
Lies also create enormous anxiety for the liar. Initially, it's a relief not to say precisely how much you now owe on the credit card. Or not to mention your spouse's habit of disappearing when your family comes to visit. But over time, all lies, big and small, create distance, anxiety, and resentment—the very opposite of the relationships you set out to create.
Certain truths, such as "I'm having an affair," are going to have a more significant impact than others, such as "I resent doing all the cooking when we both work full time." If the truth will throw your relationship into a tailspin, serious work is required. It might be useful to bring in a therapist to help you sort this out.
The instinct to lie is rooted in self-preservation. This is understandable but misguided. In all of our relationships, speaking up is the only way we get our needs addressed. Staying silent, and not allowing others to know what you're experiencing, whittles away at your sense of self. Your needs matter too.
Ready to try something different?
Here's a conversation framework that can help surface the truth: I notice, I imagine, I feel, I need.
I notice: This is where you state objectively what you've observed. Make sure not to sneak in a judgment. For example, instead of saying, "I notice you're you being a jerk," you can say, "I've noticed that all week you've been quiet and distant."
I imagine: Here you take ownership of the story you are telling yourself about what is happening. Sometimes the story in your head is real. Sometimes it's false. Either way, it's crucial to get these stories out into the open where you can address them. For example, you can say, "I imagine you're worried about the layoffs at work and aren't aware of how hostile you seem towards me."
I feel: Say what you feel. In this case, you can say, "I feel like you're taking your anger about work out on me, and that feels unfair." Remember that feeling numb, confused, or hopeless is often a cover for anger, sadness, and fear.
I need: What do you need to feel like this conflict is moving forward productively? Sometimes you only need to have the conversation; other times, you might need to get an expert involved or to make a significant life change. For example, you can say, "I need you to talk to me. If you need quiet or time alone, that's fine, but I need to you say that instead of just shutting me out."
Then it's your partner's turn. The counter-experience to the examples above might be something like this: "I notice that even though we both know I could be laid off, we haven't changed our spending at all. I imagine you feel like you don't need to worry about money, because you think that's my job. I feel like any suggestion that you get a job or we downsize our lifestyle is off-limits. I need to know that we will both do whatever it takes to get on track and ride this out. This can't be all on me. I'm drowning."
Speak up even if you don’t think it will change anything.
People are resistant to bringing up problems that seem intractable. What's the point? But in a relationship, you have someone who is on your team, someone you are building a life with. Talking, even if it doesn't solve the problem right away, allows you and your partner to understand each other, empathize, and create a plan about the direction you want to head in together. Speaking up, especially when it's hard to do so, will either vastly improve your relationship or bring all the cracks up to the surface where you can deal with them.
If a difficult conversation is looming—for instance, one partner keeps spending too much money, or things are dicey because one person wants another baby—take a few minutes to write down what you want to say using the above framework. This will allow you to be clear and focused. Set aside time to talk. Say something to set the stage. The old standby, "We need to talk," works great. Or you can be more specific, "I want to sit down and address our money problems." Give your partner a chance to orient themselves before you launch into, "I notice…"
This framework doesn't mean that difficult conversations will always go smoothly. It's a way of getting important information out in the open. In the example above, both partners felt like they were the shock absorber, which was eye-opening for both of them. What would it be like to address issues this way with your partner, or parent, or child?
Back in kindergarten, I hoped I solved my problem when I told my class, tearfully, that a speeding UPS truck killed Sadie and the puppies, all at once. My tears were real because I was a wreck at the idea of being found out. I was caught anyway when my kindergarten teacher offered condolences to my stunned parents at parent-teacher conferences. I heard the story of "the boy who cried wolf" many times that year.
If you commit to radical transparency for just a week, you'll be surprised at how many times you need to suppress the urge to stay silent or to tell a small lie. Initially, it'll probably be stressful to train yourself not to be the shock absorber in your relationships. But the benefits of speaking up are so worth it: deepened intimacy, improved self-esteem, and the freedom that comes from telling the truth.
