Why, and How, to Build a More Transparent Relationship

Transparency is revealing your emotions, thoughts, and choices to your partner. Transparency can help both of you to become more human in your relationship. Feeling vulnerable, lost, and scared becomes a humanizing expression for each person.

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This is especially helpful in building trust. Typically, transparency demystifies your partner. This lets you see who you’re choosing, who you’re believing, and who you’re trusting. The more transparency becomes a relationship norm, the less guarded and defensive you become, and the less pretense you carry.

Preparing to Be More Transparent

Depending on how much transparency is currently in your relationship, moving toward more can be a minor adjustment or a significant one. Let’s assume it will be more than a minor modification. If so, here are some steps to support greater transparency.

• Become more self-transparent. Take regular inventory of your emotions and the stories you carry about yourself, your partner, and life in general.
• Inventory with compassion. The more you can hold your emotions and stories with compassion, the more comfort you’ll have self-disclosing.
• Practice. It may be helpful to become more transparent with a friend, mentor, or sibling. We choose to be transparent with someone because we want them to see us. Transparency comes more easily when it’s part of your lifestyle, not just a way to relate to your significant other.
• Let your partner know you intend to be more transparent. It’s always helpful to speak about an upcoming change in a relationship rather than simply implementing it. Let your partner know what you might need from them, such as acceptance, empathy, and curiosity.
• Ask your partner if they feel ready to experience more of you. If they’re not sure, invite them to tell you how they feel when you are more transparent.
• Ask your partner if they feel ready to be more transparent. If they feel ready, ask them what they need from you as they do so. If they’re not ready, decide if you want to go ahead anyway.

Receiving More Transparency

More transparency can bring a relationship more understanding and depth. Like any act of growth, old ways fall away as new ones take their place. Even if it’s a good thing, a new level of transparency may bring some tension. Here are some suggestions for when you hear your partner being more transparent.

• Remain grounded. Deep breathing, feeling the floor or chair beneath you, and noticing one or two internal sensations in your body. It might be tightness or pulsations of energy. The key is to not react.
• Listen reflectively with empathy. Simply say back what you hear. “Sounds like you feel a deep loss with Peter leaving the team.” Or, “I’m hearing you don’t yet feel comfortable in your new position.”
• Notice how you’re feeling when hearing your partner’s disclosure. You may feel glad, sad, angry, or scared. Give yourself permission to express your emotions after your partner has finished speaking.
• Avoid offering any criticism or disparaging remarks. Not everything you hear will feel wonderful. However, it can be an opportunity to work with diversity as you accept your partner’s uniqueness.

Transparency Calls for Discernment

Being transparent does not mean revealing everything transpiring in your emotional world or in your varied thoughts. It does mean being discerning about what’s in your best interest, your partner’s welfare, and the relationship’s. Here are some suggestions for guiding your discernment.

• Fantasies. I don’t recommend disclosing your sexual fantasies about others unless you're planning to act on one or such sharing is a norm in your relationship.
• Forgiveness. Avoid using transparency to seek your partner’s forgiveness, as it can easily disrupt your partner’s honest response. Work on forgiving yourself.
• Psychological or medical challenges facing your partner. If your partner is facing emotional stress or a medical situation, consider postponing your transparency.
• Truth and compassion. We don’t consider the option of too much compassion in a verbal exchange. However, how much truth you share always deserves discretion. One question to ask: Am I typically overprotective of my partner? If the answer is “Yes,” then your partner may be able to handle more truth than you give them credit for. If your partner is accustomed to a wide range of transparency, they may also be ready to hear a deeper truth.
• Roles reversed. If the roles were reversed and your partner was about to tell you what you’re getting ready to reveal, would you want to hear such a message? If the response is “No," then seriously consider withholding your disclosure.

A commitment to transparency is a wonderful way to get more authentic in a relationship. However, transparency without discernment can unleash suppressed resentment and anger.

The purpose of transparency is to disclose what you believe can serve each of you and your relationship. I encourage you to notice any urgency to be transparent, which may be driven by a hidden agenda. Take your time. Let the urgency subside and share your truth when you can engage in a more relaxed process.

Of course, talking about betrayal may be the hardest thing to be transparent about. It helps if the recipient is less self-righteous, not enamored with I would never do anything like that. And it also helps if both parties have released their relationship from the idyllic hold of “betrayal can’t happen here.”