Handling the truth
We all tell lies. That is a sad but undeniable truth. The question is whether those lies damage the important relationships in your life and, if they do, how can you get better at handling the truth?
Relationships are challenging. Two people coming together to co-habit and share a lifetime, or even a few years, with each other can be difficult, if for no other reason than people are different. No two people are identical in their likes and dislikes, their strengths and weaknesses, or hopes and dreams. After the doe-eyed, weak-kneed, reality-defying honeymoon phase, a relationship must move into something more sustainable. Lasting relationships are not built on love, they are built on trust. For trust to exist, honesty must feed it. If you want to bring truth-telling into a relationship, though, you need to be ready for the consequences. So, in the interest of relationships everywhere, we’ll explore how you can navigate honesty in your relationship. Before we do that, however, it behoves us to think about why we might lie in the first place.
Why lie?
On the face of it, as the truism says, honesty is the best policy. If that is the case, though, why do we all lie? Yes, even you tell lies, and you probably do it quite often. One study conducted at the University of Massachusetts and published in the Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology found that during any given 10-minute conversation, 60 per cent of people will lie. Maybe those “60 per cent” are real bad seeds, but researchers at the University of Notre Dame found that the average person lies about 11 times per week. That’s more than once a day. It points to the fact that lying is simply part of being human and there are many reasons why this is the case.
For a start, lying is a strategy favoured by evolution. You can use a lie to save yourself embarrassment or boost your image. If you lie about being the one who spilled your mammoth milk and put out the fire, then you can maintain your status in your neolithic tribe. It is natural to want others to think well of you. A well-placed lie can help in that regard. Humans need to be liked and lying can make that easier.
Lying is okay
Sometimes, a lie is not entirely selfish. When your partner asks, “Does my butt look big in this”, they are really looking for affirmation and your lie of, “Noooo, it looks wonderful!” makes them feel supported and confident.
That is all fairly innocuous lying but, in her book, Lying, philosopher Sissela Bok makes the point, “Those who begin with white lies can come to resort to more frequent and serious ones … The aggregate harm from a large number of marginally harmful instances may, therefore, be highly undesirable in the end — for liars, those deceived, and honesty and trust more generally.”
Small lies can inure you to the effect of lying and may eventually lead to lying about bigger things. Like money spent on a credit card, gambling or infidelity. Lying has a spectrum and the endpoint of it is not pretty.
Nevertheless, we lie because, in the short term, it is often easier than being honest. Lying may lead to problems in the long term, but honesty is not without its own downsides.
Too true?
Before we go too far down the rabbit hole of creating honesty in your relationship, it is wise to consider whether telling the truth is a worthwhile goal? German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously said, “By a lie, a [human] annihilates [his/her] dignity as a [human].” However, Kant is also renowned for taking this attitude to an extreme degree. For instance, he posed the question of what you should do if a potential murderer asks you where your friend is. Kant’s answer is that you should tell the murderer the truth. Would you save your friend’s life by telling a lie?
Another philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, was described by his biographer Norman Malcolm as having a “ruthless integrity which did not spare him or anyone else”. There are countless instances of Wittgenstein behaving with a “cold brutality” in the name of being honest, and of hurting people in the process.
If people are hurt by your honesty, you could argue that is their problem. But as members of a society, surely, we must take some responsibility for how our actions and utterances impact others? A blind adherence to truth-telling might reflect an inability to deal with the nuanced demands of social relationships.
Nevertheless, while unvarnished and thoughtless truth-telling can have negative outcomes, there is a range of benefits that arise from artful truth-telling in your relationships.
Truth is truly liberating
Honesty is an essential part of allowing yourself to be vulnerable. It also helps undo any self-deception that you might be carrying around. In psychological terms, being truthful reduces “cognitive dissonance”, the mental disharmony that arises from contradictions between what you do and what you believe.
Being truthful allows you to address your reality. It allows you to take meaningful steps toward creating harmony within yourself and in your relationships to others. In fact, the “Science of Honesty” project at the University of Notre Dame found that truth-telling improves both mental and physical health. This study of adults aged between 18 and 71, found that lying was shown to increase levels of stress, sadness and depression. Repeated lying was found to also associate with increased physical complaints such as headaches and sore throats.
Habitual lying means that you desensitise yourself to the deception of others. Your conscience gradually becomes worn away. The Dalai Lama once said, “A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” Truth-telling by contrast is liberating and empowering. As Thomas Mann, early 20th-century German novelist and philosopher said, “A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.”
Truth-telling improves your health and helps your relationships to flourish, but that does not mean it is easy. Just like any skill, if you want to be able to tell the truth, you need to familiarise yourself with the components of the skill first.
Truth-telling tips
The key to valuable truth-telling is intention. If you tell the truth hoping to manipulating an outcome or hurt another, only negativity can follow. If, however, you tell the truth with the best interests of the recipient at heart, then even if difficult times follow, in the long run you will both benefit. That means the first step is to do the work on yourself so that you can be sure of your motivation. Having established self-awareness and knowing that your intention is to uplift rather than destroy, it is still necessary to have some guidelines in mind that will enable your truth-telling.
Simplify
Elaborate explanations will only obscure your point and allow for misunderstandings and misdirection. Speak your truth simply and in unvarnished terms. If you are confident in it, that should be easy, if you are not confident in it, then don’t speak it.
Stop and listen
When you are speaking your truth, don’t do it in a tirade. Make sure that you pause and give your partner time to digest what is being said and respond to it if they need to. When they do respond, listen to what they are saying. Avoid just trying to bring the conversation to whatever your talking points may be.
Mind your language
The language that you use to convey your truth can make a big difference to how it is received. “I’ve noticed” is a good way to lead into your topic. Mind you, this is not a licence to say whatever you want. “I’ve noticed that you are a complete twat” is not a helpful relationship-building comment. However, “I’ve noticed you have not been wanting to spend as much time with me” is a non-accusatory opener.
To indicate that you empathise with your partner and are not just seeing them as the enemy, use phrases like, “I imagine you must be feeling pretty upset about what is happening at work.” The phrase “I imagine” shows them that you are trying to put yourself in their shoes and keeps you both on the same side.
Express what you are feeling but don’t state it as an accusation or hard fact. “I feel” is an invitation for your partner to consider what you are experiencing. Lastly, if you are telling the truth, be sure to not just present a problem but also offer a solution. Using the phrase “I need”, as in, “I need to keep playing soccer to take my mind off work” or “I need for us to talk about this with a counsellor”, is a way of suggesting how you see the relationship moving forward.
Remember whose truth it is
It takes courage to tell the truth but always remind yourself that it is YOUR truth. As alarming as it is to consider, you might be wrong.
Collaborate
Both partners, at least partly, own any distress in a relationship. When you tell your truth, remember that whatever is happening is partly caused by you. Enter your truth-telling with a willingness to see what you are doing and hear how your partner perceives you. Owning your part in whatever is happening makes your relationship a collaboration rather than a competition.
Stay curious
If you go into a truth-telling session with hard and fast outcomes as your goal, then you are inviting disappointment into your life. If you are willing to dispense honesty, then you must also be willing to receive it. Be curious and stay interested in what your partner has to say in response. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it saved the relationship.
Remember that lying is a tool. It’s a survival strategy that we weaponise to avoid embarrassment. To boost self-esteem. To create an image and protect the feelings of others. It’s not always bad to lie but it is bad to always lie. Truth-telling must have a place in a healthy relationship. If employed with judgement, tact and grace, it will deepen intimacy and improve self-esteem for both the truth-teller and the truth-hearer.
