Being Open and Honest in Relationships
“In personal relationships (and in all relationships, really) it’s about loss. It’s about being afraid of what one might lose or fail to gain. Yet the best personal relationships, and certainly the best romantic ones, are relationships in which everyone knows everything; in which visibility is not only the watchword, but the only word; in which there simply are no secrets. In these relationships nothing is withheld, nothing is shaded or colored or hidden or disguised. Nothing is left out or unspoken. There is no guesswork, there is no game playing; no one is “doing a dance,” “running a number,” or “shining you on.”
This isn’t about having no mental privacy, no safe space in which to move through your personal process. That’s not what I’m talking about here.
This is about simply being open and honest in your dealing with another. This is about simply telling the truth when you speak, and about withholding no truth when you know it should be spoken. This is about never again lying, or shading, or verbally or mentally manipulating, or twisting your truth into the hundred and one other contortions which typify the largest number of human communications.
This is about coming clean, telling it like it is, giving it to them straight. This is about ensuring that all individuals have all the data and know everything they need to know on a subject. This is about fairness and openness and, well… visibility.
Yet this does not mean that every single thought, every private fear, every darkest memory, every fleeting judgment, opinion, or reaction must be placed on the table for discussion and examination. That is not visibility, that is insanity, and it will make you crazy.
We are talking here about simple, direct, straightforward, open, honest, complete communication. Yet even at that, it is a striking concept, and a little-used one.”
- Conversations with God, Book 2
