What does honesty have to do with healthy relationships and overall human wellness? Well, if you are looking forward to being the best version of yourself, then honesty must be the foundation.
One reason to show honesty in a relationship has to be the fact that an honest relationship is likely to go farther than one which is not. You know, most times, honesty issues are some of the issues that make engagements turbulent and extremely rocky, something you would not wish for. Being honest with your partner is the bridge to change, authenticity, and compassion in your relationship. Nothing lasts long when you try being what you are not.
This article brings along several reasons why truth and honesty in relationships are important for you and your partner.
Honesty Is the Foundation to Trust
Let us start with the first reason you should be honest with your partner. Brutal honesty in relationships helps to build trust. Being honest with your partner puts you on a learning curve, and you get to know how to trust them, and they will certainly return the favor. More importantly, you will be working towards ridding your engagement of unnecessary fears such as worrying about what is being kept secret or hidden from you. Do you get the idea?
Naturally, being honest with your partner makes them at ease to open up to you without fear, simply because they are aware that you care enough to tell them the truth. Being honest doesn’t necessarily feel good at times, but this way, your partner will have no choice but to appreciate it because you are being vulnerable.
Yes, honest people are most vulnerable as they take risks by trusting you with their truth. Such people understand that whatever they say could affect the relationship positively and negatively. But they care about the relationship and you more than anything else, and that’s why they strive to build the engagement on love and honesty.
When you are honest with your partner, you open the door for growth, which leads us into the second reason to be honest in a relationship.
Honesty in Problem Solving
We cannot underappreciated the importance of honesty in relationships, especially in solving problems whenever they strike. You know, it takes to form a relationship, and there are times when you will have disagreements and conflicts. Anyone who has been in a relationship, whether rocky or successful, know that this is true of any relationship.
When you are in an engagement where you and your partner have allowed yourselves to be honest, it gives the relationship extra power to deal with troubles that come up now and then. This way, it becomes easier to work through the trouble, communicate, and be done with it within no time at all. But if one of you has a different perspective, you will, without doubt, find that fixing even the smallest of issues could prove to be extremely difficult. Although different people hold divergent views on life issues, being honest with your partner helps you to understand them better. You get to know their personality and how they think.
It’s worthwhile noting that relationships are not events but a process involving two people growing together. And we have said that truth and honesty in relationships open the door for growth.
This takes us to the third reason to be honest with your partner.
Honesty Makes You a Better Human Being
By showing honesty in a relationship, you grow your heart and mind. This is how that happens.
Being honest pushes you to hold your partner accountable or their behavior, which encourages and challenges you to be a better human. What this means is that there’s no better way to grow your character than honesty with your partner. You become that person that thinks about the choices they make in a relationship, and how those choices can impact on the engagement. You also start learning to take extra care when making choices, knowing too well that a choice could help or hurt your significant other.
Honesty Builds Understanding
Relationships don’t fail because they are bound to fail. They fail simply because partners fail to understand each other. For example, it may be natural for a partner to feel underappreciated or not valued in a relationship when they see that the other partner has withdrawn completely. They fail to understand that this could be a sign of stress. That is what is known as a lack of understanding, and you can see how much worse its effects can be.
Fortunately, being honest with your partner gives both players some sense of understanding. You get to understand your past, present, and future much better. When you are honest, you don’t necessarily reap understanding at that particular moment, but it is a great place to land when everyone is being truthful. It is during this time that you get to fully understand who you are, life situations, and what needs to be done to grow your life together.
Honesty Opens the Door for Freedom
Being honest with your partner feels exhilarating because it is extremely freeing. You unconsciously become authentic to an extent that you are free to say what you feel and think. It feels great!
Nothing feels better than being in a relationship where you are allowed to be free and honest. Honesty grows freedom so that you don’t have to put excess effort for you to be appreciated or accepted for who you are. Honesty lets you be yourself, having not to worry about working hard to get any information, as everything is shared and talked about.
Honesty opens up lines of communication because both you and your partner feel free to talk about anything. You don’t have to fear about secrets being hidden from you. When you become honest, there are high chances that your partner is going to return the favor and be honest with you as well. This way, you don’t have to secretly wonder whether your significant other is frustrated or annoyed because you know that they care about you enough, to be honest with how they feel about you. That is how partners break free of the limitations of fear.
Being Honest with Your Partner Eliminates Garbage
Emotional garbage, or gunny-sacking, is created when a partner withholds information and hides their true feelings. It requires a lot of self-defeating energy to overcome such garbage. You should make sure to be honest from the onset of any relationship as this averts a possible buildup of emotional garbage. By doing so, you clean out any existing gunny sack as well.
It Fosters a Connection Between You Two
Another reason to be honest with your partner is that it creates a safe connection between both of you, which effectively brings you closer. It creates a secure context for both of you to be genuine in how you interact. Such a powerful relationship invites and encourages both partners to easily work through their issues.
Honesty is The Best Teacher
This is yet another great importance of being honest in relationships. It teaches us many things such as how to better interact with our partners, and how to choose our words carefully.
Think about it, when that small kid you know says an honest thing innocently and it comes out as an insult. They are not being mean as most of them aren’t. They are just saying their truth without caring how their choice of words may impact the other.
What this implies is that the more you practice truth and honesty in relationships, the more you become honest and knowledgeable in choosing words modestly. In real terms, it is always through honest life experiences that we learn how to pick honest words that help us and our partners to grow.
Honesty Builds Genuine Love
Presently, we are living in a cruel world, where some people (you are at liberty to think of one) are deriving pleasure from someone else’s suffering. Luckily, being brutal honesty in relationships and with your partner will make you naturally love others best, as seeing them damaged or hurt is the last thing you would want for them.
Being Honest with your partner shows that you care about them. Additionally, it shows that you respect yourself and others. Such a caring attitude will make your partner stop and think about your always, and this is what you want, right? Well, gentle honesty is not only appealing but also healthy for the human heart.
Honesty shows that you have a genuine love for your partner and the people around you. Healthy families know the truth about this.
Being Honesty with Your Partner: It’s Essential
Although there can often be difficulties and pain associated with being honest with your partner, you should always strive to be mature enough to alleviate the impact if there’s any. The reasons appearing above will go a long way to help you adopt honesty in a relationship, as it has the power to build, grow, and empower relationships big time.
You cannot afford to undervalue the importance of honesty in relationships. Ask wholesome and healthy families to confirm that for you. Good luck!
