Practicing Honesty And Vulnerability In Marriage

One of the challenges of being honest in your relationship is seeing your partner in pain shortly after hearing the honesty that you provided them. I recently worked with a couple who came back from doing a homework assignment. The task was to actively engage in 5 honest-driven conversations on any topics of their choice. The couple shared during the session that things did not go well.

One of them said that when they were honest, they did not like that their partner became upset by their honesty. They shared that being honest was not fun nor something that they wanted to do again.

The example above is a common one that many couples experience. It’s when one person tries to be honest and finds that being honest leads to conflict versus connection.

If you relate to the above, I want to encourage you to continue to be honest and utilize the below tools:

1. It’s vital that you do not take on your partner’s emotional experience. For instance, if you are honest with your partner and they experience sadness. It is their responsibility to process and navigate the emotion versus you feeling that you are responsible to get them from feeling sad to a positive emotional state.
2. Ensure that you are not responding with please pleasing. For instance, if you try to appease your partner when they have a reaction you do not like. This can be seen as people-pleasing and can impact your ability, to be honest. Click here for more on learning to build a healthy relationship
3. During the process of being honest, keep an eye on your mood. At times if the mood is in a state of dysregulation, you may want to leave the conversation. This can be due to feeling flooded by too many emotions or the situation itself. During times like this, try your best to practice self-awareness as well avoiding the desire to leave the conversation. For more on building trust in your relationship, click here.