Honesty Is Can Be A Virtue

CORE PRACTICE #77: Be bold and speak the truth in love.

We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. —Ephesians 4:15

Lauren

“Really, James? Why don’t you listen? I’ve told you not to put my jeans in the dryer—now they’re too tight!”

“Maybe if you’d eat more salads and less junk food, Cathy, or make use of your gym membership, it wouldn’t matter if I forgot.”

Honest? Sure. Speaking your mind? Sounds like James and Cathy are definitely speaking their minds—without a filter.

Honesty is certainly a trait to value. In fact, it’s a major component of the foundation of a fulfilling marriage, one that’s based on trust and openness, not deception and secrets. A major building block, to be sure.

Plus, a healthy marriage is not one in which the partners feel they must suppress their feelings and opinions. Tony and I have tried to create an environment of transparency and honesty by expressing our needs, feelings, thoughts, and hurts to each other.

But we cannot treat the command for honesty and intimacy as a license to say anything we want. Before blurting out what first comes to our minds, I think we need to ask ourselves: Would I use that tone with a friend? If we think, Of course not, why, then, would we use it with our spouse?

When we speak to a close friend, it’s no less important that we speak with transparency and boldness, but I daresay that you—like me—would find a way to cautiously lead into a difficult conversation and couch your remarks in a way intended to cause minimal offense. So why would we take a shortcut when it comes to communicating with our spouse?

In her book The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, Shaunti Feldhahn writes that happily married couples don’t communicate using brutal honesty. In the chapter “Don’t Tell It Like It Is,” Shaunti notes that, instead, happily married couples focus on being kindly honest, sprinkling gentleness into the conversation, and never becoming disrespectful.^a

That’s an important point. Being bold and honest does not mean being cruel, heartless, or insensitive. It doesn’t mean removing the filter that keeps us from saying something hurtful or destructive.

One key to dealing constructively with conflict is to avoid letting it build. That’s yet another reason to make a point to talk daily about what’s on your hearts and minds. If you communicate regularly, you will catch issues early. When you don’t suppress feelings for a long time, you avoid the danger that they might unexpectedly erupt—which usually doesn’t end well. Working through differences calmly, with a commitment not to tease or otherwise belittle each other, makes a huge difference in resolving conflict well.

And that’s always better than airing your dirty laundry, as James and Cathy did!

Adventure Application: Think about your communication pattern. Is it healthy? Are you able to be honest with each other without being destructive? Stay honest, but commit to remove sarcasm, disrespect, and other forms of “brutal honesty” from your conversations with your spouse.