Almost everyone wants their partner's feelings to be sincere. No one likes lies in a relationship or, in other words, can hardly stand it. Honesty of partners in a relationship is the basis for its existence and continuation.
An adult and established person is already a formed world of values and motives, worldviews and life experience. How can you "correct" him? The requirement "be honest" alone will clearly not suffice.
Unconditional honesty in relationships is like an ordinary or an eternally unattainable horizon line. And it is much more important to admit (including to yourself) imperfection than to look for leprosy in others.
There are absolutely no “honest” people always and in everything; the social communicative “field of activity” is always full of nuances, says psychologist Andrei Kashkarov .
Therefore, there are questions of moralizing in the manner of "There is nothing worse than when a person lies. If someone starts lying, know that he is lost" and there is the practice of solving problems in personal relationships between two unique, completely different (including in terms of honesty) people.
Double standards
"A little lie breeds great mistrust" - almost everyone knows this from the age of five. We understand that honesty in relationships is impossible without mutual trust. And it is desirable to distinguish between "honesty", sincerity and "openness".
In general, we “know everything and everyone”, the problem usually lies in the details. For example, what is meant by honesty and what by frankness, and what by “openness” and trust.
Therefore, one will subjectively say "I am honest", and the other - "no, he is not honest with me"; and both will be right in their own way. Changing secondary features and cosmetically embellishing the face - is this honest? Or let's say this way, she tells you to "jump into the fire".
Should you jump into the fire, even if you don't want to? Or will you bring her the result without jumping into the fire, but by lying that you "jumped"? Therefore, we can talk about nuances endlessly, there are a lot of them.
Let's analyze honesty on the part of a man. Jaroslav Hašek has an interesting saying: "In a village near Pelhřimov there was a teacher named Marek. This teacher ran after the daughter of the forester Špera.
The forester told him to tell him that if he were to meet with his daughter, then he, the forester, if he found them, would shoot him in the ass with a shotgun and salt. And the teacher told him to tell the forester that it was all a lie.
But one day, when he was waiting for his young lady, the forester caught him and was about to perform this very operation on him, but the teacher made an excuse: he, they say, only collects flowers. Another time, the teacher told the forester that he catches beetles.
And so he lied, the more he lied, the more. Finally, out of fear, he swore that he only wanted to set snares for hares. Then our forester grabbed him and delivered him to the gendarmes, and from there the case went to court, and the teacher almost went to prison.
And if he had told the naked truth, he would have received nothing but a portion of bristles and salt; I am of the opinion that it is better to confess, and if you have already done something, to come and say: they say, I dare to report, I have done such and such.
And if we talk about honesty, then it is, of course, a wonderful thing, with it a person will go far. Well, it's like in a walking race: as soon as you start cheating and running, you immediately drop out of the race. Take my cousin, for example.
An honest man is respected everywhere, is pleased with himself and feels like a newborn when, going to bed, he can say: “Today I was honest again.”
Honesty is boring
Hence the following is important. Honesty in personal relationships is definitely important and necessary. But even more important is the result of interaction in a couple.
If you solve problems and surprise your partner to the extent (this nuance is important) that he can close his eyes to your conditional dishonesty, because he gets the desired result, then is it worth raising a conversation about crystal honesty at all?
Moreover, as Baron Fyodor Petrovich von Klugenau, a real person who was considered an example of honesty, purity and loyalty until his death in 1918 (V.S. Pikul, "Bayazet"), stated (among other opinions), "honesty is boring."
Think about why women typically fall in love with guys who are conventionally hooligan, conventionally dishonest. There is something to think about in different aspects. But, of course, this does not mean that honesty is not important to specific people and should be neglected.
Honesty as a convenient myth
By resorting to lies (sometimes for salvation), a person wants to keep a partner. Goals are a separate conversation. A typical case is that something in a personal relationship is convenient, and something is not; that is why a person, in principle oriented towards pleasures (not only material ones), “gets” according to the possibilities of new impressions there and those that for various reasons he does not get “at home”.
Here are some examples on the topic. If you don't have "desire", but you say "my head hurts" - is it honest?
If you are going to have fun and tell your partner that you are going "on business" - is such honesty good? This means that you need to agree on the meanings, on what kind of honesty your partner requires from you, what he can tolerate in a relationship and what he cannot.
Some people need variety, others try to achieve their goals by morally dubious methods, assuming that all means are good to achieve the goal. The classic of Hungarian and world criminology, the "whiskey robber" (Attila Ambros) kept the money with his lover.
She tried to provoke him to open up by asking, "Where did you get all that money?" He replied, "I sell bear skins." In essence, this was an easily verifiable lie, but the woman preferred not to know the real meaning of what was said and to believe the myth.
Hence the next conclusion: The honesty of a partner is determined by what you want to hear.
Peculiarities of Perception of Another's Honesty
A person is typically more critical of the external manifestations, influence and mistakes of others than of his own.
This is why psychologists constantly remind people that they need to correct themselves first and foremost, and if there are problems with this (typically), then correcting another person based on the imperfect approach of “and if he values me, then let him change and prove it” is essentially pointless.
This is possible only for a short time or – an option – introducing the partner into dependence (financial, emotional, motivational). And dependence can be different, carried out in different ways and with different goals.
The requirement for honesty is connected with subjective perception and the desire for control. As a rule, a person who is sensitive to someone else's "dishonesty" and wants to expose it, himself "knows the subject" and is inclined to deceit. This is partly the decoding of the psychological rule "under one look for another".
However, the problem is not so much in the scrupulous attitude towards honesty from others, but in the desire to control the other. "I can", he can't. And this always stinks. Because the partner is also "not deaf" and "not blind", and sometimes has analytical thinking, intuition.
Therefore, honesty in personal relationships in a couple is always refracted under the light of motive and purpose (of the relationship). For some, it is impossible to tolerate a partner's "cheating", but one can tolerate "lies" about cosmetics or mood.
For some, “moral betrayal” is more terrible than physical betrayal, as in the story of the personal relationship between Admiral A. V. Kolchak and A. V. Timireva, whose husband regularly caught her in a relationship with the then commander of the destroyer division in the Baltic (Kolchak), and the woman answered: “I’m not cheating on you, if that’s what you mean…”, and they continued to “live” and “tolerate” each other.
And for some, the truth (and not a lie) that they came home late because they missed the train is a reason for a scandal.
One of the proven ways to improve relationships is to explain, clarify and... forgive the other.
Human relationships in a couple are based on many conventions and "allowances for trust." People sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes without intention. Hence the third and fourth conclusions.
Honesty in relationships aimed at long-term prolongation, at family values, should be mutual. You can't go to Finland to see your husband and lie that you're doing it to smuggle contraband. And also in connection with what was said.
The characteristic type of a person matters. For example, a writer is a person inclined to fiction. To judge him for conditional dishonesty is stupid and hopeless; he will not change in accordance with the basic creation of something new, if the creative principle is inherent in a person.
The frequency of the manifestation of the conditional lie is also important; is it random or systematic, what are its goals. This is what is important to clearly and accurately not suspect, but to understand: it is necessary to ask yourself the question "why" he/she does this.
These may also be the “bear skins” from the example above, but if the partner’s actions are aimed at maintaining and improving the relationship in the couple, then who might be harmed by it?
To catch another in dishonesty, you have to be perfect (in this matter) yourself. To live with a person, you have to at least love him.
Then the question of honesty and reasons for clarifying the relationship is not critical. Moreover, in the case of mutual and honest feelings, the other has no other choice, no motive to behave dishonestly.
And the problems in the emotional and mental spheres of people have been the same since time immemorial: we are all different in character, reactions and desire to look for dishonesty in others, believing that our dishonesty will not be noticed.
Expert: Andrey Kashkarov
