Honestly!

Honesty is a tricky subject for me. For the most part I try and remain honest, especially with those people most important to me. Yet, sometime honesty can hurt. Other times, when I've done something I know I shouldn't, honesty exposes me. I'm uncomfortable with the judgment. In cases like those, I've lied.

I remember years ago, I was deeply in love with a woman. We were in our early 20's and at the start of our careers. She was very bright, and full of life. I knew that she would do great things with her life, and go as far as she wanted.

Just shy of a year into our relationship, she excitedly told me that she was going on her very first business trip. I could see the anticipation in her eyes. This was a big deal to her. Yet, something bothered me about it. She was going to New York for a week. New York just happens to be where her college boyfriend lived. They broke up when they graduated from the university, but I knew she still loved him. She lost her virginity to him, and had dated him for four years. She still spoke about him fairly regularly. Don't get me wrong, she did love me and told me so. Still, she had a special place in her heart for him.

I said, "I'm excited for you, I know you're looking forward to it. Please, tell me you're not going to see [him]." She hesitated, then said, "I can't promise you that. I will probably meet up with him for lunch or something. I will promise you, that I won't sleep with him." I trusted her, and believed what she said. She had always been honest with me. She told me things that I didn't always want to hear. So, I trusted her with my heart implicitly.

Several days after she returned from New York, she asked me out to dinner. While there, she said she had something she needed to tell me. "While in New York, I went to dinner with him and ..." I interrupted, "you slept with him?" She looked down at her plate, and said, "yes. I never planned on it, and feel just awful. But I needed to tell you." I still feel the tightness in the pit of my stomach just thinking about that discussion. I was very jealous. She offered the most intimate part of our relationship to someone else. I was clearly upset, but really couldn't say anything to her. "I need to think about this. I'm really hurt." I tried to enjoy the rest of the meal with her, making some small talk, but it wasn't working. Finally, I excused myself and left. She tried to stop me, and again said, "I'm very sorry."

I didn't call her for several days, and it was weighing heavily on my mind. I realized there were two sides to this whole debacle. On the one hand, she broke a trust. She, not only cheated on me, but she broke a promise she made to me before she left. Yet, she came clean... without me even asking. I know it was as hard for her to tell me, as it was to hear. But she had the cahones to do it. So, I was hurt and angry. At the same time, had greater respect for her honesty, and felt a higher degree of faith in her word. Both bad and good. I had to decide if I would continue in this relationship.

Finally, my love for her and increased respect and faith won out. I invited her over for a picnic and told her of my thoughts. I told her I loved her, and asked her honest feelings about me. She told me she loved me, and really wanted to continue dating me... exclusively. She told me she'd never cheated before, and hates herself for doing it. I shared with her how hurt I was, but how I now have increased respect and faith in her. "I'd like to keep seeing you, but I need to add the caveat that if anything like this happens again, I probably won't stick around."

We dated for several years after that, and she never cheated. Of course, with my caveat, she knew that telling me was tantamount to breaking up with me. So if she did cheat again, she may not have told me. But, y'know what? She did continue sharing with me even the hardest of things. So I believe, deep down, that she never cheated on me again.

I decided, at that point, that I'd never cheat on anyone. If I'm tempted, if I'm looking elsewhere for something, I'd explore that desire. What am I looking for? What am I missing? Is it within me, or is it symptomatic of the relationship? I know that trust is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship, so I also made a commitment to myself to be as honest as humanly possible with my family, friends, girl friend or wife. I knew at that moment, how much those really hard discussions mean for the long term relationship. Of course, there is always a limit. If my girlfriend told me, being honest, that out of anger she killed my cat. Well, I don't know if the honesty would outweigh the problem.

Motivation is strange too. My son has learned that he gets a timeout, or looses a privilege... not if he's done something wrong, but if daddy finds out he's done something wrong. If he breaks something of mine, hides it or throws it out, and doesn't mention it. Then bingo, no repercussions. He's funny, though, usually he does come up to me and says, "I'm sorry. Daddy, I'm really sorry." "For what?" "Well I broke [whatever]." Usually it's something like a roll of paper towels, or a cardboard box that he keeps his toys in. So it's easy for me to reassure him that it's okay, or even fix it with him. I do have trouble, though, how to respond when he admits something bad that he's done. Do I punish him for the bad thing, or reward him for the honesty? When possible, I try to do both. I first thank him profusely, and hug him for being honest. I tell him how good that is, how important it is, and how proud I am of him for doing it. Then I tell him that it doesn't excuse what he's done. I give him some sort of reasonable punishment, if necessary. I won't go into my view of punishments here, but should write a post about that.

My ex and I didn't have a very trusting relationship. I can't remember a time when she had one of those hard discussions with me. Where she admitted something to me that she'd done. Something I'd be hurt by, or something that would upset me. I even knew that she'd lied to me many times about small things. Every time I heard a lie from her, it chipped away at the trust. Finally, I didn't trust her as far as I could toss my car. When my old girlfriend told me she hasn't cheated on me, I knew in my heart that if she had, she'd have come clean with me, so I trusted her. My most recent ex, however, her word to me was worthless.

Part of that was clearly within her. Still I have to accept responsibility for my part of that. Certainly she shared things with me that were hard for her to do... especially early in the relationship. How did I react to those things? Look, she's not a child like my 3 year old. Still, she's human. Did I acknowledge her honesty, and share how important it was with her? Or did I jump straight to being upset by what had happened? There's a self-fulfilling prophesy involved too. At the moment I started believing I couldn't trust her word, I'm sure that subconsciously I started treating her with a lack of respect. If I treat her like I can't trust her, aren't I planting that seed?

At the same time, I became untrustworthy myself. I once went through her computer, trying to figure out what she was doing. One day, when she left to go somewhere, I grabbed her diary and started reading. Sure, I can lay this on my mistrust of her. I didn't believe what she told me, so I wanted to find out the real truth. Still, that was never my place. Did those actions help her trust me more or less? I lied to her about things. I'd gone to playboy.com, and played the voyeur. She knew I went there, and asked me about it. I denied it flatly. How did that affect her trust in me? Just like my mistrust in her was a direct result of her lies and cover-ups to me, I was guilty of the same. Mistrust breeds mistrust. So we got caught in a very ugly circle. I lost faith in her word, she trusted me less, around and around we went, spiraling down to complete and utter mistrust.

After we broke up, we began dating a bit. There was still a lot of love there. I spoke with her about the trust issue. I asked if she was interested in other men, looking around. She told me no, not at all. I asked if she had considered it, and she denied it flatly. I couldn't believe it. Not for a second. We had broken up, we hadn't spoke in over a month. Surely she'd thought about other men. She may have flirted, exchanged phone numbers or e-mail addys. Who knows, she might have even gone on a date... or worse. Then again, maybe she hadn't. Maybe she hadn't even thought about it. Whatever the case, I didn't trust her word. I believed, deep down, that regardless if she had or not, she'd tell me she hadn't. So her words were worthless to me. Frustrating even. I had thought about it. I'd been looking around, flirting as much as possible. I hadn't gotten any phone numbers, dated or anything. But that was because I wasn't ready... Had nothing to do with any lingering commitment I had with her.

I thought to myself. I'd feel more comfortable if she had shared with me her thoughts about other men. And if I'm to avoid hypocrisy, then I better share my own thoughts with her. I told her that I had considered dating other women, that I'd flirted... that I believed it was completely reasonable under the circumstances. I even shared with her how incredulous I was that she hadn't even considered it. She was hurt... and became angry with me. The message I got was that she didn't want to hear about it. The hidden message I got was that she'd do unto others.... and wouldn't share such things with me. That reinforced my belief that I couldn't trust her words.

Look, there's two parts to this. There's the bad thing that happened, and the honesty about it. Regardless of how bad, and painful that bad thing might be, coming clean about it can only increase the respect and trust, ultimately strengthening the relationship. The bad thing, however might; just might outweigh that. She view it differently, as do many people. I can't know, but it may even be the majority of people who don't even consider the trust and honesty, but jump straight to judging the bad thing.

What I've learned from all this, and what I'd like to do with my life is:

• Try not to do anything that I wouldn't want to tell the world.
• Regardless, I need to come clean, apologize, even if they don't suspect, to build the trust and respect.
• I need to acknowledge when others have showed me the respect of being honest.
• Balance is also key, it's okay to judge the behavior, as long as I weight it against the honesty.
• It's completely reasonable for me to expect this from others.  If I don't get it, they're not worth my time.
• Thinking before I act, being ethical and honest, and acceptance for my actions may be hard in the short-term, but is good in the long run.

WhyCali?