When communicating in any intimate relationship, it’s important to strive to be both honest and tactful. I say this as someone who struggled to be fully honest in relationships for most of my life. I was squarely in the “inauthentic” quadrant—I was always tactful, but I didn’t always communicate my internal state, because I figured “Well, it’s not going to change anything.”
My philosophy on honest communication now:
Most people claim that they’re concealing information for their partner’s benefit. Common justifications: he would be so hurt, it’s not like she can change it anyway, it’s not his fault. In general, it’s almost always the case that the real reason is self-serving: you don’t want to be honest because you’re scared it will change how the person acts towards you. Which leads us to:
It is my belief that it is wrong to conceal information that the other person might act on. Like, have you ever considered that if your girlfriend knew you just weren’t that in love with her, she’d want to break up with you? Or that your friend would stop being 45 minutes late to dinner every time if he knew it was so annoying you were considering ending the friendship? When you conceal important information about your internal state, you rob the other person of agency. You’re taking a paternalistic view, acting as the parent and deciding what information someone else can or can’t handle. Which only makes sense if you’re dealing with a literal child.
However, tact is important: if the information is not beneficial to them and it’s impossible for them to act on it in any way, total honest will probably fall into the “harsh” quadrant. I do not think you immediately need to disclose “I don’t enjoy the weight gain your SSRIs have caused” to your partner.
People who are like “I’m just being frank” have always annoyed me to no end because of this: they weaponize honesty without considering TACT. Again, honesty is not sharing every emotion that you feel and every thought that crosses your mind. Unless the other person enjoys it, that’s generally called emotional terrorism :)
Sharing your internal state skillfully takes practice. Delivery matters. If you go around blurting out everything that crosses your mind, you are going to horribly upset some people! Many people overcorrect for this by deciding to be polite and dishonest.
Honesty requires maturity and accountability. For most, the barrier is not skill but bravery.
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