“Most of us avoid telling the truth because it’s uncomfortable. We’re afraid of the consequences – making others feel uncomfortable, hurting their feelings or risking their anger. And yet, when we don’t tell the truth, and others don’t tell us the truth, we can’t deal with matters in a basis in reality.” Jack Canfield
What if my beautiful, amazing husband loved me but wasn’t IN love with me anymore?
It would hurt like hell and I would want to know.
What if he never wanted to have sex with me again?
Well, that would be a punch to the gut and I would want to know.
What if he felt miserable in his life and blamed me?
That would make me sad and I would still want to know.
What if he wasn’t sure he wanted to be with me anymore?
That’s important for me to know because I truly don’t want to be with someone that doesn’t want to be with me.
What if my husband had one foot out the door?
That would hurt like hell and I would want to know. Frankly, I think I deserve to know.
So often, my clients don’t want to tell their partners the truth about how they’re feeling because they don’t want to hurt their feelings. This, to me, is a positive quality because it tells me they’re not out here actively trying to hurt people. It tells me they’re caring, empathetic people.
Sometimes, they don’t tell their partners the truth because they’re scared of having that conversation. This type of conversation will definitely bring up hurt and potentially even anger. You may also be faced with a great deal of discomfort that could follow, especially if you cannot find your way back to one another and divorce becomes the only viable option.
As adults, we’re all out here making hundreds of little decisions for ourselves every single day. But how can we make good decisions, specifically about how we show up inside our marriages – or choose not to – when we don’t have all the information?
The answer is we can’t.
Your partner won’t do anything any differently until they have a reason to do so – because change is hard. And your partner won’t be able to make solid, conscious choices for themselves when there are really big pieces of information that’s being withheld from them.
I don’t want to feel the emotional hurt and pain that comes from lost love anymore than anyone else does, but I also am not interested in living a lie.
Sometimes, our protection of their emotions, as well as our own fear, is what’s actually keeping us stuck in the same unhappy circumstances. We don’t move closer together, but we don’t end it either so that we can both live honestly and happily. We stay stuck in our comfortable discomfort and force both parties to live a lie.
I’m interested in helping five people learn how to have these difficult conversations with both compassion and honesty. If that’s you, here’s your next step.