Chris

Posted Tuesday, December 27, 2022

1y

ENFP

Scorpio

6

7

Honesty and Communication

Everyone agrees that honesty and communication are super important to a healthy relationship. But if your only definition of honesty and communication is "Be yourself, say what's on your mind, and don't tell lies," you're still at rookie level. For more advanced levels, try these: Learn to understand that communication is just as much about receiving information as intended, as it is about sending it. "It's not what the word means, it's what the person means, that matters." Learn how to recognize when you feel a certain way now, but you might just change your mind tomorrow. Learn how to recognize when your partner might do the same. Learn to answer questions before your partner even realizes they want to ask them, and not to force them to come up with such questions themselves. Learn how to tell when your partner wants to express something, but doesn't know the right words, or otherwise doesn't understand how to convey it correctly. Learn how to understand when your partner honestly just doesn't know what to think, and isn't actually hiding anything from you. Learn how to read your partner's body language and social signals that they do not even realize they are sending. Learn how to understand when your partner is afraid to tell you something, or can't come up with a way to say it that you wouldn't take the wrong way, and that it's difficult for them. Learn how to recognize when your partner just outright said something on accident, and how to forgive them for it. Learn to understand that your partner has a slightly different definition for every single word in the language than anyone else in the world, and be willing to learn the ones that are important to them. Learn how to tell when your partner is doing something that makes them truly happy, or just going along with what makes you happy, and might not even understand the difference. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Honesty and communication is not a choice; it's a learned skill, and one that is unique to each individual couple. You can intend to be fully honest, but lack the skill to do so, and that still makes you untrustworthy. It's made more complex by the fact that most communication is nonverbal and involuntary, and that human beings don't always understand their own feelings, or how to put those feelings into words, or how those feelings might change from one moment to the next, or how to have the courage to say something difficult. Only with empathy, chemistry, experience, and a desire to make things work despite the difficulties, will you have a chance to succeed.