I like to think of myself as a pretty honest person. I'll admit that if someone asks me straight out "How do you like my new haircut?" or "Did you see the artwork I did?" or something along those lines, and I don't like said haircut or artwork or <insert thing here>, I will usually find a way to compliment without telling a lie. That might be a bit misleading, but I think in those cases the person is looking more for reassurance/support than blunt honesty on something that is an opinion, anyway.
If placed in a situation where my back is against the wall and I must either fess up or lie to get out of a jam or protect myself, then I fess up. I'd like to say that it's because of noble reasons, but the truth is that I have a huge guilty conscience if I try to get away with something that is wrong. Even as a child, I would tell on myself to my parents because I just could not live with the guilt I was carrying around otherwise. That pretty much persisted on through my teen years, too - my parents were so so lucky.
Honesty takes more forms than just telling the truth vs. telling lies, though. That's probably where my weak points come in. I am not good at confrontation at all and avoid conflict as much as possible. I think that's because of two reasons. One, my family was not very open about discussing feelings and problems. I always felt like I could talk with my mom about things, but there wasn't a lot of closeness between me and my siblings when we were young, and my parents didn't seem to do a lot of healthy talking when they had problems. Two, I heard a lot of arguing between my parents over time, so I didn't get a good example of how to deal with conflict in a healthy way.
My husband has actually really helped me to grow in learning to deal with frustrations and anger. We have a great relationship and always have, but early on when I was upset with him, I wouldn't bring it up and, if asked what was wrong, would give the old standby "Nothing."
He wasn't satisfied with that answer if he knew that something was going on, so he would draw me out and get me to talk about what was bothering me, and we'd work through it. That didn't always mean I would "win," but I was able to learn that I could trust him with how I was feeling, and that saying I was angry or hurt and why I was angry or hurt didn't mean that we would then start yelling at each other or have a wedge driven between us. I'm thankful that he has shown me so much about communicating during difficulties. And thankful that difficulties between us come along rarely!
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