What's the Right Amount of Truth?

How much transparency do you and your partner want or need in order for security to exist in your relationship?

Image/Surrenderedandfree.org

Note: Today’s newsletter is inspired by a great conversation we had in our men’s group meeting this week. If you would benefit from listening to and sharing stories about your marriage or relational life in general with a bunch of people who totally get it, our group is a great place to do so.

Also, I haven’t met a guy in the group yet who didn’t sing the praises of all of our women members in our Friday mixed group (women and men) who share incredible marital and relationship insights. I’m actively trying to recruit more women for our Friday group.

Through the end of June 2025, I will comp the first month of group membership to any new women members who would like to check it out. We have a 90-minute men’s group every Monday at noon ET, and we have a two-hour mixed group every Friday at noon ET.

If you decide it’s for you, we’ll love having you moving forward. And if you don’t like it, there will be zero obligations or hard feelings moving forward.

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lie - an intentionally false statement.

withhold - suppress or hold back (an emotion or reaction); refuse to give (something that is due to or is desired by another).

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We talked about truth this week.

We discussed to what degree one must be honest in order to maintain trust in a marriage or long-term romantic partnership.

Total truth? Non-stop unfiltered thoughts and feelings? Every single thing ever thought, said, or done disclosed to the other?

What are our obligations as relationship partners?

I don’t think there are easy answers. I know only that intentional deception and betrayal are always, always, always going to have harsh consequences for relationships which are supposed to be built on trust.

But what about the more nuanced stuff?

If you’re in a relationship with someone who shows you a new outfit or new haircut, and they ask you “So, what do you think?” and your most honest thoughts and feelings are that they’re not flattering and you consider them less appealing or otherwise worse than some alternative, what should you say?

Are you a liar who can’t be trusted if you compliment an outfit or haircut that you don’t actually like very much?

If your partner of 10 years becomes a vegetarian and decides eating meat is morally wrong and they don’t want you to do it anymore, what are your obligations? What does being a “good” or trustworthy relationship partner look like moving forward?

I don’t think there are easy answers. But I think the EASIEST answer is: It all depends on you and your partner.

For trust to exist in a relationship, your spouse/partner must be able to count on you to know what will affect them negatively and severely, versus what will not.

And what affects me negatively might not affect you that same way, and vice versa.

For example, I know someone who is married with two kids. He and his wife are polyamorous and carry on a relationship with one additional person each. He essentially has two partners (a wife and a girlfriend), and so does his wife (a husband and a boyfriend).

Regardless of what you may think or feel about this arrangement, the point I’d like to highlight here is that they both report marital satisfaction, and both of them TRUST one another. There is a lot of transparency and effective communication in this non-traditional arrangement, and those conditions make it “safe” for both of them to be a part of it.

Yet in the vast majority of marriages, having an additional romantic partner would be perhaps the biggest and most painful betrayal and breach of trust imaginable. I suspect most of us would feel that way.

Identical behavior in one marriage can be considered fine, even welcomed, while that same behavior in another marriage could lead to painful fights and divorce.

Optimize for Trust in Your Relationship

I feel as if most of us are conditioned to optimize for love. To earn or gain someone’s love, and then expect that we’ll have that forever. We glamorize passion and romance in books, film, and television, and we tend to aspire to what appears to be idealistic in those stories with happy endings.

I don’t have any qualms with romance and passion. I’d even argue they’re necessary to some extent in relationships in which at least one partner craves them as a relational need or want.

But the magic word and idea in marriage (or long-term committed partnership) is TRUST. Trust is what creates the relationship condition that will determine whether you have many contented years together, or whether there will be a bunch of pain, dysfunction, and sad endings.

And how do you get it? How do you achieve and maintain trust and security in your relationships?

You look out for one another. We must learn what matters most to our partner (what their individual values are) and then behave every day in a manner that honors those values.

Relationship security and trust are everything. They are what determines the quality of your relationship.

And what your partner needs to achieve security and to trust you may differ from what another person might need from you, or what you might observe between two people in a different relationship.

My advice you didn’t ask for?

1. Don’t break promises. Ever.

2. Ask as many questions as are necessary to understand why your partner wants or needs something from you that you don’t necessarily want or need from them in return. Decide whether you’re willing and able to deliver their expressed need. Talk about it.

It’s okay for them to say they want you to do things a certain way and for you to refuse after discussing it. It’s okay! Just don’t promise them to do something and not do it. Very specifically say: This is one of those things I understand you want, but for reasons, I either won’t or can’t give that to you.

Then, the other person gets to decide whether they want to be in a relationship with someone unable or unwilling to meet an expressed want or need. That’s healthy. It might be inconvenient. But it’s honest and trustworthy.

I encourage you to think about the times you said something you didn’t really mean because you thought it was what they wanted to hear, and recall how that worked out for you.

They either found out you lied to them (trust was lost regardless of how well-meaning it may have been), or you have to spend every day pretending to be okay with things you’re not actually okay with because you spend each day withholding truth and dishonoring one of your values.

It’s no way to live.

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So, you went to the bachelor party. There was a lot of drinking. Most of the crowd said and did things they wouldn’t say or do in front of their spouse, their children, their employer, or their parents.

Maybe you got high. Maybe you guys hired a stripper. Maybe you were into it. Maybe you weren’t.

Regardless, how much information do you owe your relationship partner afterward?

I’m suggesting that it depends entirely on the specific emotional, mental, and spiritual makeup of the person you’ve committed to.

Some partners would be not okay with any of what went down at the party.

Others wouldn’t be fazed by any of it. Most people likely fall somewhere in between.

Some people are okay with strip clubs and bong rips.

Others? They might be put off by you having three beers and using profanity. We don’t get to decide what hurts other people as much as we’d all like to have our own values and intentions determine these emotional outcomes.

There’s a real danger in attempting to decide for someone else whether they’re allowed to have their values, and whether they’re allowed to ask you to honor them. I hope you’ll spend less time judging them, and more time attempting to understand them.

There are no one-size-fits-all answers when it comes to trust in relationships. Your partner may demand more or a higher standard of behavior or care from you than someone else. It’s on you to choose whether you’re going to provide it.

Most relationships end because one partner says to the other Of course I want to, and aspire to be that for you, and then never actually achieves it. Sometimes they can’t. Most of the time, they won’t.

And then trust and security slowly, but consistently fade with each passing month and year, until one or both of them opt out permanently. It’s a devastatingly common story with a whole bunch of heartbreak, and in many cases, wasted years.

So my challenge to you today is this: Have an intentional, even if it’s uncomfortable—be brave!—conversation with the person you love about how you want to define what it means to have trust in your relationship.

Come to a shared understanding around expectations, and around what would constitute broken promises or betrayal.

Decide whether you’re willing to meet their needs or not. Say what’s real.

You both deserve that.

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Matthew Fray is the author of “This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships”, a relationship coach, and formerly the blogger at Must Be This Tall To Ride.

P.S. - I know these things can seem really small to some of you in your busy lives and marriages/partnerships. But that’s exactly why developing mindfulness and communication habits around these domestic scenarios is so critical to maintaining peaceful, loving relationships. If you have trust erosion, and/or pain points and frustrations around things like this at home, consider working with me as your relationship coach to develop new skills and habits. This stuff matters. Book your next appointment here. - MF