I’ve been noticing a pattern among people I know. It occurs most commonly between couples who’ve been together for a long time. But it also happens to longtime friends. Sisters. Brothers. Anyone who claims to be close.
People lie.
Okay, two qualifiers. One, I do understand that people lie all the time and that whomever says otherwise is lying. Two, when I say lie, I mean more that they don’t tell the truth. Somewhere along the line in a relationship, we learn what the other person wants to hear and spend a large amount of energy providing those answers instead of the truth.
We make up many excuses not to say what we really mean. We don’t want to hurt her feelings. We don’t want to annoy him. We don’t want to frustrate her. The list goes on and on. In our minds, we are doing a service to the other person. We are preventing an argument. We are preventing a possible altercation. We are sacrificing a future or even an imminent problem by evading the truth. We are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of the other person and they don’t even get to find out. Aren’t we such angels?
The fact is: we are not. The whole time while we’re sacrificing ourselves on behalf of the other person, on behalf of the relationship, we’re secretly building up resentment. We’re angry at the other person for not letting us be ourselves. For not letting us tell them how we really feel. We may not even notice it at the time because it’s only a tiny trickle of it. It’s as small as a seed. But it grows. Each time we say something we don’t want to, each time we agree when we don’t mean it, each time we don’t say what we mean, the seed grows.
Eventually, it gets so big that we don’t even give much thought to the truth. We automatically say the answer. We convince ourselves that the other person wouldn’t respond to the actual truth. Wouldn’t even want to hear it. So we never share it. We don’t even give the other person the benefit of the doubt. We just resent them. For who they are. For who they were years ago. For the choices we made.
I don’t know why it took me so long to notice this pattern but it’s all around me. I see it everywhere. All the time. Each time I’ve faced the other person and asked them why they won’t just say it? Why not face their loved one and tell him to truth? In the name of getting rid of years of resentment. Years of not giving the other person a chance to know the full truth. Every time I asked, I consistently got an enthusiastic no. I couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t listen. He doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t care. It would start a fight.
How do we grow to give so little benefit of the doubt to the people we love the most?
That is so true. Sometimes people bite their proverbial (or literal) tongue just to keep things polite on the surface, when, to be a really good friend you’d really tell people how you feel. I guess it’s not what you say, though, but how you say it. There’s a fine art to that (blunt and honest are definitely two different things). Very interesting observation, K!
i guess i always felt that finding the truth out from my friend would hurt a lot less than learning it from some stranger. And I totally agree that the “way” it is presented is often just as important as the information delivered, especially if it could be considered “bad news.” 🙂
There is a quote that jumps at me at this time:
If I can not come to you
In complete honesty
Maybe I’d best
Just not come at all”.
Most people tell others what they “want to hear”….It is usually difficult for people to digest the truth, so it is not always for people to be able to be complete honest with themselves and/or to others. I have best friends that know the “true” side of mine and I am able to tell them upfront without editing. However, to other friends, it depends on the factor(s) of the situation….absolute truth, not-quite-truth, white lie, absolute lie…etc. It is not always easy to find someone that you can be completely honest with.