When you are in the business of helping people develop, enrich, maintain, or end relationships, writings about relationships seem to just appear from the four corners of the earth. Somewhere in the many books and articles I have read, I’ve had the good fortune to stumble upon a quote that certainly is paramount to this business of developing and maintaining a healthy long-term relationship: “The hallmark of relationship is truth.” I wish I could credit the author of those words, as they speak volumes as to how important that concept is.
That being said, the authors John Townsend and Henry Cloud, using similar words, refer to honesty as “the bedrock of any relationship” and state that dishonesty puts the “relationship on a very shaky foundation.” I couldn’t agree more and I am certain that anyone who has been in a relationship would say the same. Once you learn that someone has lied to you, either by omission or commission, it compromises your ability to completely trust again. And without trust there isn’t the possibility to be truly intimate as intimacy is not possible in the presence of fear – the very thing that deceit creates.
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.