Romantic Reflections is dedicated to thoughts and musings of Living your life in a romantic fairytale
In The Lies of Love
“When is the right time to tell a little white lie … NEVER”
Little white lies, half truths, misrepresentations, slight dishonesty … in every relationship there are times when it is easier to stretch the truth a little bit for the sake of not immediately hurting your partners feelings or for a quicker resolution to a difficult issue.
It is very important to recognize when it’s the right time to tell a little fabrication of the truth so that life can seamlessly breeze by carefree and easily. Knowing the right time to tell a little fib to your partner to prevent a misunderstanding from becoming an issue is imperative to ensuring your relationship remains healthy.
The challenge sometimes, is knowing when that right moment is to tell a harmless little lie. We would like to tell you that there is a simple manual algorithm that you can follow, or a new App for your phone that will give you guidance, but there simply isn’t that easy a solution that absolves us from the decision making process.
You are going to have to weigh the possible positive and negative consequences to your life if you tell your lie, and figure out instantaneously what the future ramifications of your little white lie could cause.
In the end, there is a sure fire way to avoid a lie turning into a complicated and ever growing snowball of deceit that threatens to create everlasting damage to your relationship and to your life. The one way to avoid the stressful burden of deceit is simply not to lie. Ever. Not even a little white lie. Ever.
The House That Trust Built
The first moment that you tell a little lie to your partner, it is probably done so with the best of intentions. You are trying to affect conflict resolution by massaging the truth so that you can avoid a conversation or misunderstanding that you feel is counterproductive to your healthy and happy relationship. Unfortunately however, what you have done by lying has been postponing a conversation that the two of you need to share in order to have a stronger relationship moving forward.
By being untruthful, even a little bit, you run the risk of having to tell another little fib at a future date to cover up the lie you just told. Before long, you will have to tell another lie to cover up that lie that covered up the original lie, and before you know it you are going to be caught in an entire web of lies.
The stress of keeping your lies straight and organized in your mind creates undue stress and gives you a feeling of guilt each time you are with your partner, preventing you from opening up your heart and soul completely to them, and always protecting a little secret.
Often times the original lie that you told was not even of any consequence, but was just said to quickly avoid a situation that gave a little wrinkle to the relationship with your partner that you cherish so much.
Relationships, true healthy and happy relationships must be built on trust, as you are not able to spend 24 hours each and every day with your partner. You must trust that your partners behaviour when you are not beside them will not be harmful to themselves, to you, or to the rest of society. That is a lot to ask, but it is of paramount importance that your other half of “Us”, conducts themselves in a manner that will never adversely affect your happy life, and your loving life together. You must build trust in your relationship by always being open and honest with each other, never giving your partner a reason to question your honour and virtue.
The best way to ensure this complete trust is to always tell the truth to each other even when situations arise that might make it seem easier to lie, and work through any little struggles that life throws your way with open communication, complete honesty, and love. That is how trust is built.
Financial Fibbing
How many of you when you hear the word “finance” would like to bury your head in the pillow, or turn and run away? Most of you probably do not enjoy talking about money because there always seems to be a little bit less than you wish filled your pockets. There is always something a little bit more expensive that we would like, or another little goodie that we have a hard time not having in our life. That’s okay. It’s human nature and a characteristic that makes us strive to be better, so that we can make more money, so we can be more comfortable and own that flashy bobble. You must however always be honest with your CURRENT financial balance sheet, not what you envision having next year, next month, or next week. Your honest financial reality of today.
Although you may not enjoy talking about personal finances with your partner it is undoubtedly the very most important conversation that you can have as the healthy or unhealthy state of each of your finances dictates much of the building of your life together. The stress of overspending your budget and the crippling feeling of a stretched debt burden weight you down and can cause irreparable harm to your relationship.
You can look forward to an upcoming post on the “Love Budget”, where we will devote an entire article on financial planning for love, but we are just going to touch on creating an honest financial narrative with your partner at the moment.
It is of vital importance that you pick a time to sit down with your partner and have a conversation about finances. You and your partner both have your own individual finances and your joint financial responsibilities, so it is necessary that you both know exactly where each other stands. You are living life together, and you absolutely must know and be comfortable that your life will not suddenly change if your partner has a financial hardship that you did not foresee occurring.
You need to both show each other your complete balance sheet of net earnings, assets, and liabilities, leaving nothing out and not minimizing or sheltering your true financial standing. You hopefully already have a personal budget and a shared budget, and are maintaining your obligations to both, making this process and conversation simple. If not, this is your chance to start out on a new foot alleviating the need for a financial fib in the future.
You are your own person with your own finances, and so is your partner, but when your lives and funds become commingled as your relationship progresses, you both need to know the financial position of your other half. If you are both open an honest about your finances, you will find that there is no need to tell a little financial fib to massage a tense conversation. Remember, a little fib snowballs, and if you are not careful, what started as a financial fib could end up with you trying to explain why the two of you must sell your house.
Finances and the arguments that they spawn are the numbers one reason that relationships fail, so before you coyly suggest that the purse you are carrying is not new but has been tucked in your closet for years, or that the new power tool you are using was on sale for hundreds of dollars off, remember to be honest, and not fall into the trap of telling your first financial fib.
Honesty Is The Best Medicine
Honesty should be second nature to you and always be paramount in your relationship, and you should never tell a lie. Not One. Not ever. Telling a lie is not stressful as the words leave your lips, but over time the burden of keeping your story straight to avoid “getting caught” is a very stressful burden that takes away from the energy you have to live a romantic, healthful, and happy life with the one you love.
There should be no secrets between you, and you must always be honest and truthful in every situation to ensure that your relationship is built on mutual unshakable trust. With trust you will not succumb to jealousy, not have to worry about an unexpected financial crisis, and always know that there is one person in the world who you can share absolutely everything in your life with. One person who is your safe beacon of understanding and love in a world that can sometimes make you feel insignificant and overwhelmed.
Do not ever lie to your partner and always be caring and diplomatic when you are concerned that an honest opinion could hurt their feeling. So the next time your partner purchases a new shirt and twirls around asking you if you like it, you can honestly tell them that yellow is not your preferred choice of colour for a t-shirt, and perhaps the fit is not quite right.
Never lie, always tell the truth, and enjoy a happy and healthy FairyTale life with the one person in the world whom you love so much.
Romantic Reflections is a collection of thoughts and musings intended to add little touches of love and romance to our relationships creating a fairytale that will last forever.