How much is too much? Do you and your spouse or significant other share every aspect of yourselves with one another, or do either or both of you prefer to keep some part of yourself private? Is there any question your SO could ask you that you would refuse to answer? Why? Do you think full openness and honesty perhaps works better for some people than others?
Well, clearly I believe spouses should agree on how to coordinate weekend time… (link to other IMHO thread related to this topic…)
I believe there can be too much honesty in relationships, and that how much is *too much *is going to vary from couple to couple. I don’t deliberately hide anything from my spouse (other than the occasional bag of potato chips) but there are some questions that I would regards as inappropriate to ask or to answer (do you still love your ex? do these pants make me look fat? how come you *never *do *any *housework? what do you *really *think about my parents?) I think those are bad questions because there is no true answer that’s going to make me feel better. Answers will only make me feel bad, or start a fight. I’m too old to fight when avoidance is an option.
Yes, simply because honesty like anything else can be used as a weapon.
It’s not the mere fact of being honest but how you use it that counts.
For instance, if your spouse buys a shirt you don’t like and she says “Isn’t this beautiful” and you say “Yes,” even though you think it is ugly, so what? It’s a small lie that doesn’t hurt anyone.
If she likes it that’s all that matters.
But now let’s put a spin on this, suppose your spouse buys a shirt to wear to a job interview and says 'Isn’t this beautiful"? Now you look at it and know it is not beautiful nor is it appropriate to wear to a job interview.
Of course in this case you should be honest. Why? Because if you dress wrong for a job interview that affects your chance of landing a job and that is a major things.
Similar situations, different results. Honesty isn’t automatically bad or automatically good, it how you use it that counts
There’s certainly such a thing as too much honesty in a relationship. And there are many questions that people ask not because they honestly want an answer, but because they already know the answer and want someone else to reassure them that it’s not true.
The timeless, “Does my butt look big in this?” is a great example. The last time I asked my husband something like that, he gave me a long, direct look and said, “I’m not going to answer that. How do those pants feel on you? Are they comfortable? Do they make you feel good? Are they right for where you’re going? If you said yes to all those, why do you need to ask me? If you said no to any of those, maybe you should reconsider the pants. If this is a deeper question about how you’re living and whether you need to lose weight or not, I’m not the person to ask.”
And I’m always thrown when I hear people describe their spouse or significant other as their best friend. I don’t disbelieve that it can happen (what do I know?), but I don’t want to be BFFs with my husband - I don’t want him to see my bitchy, catty side; I don’t want him to have images of me struggling inelegantly into a dress - wobbly bits flopping everywhere - I was going to model; I don’t want him to have stood next to me, chatting with me while I was peeing.
In my relationship with my husband I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much honesty, but there is certainly such a thing as honesty-that-must-come-with-tact. I once asked mr. hunter “Does this dress make me look fat?” more tongue-in-cheek than anything else (though I was really wondering) and he replied, “I think you have other dresses that show off your figure more.” In other words, yes (useful information!) but much more nice than “Yes, tubbo!” would have been. And there are certainly questions I don’t ask for fear that he might answer them honestly – though he’s smart enough that his response would probably be, “Do you really want me to answer that?” – but I don’t think of that as “too much honesty.” I would never want him to outright lie, is what I’m saying. (In Markxxx’s example, if I asked him, “Isn’t this beautiful?” and he thought it was hideous, he would probably choke and say, “It’s not my style.”)
Wow. I think maybe other people have different expectations of their BFF, is one thing. I let my husband see emotional parts of me that my girlfriends have never seen; and no one gets to see me peeing except my family! I’d rather do things with him than with my best girlfriends, generally, because our sense of humor matches up so completely. So, yeah, I’d say he counts as my best friend, though I have a hard time describing him as such-- he’s my husband, which is even better. (That being said, my best girlfriends fulfill an emotional part of me that my husband doesn’t, not being girly enough, which is fine by me.)
As far as I’m concerned, absolute honesty and openness in relationships is like vegetarianism. They both sound like they should be good for you, but when you get right down to it, they really aren’t.
I would never lie to my wife, but I’ll temporize until the earth crashes into the sun. She’s too sensible to ask me questions she doesn’t want the truth about, anyway. 
Great answer. People often forget that tact is what separates "just being honest’ from “just being a dick.”
It also depends on the people in the relationship. Some people just can’t handle honesty.
I think I’m generally pretty honest with my wife, and she takes it the right way and she’s not stupid enough to ask questions she doesn’t want an honest answer to. She is also confident enough in herself that she doesn’t care if we differ on matters of opinion or taste. So when she asks if I like her new handbag and I say “yuck, it doesn’t even go with itself”, she just laughs. She likes the bag and that’s all that matters to her. Same with a pearl ring she designed herself and had a jeweler make. I don’t like it much, it’s too “busy” for my tastes, but she understands that it is just not to my taste and she likes it as do a lot of other people who see it.
I’ll chime in for complete honesty. It works well for us.
If one of us asks the other about a skirt making us look fat or some such, we want the truth. We value that this is one person who will always give their upfront honest opinion.
But we are definitely the best friend model, not the “show my best/sexiest face and expect only complements” model.
I’m always completely honest with my wife. If I’m afraid that the brutal, cold, hard truth might hurt her feelings I fake a seizure. Or pretend to choke on something.
I believe in complete honesty. That doesn’t mean being cruel or just mean, but if you can’t give honest opinions and answers then whats the point?
I agree with this. We are also the same way.
Giving an honest (and tactful) opinion as an answer to a question = never a bad thing.
Giving an honest opinion when it wasn’t asked for = now you’re on shaky ground.
The latter could be good if the other partner needs to hear something for their own sake, e.g. “I think you need to know that you’re a better public speaker than you give yourself credit for,” or even: “To be honest, my parents are a little conservative so I’d prefer that you didn’t drink much tonight.”
Not so good? Being overly honest about something of little consequence: “You know, I’ve never really liked your home-made pasta sauce as much as you think I do. I mean it’s alright. But not that great.”
Or being honest about something that can’t be changed: “I know you didn’t ask, but I think you should know that your speech at the wedding wasn’t as good as it was when we rehearsed.”
My wife (lovely doper Araminty) and I have been married for a little over 6 months, so we’re hardly experts. To the best of my knowledge I have never, in the time I have known her, lied to her or spoken a word that was not true. I have sometimes hemmed and hawed, and sometimes spoken very carefully.
In addition to the general ethical correctness of honsety, one more pragmatic advantage of this is that there are times when she is feeling depressed or insecure and I can look her in the eye and say “you are a talented and wonderful and intelligent woman”, and she knows I’m not just blowing smoke up her ass… that I mean every word I say and believe them to be literally true.
Yes, I believe in too much honesty in a relationship.
There are some people who use their willingness toward “honesty” as a weapon.
There are some people who “can’t handle the truth”.
There are some people who like to define “honesty” for themselves and others in less than fair ways.
If you are not in a relationship with one of these people then go for it, if you are in a relationship with one of these people then I would say to live defensively.
I live defensively.
There’s honest and then there’s saying every little thing that crosses your mind. One can be honest without picking on someones ‘flaws’ just because you happened to think of it.
Yes. That.
I don’t necessarily lie about things, but I will tweak the truth, or not say EVERYTHING I FEEL about something, or fail to elucidate further or drag in comparisons with his other relatives. This restraint is what is known as the ‘work’ when you read ‘a good marriage requires work’. Blatting out every little thing may work for some, like those who imagine they are in a relationship with the unicorn-like soul mate of myth and legend. Those are the same people who don’t close the bathroom door when they go in for a good long sit-down. Welcome to it, works for some, not me.
Hiding things? You betcha! I will squirrel away a piece of cheesecake or a couple chicken wings for later - otherwise - I WOULDN’T GET ANY. And I have a little secret stash of money for emergencies, or things I want to buy on the spur of the moment. Otherwise - I WOULDN’T HAVE ANY MONEY STASHED AWAY. And I feel more secure when I know I have fifty bucks hidden in my favorite book!
There’s no such thing as too much honesty in a relationship, but there is such a thing as too much information.
If my wife asks me how many women I slept with before I met her, I’ll tell her. But I’m not about to volunteer “of the X number of women I’ve slept with, you’re the best.”
And if she asks me if those pants make her butt look big – well, that’s not a question of honesty, that’s just damn basic politeness.
If my wife ever asked me that, I would probably say, “no, your big butt makes your big butt look big,” because she has a big butt.