"Truth is our friend."
I have chosen to reveal to my spouse a secret that was painful for her to hear. I am tired of this seemingly small issue having some sort of control over my life. Anything we keep hidden controls us. I believe this now.
So that sucked. Not exactly well received. She thought everything was just fine in our world, but she was mistaken. My revelation frees me, but it burdens her.
I am fortunate enough to have friends that can bear this truth, and not be burdened overmuch with feelings of betrayal. They hear, and it is what it is. Our friendship is unshaken.
My wife, bless her, does not have the luxury of separation. She has bound herself to me, and so, to my mistakes. This is hard.
I see that life itself is a choice of honesty or no. We have many subtle ways of keeping hidden. I don’t want to be hurt. I protect myself. You don’t really see me, since what I am for you is often only a shell that keeps me safe. The real me is carefully guarded.
Perhaps this sounds trite. I don’t really care about that. Are you really yourself with those you care about? Freedom is found in being able to be genuine in all circumstances. This includes your problems and pains. That means that people will have information about you that can hurt you. And they will. Are you willing?
The paradox of insular language
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We often develop slang or codewords to keep the others from understanding
what we’re saying. Here’s an example (thanks BK) of the lengths that some
are goi...
7 months ago
28 comments:
Well, that was bloody arrogant, don't you think? Sometimes I'm just all full of myself.
I'd have written a comment earlier, but I spent the afternoon in the E.R., getting my thumb sewed up after falling on a sharp stub.
What was arrogant?
I think the pain of revealed secrets lies in the feeling of uncertainty they cause. In the long run it's not so much the truth, but the fact that it was kept hidden.
Good luck, both of you.
"it's not so much the truth, but the fact that it was kept hidden"
Jeanne ... you hit bullseye yet agin. Uncanny.
I hope your thumb injury is minor and temporary!
Whaaaaaaaaaaat?
Brendar ... could you narrow your question a bit?
What, pray tell, was the motivation for this disclosure?
The general motivation is: "anything we keep hidden controls us"
I believe my outlook, attitude, and actions were unconsciously altered because I was hiding something -- and so hiding myself.
Sorry to sound so psyco-blather, I just am now more practically believing in the power of the truth to make free. That Jesus fellow was on to something...
This didn't fix everything, in fact, as I wrote in the original post, some things have gotten worse -- at least for now. Something like a person who is gravely ill but doesn't know it. Finding out is a trauma, but they were already ill -- that didn't change. They are just in a position to do something about it.
Whenever casting something; be it a fly line, a hand grenade or anxiety, it is imperative to look and see who might be in the way. Thanks for the text, by-the-way, perhaps you can blame this Jesus fellow for the fallout. Now you are free from your burden but what of the fragile mind entrusted to you. What was the teaching to which you were holding? To love others as yourself? Did you do what is best for your wife or what is best for you? For shit sake Gar, Jeanne agrees with you! That should be warning enough.
Brendar,
You might want to meditate on the meaning of the word truth. Build your house upon the rock.
I don't need your respect, but I could do without your deliberate cruelty.
Brendar:
You seem offended. I wasn’t quoting the NT to be flippant – I think you are reading that into my post. Has this topic hit a hot button? Also, what do you mean by saying Jeanne’s agreement is a warning?
Perhaps you misunderstand the tone of my post. I am not blaming anyone except myself. My explanation of my wife’s reaction is just that, not a complaint. I was looking to unload, and failed to consider the impact. That was the very conversation we had right after I “unloaded”. Your questions seem to indicate that I’m missing the point, but I believe we are saying the same thing. I should just be more obvious in expressing what I mean.
Peace
And Brendar,
Be sure to wear something garish when we're all waiting in line outside of those pearly gates. I want to find you easily, and be really close to you when the scales fall from our eyes.
Oh dear, I seem to have made a mess.
Jeanne, you have my deep respect. I typically show that respect with a jab or two at times. My understanding of truth is that Jesus Christ is the truth and he has set us free. If we understand and hold to his teaching we will know him and be free.
Gar, what I mean is that total disclosure is not necessarily a way to “hold to” the teachings of Christ. If you feel that you need to reveal something in order to be honest then you are the only one who can judge that. I think we sometimes brutalize our relationships (fragile as they are) for the sake of our religion which doesn’t really need our protection. La Fille has much to say about this. Hope it all works out.
Sorry, lost my temper.
First, I commented almost simultaniously with Gar. Then I commented REALLY almost simultaneously with Brendar. I'm almost afraid to hit the botten now.
Phew.
Per B: "total disclosure is not necessarily a way to “hold to” the teachings of Christ"
Agreed ... with all props to fille. I should more carefully qualify my "pronouncements". Watch out for my pointy hat.
I think *my* natural tendency is to hide too much, as opposed to clonking loved ones over the noggin with my garbage ... er, junk.
Isn't blogging wonderful? Wars can begin and end in 15 minutes!
O.K. This is bad. Now I have a mental image of you clonking the dear Mrs. Gar over the head with your comically large junk.
I wouldn't call it so much a war as an eye-opener.
this guy brendar scares me...are you married? do you get that the nature of your relationship needs to be honetly? are you a coward?
No, anonymous (if that is your real name), I am not a coward; I am however happily married for 16 years.
There is no room in marriage for deceit. Honesty has as much to do with what you do not say as what you do say. You can say many hurtful things for the sake of honesty that you would never say for the sake of love and love must come first.
There is no reason to be scared.
Brendar,
Does your wife read this blog? What does she feel about hiding things versus telling things? Can you ask her? I guess not, because you not only have to hide anything there is to hide, you also have to hide the fact that you're hiding something. And you have to hide that you think you should hide things, because then she might get to wondering if there was anything that was hidden, and that would drive her crazy.
Of course, there is the counterweight of trust, which means that she trusts that your love is real, so that anything you don't want to tell is just a mistake you've made, or confusion, not a choice to be outside of your relationship or a denial of your love. But that's where what Gar was talking about comes in. Even if you are setting love first, as you say, and are advocating keeping secrets for the other's protection and peace of mind, what you're actually doing is deciding to take control over the direction your love is moving you in. If you have a decision to remain quiet about something in your mind it becomes an obstacle that you swerve to avoid when ever things start to steer in a direction that might risk their exposure. What if you're supposed to be going in that direction? "Sorry, Lord, that I didn't do what you expected of me. I didn't want to make my wife sad." I don't know if you have to confess everything one to another, though you might think that the bible actually says that straight out, and I personally feel that it should be that way, but you certainly have to be willing to confess anything as soon as it comes up as an obstacle, i.e. not decide to HIDE it.
Love can't come before honesty, because there is only one truth and they are both part of it. It doesn't work to chop it up.
Jeanne, I love you too much to tell you what I think of your comment.
Then I guess we've reached an impass. Your mind, your choice.
One point of Brendar's I really agree with is that we need to be sensitive in the delivery when moving from “hidden” to revealed – especially if a long time has passed where the issue was hidden.
I really appreciate your thoughts Jeanne – the ideal is to have no secrets, and that is attainable. I agree that real love (the verb) absolutely requires honesty. You can’t really give yourself if you don’t reveal yourself. We just need to avoid running over people in the process of getting there.
I must say that it has only been a couple weeks, but I already see some rather remarkable positive fruit coming from this, not the least of which is that I am less of a grouch. I hope I have the courage to keep at it.
Thanks!
Follow the yellow brick road, my friend.
I feel that it would certainly be difficult for me to take any other stance than a sympathetic one, given that details were vague and even if it were my place to doubt the motives and actions of those i care about, it really wouldn't be wise. There is so much I don't know. I feel pained for the pain that both gar and his wife are enduring, but I feel confident that things will go how they will. One can struggle long and hard to make them go otherwise, but water heads toward it's destination and of it, we are some seventy odd percent made. Gar and his wife will do what they need to do. If his wife doesn't appreciate his honesty, I'm sure she'll let him know. Either way, I am happy for his peace of mind and hope things take and upward course. I found the sparring between the rest of ya's both humourous and frightening, but I'll take it wih a grain of salt. I have a feeling I'm going to take some crap for the Taoist leaning of parts of this comment. I'm okay with that, I reckon.
Thanks for the post and the sympathy, fille.
"I feel confident that things will go how they will"
I'm trying to stop things from going how they will ... if that is a bad thing for us.
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