Limits on The Truth?

Limits on Truth?

A person cannot be completely truthful all of the time, because different forces                                            and aspirations fight within [him] and sometimes, [he] cannot express them, even to himself.

Count Leo Tolstoy

Cited in his Calendar of Wisdom

What immediately came to me in this quote was not only its honesty, but also a need to recognize and affirm the value of making compassionate progress towards the high 

aspiration of living constantly in the clear light of truth.

From that perspective, I am not sure IF I have ever met a person who is 100% truthful; someone who is always obedient, always unselfish, or anyone who has such a strong, clear and confident grasp on his/her own psyche that the can recognize every time that might be liable to lie, or be prone to self-deception!

There is a strong yet unrealistic desire to “always tell the truth” in our culture, and maybe it is most adamant when dealing with relationships such as marriage. Because of this, I have adopted a formula for discussion, within my premarital counseling, to recommend to each person in the couple to always be 90% truthful!

The immediate answer, usually given back to me in a mixture of surprise, goes something like this: “We will always tell the truth to one another…we have to have 100% honesty between us! My response often goes like this: I agree that honesty is a crucially important value to hold… but the way I see it is this: we all need time and space for our privacy.

As James Hillman, the famous Jungian analyst, put it, : “[We need our sins and our secrets for our own personal growth’] There are 5% of the issues and problems in our lives that are ours alone to resolve. 

No matter how helpful or supportive your partner might be, it can be the ultimate interference in our personal need to resolve issues that were there before the couple was formed; and that the marriage itself, no matter how good and loving it might be, will not be able to reconcile, or resolve. And there is another 5% that is necessary, and that is a compassionate silence. No matter how supportive a partner would like to be, sometimes the most loving thing you can do is shut up! 

The other person might not realize how words spoken in haste or in a desire to fix or solve another person’s problems or challenges can be hurtful. Loving does not always mean speaking or expressing; sometimes, the best thing you can do is “hold space” with an open heart…