How many of us are truthful when asked, “How are you?” I will always say something like “Great,” if only to move on to the business at hand. Perhaps I sense the question is more rhetorical, they don’t really want an answer. Perhaps I feel the question, or rather the answer, is too personal to share with some people. This type of truth-withholding is especially damaging in the marriage relationship, and I think it is caused by the underlying fear, “You can’t handle the truth.” A classic example is that of a wife who asks her husband, “Does this outfit make me look fat?” The husband is immediately backed into a corner from which there is no escape. She does not want the truth, she will stomp off in a huff if he hints at the truth, yet he doesn’t want her embarrassed in public by wearing an outfit that accentuates the negative. If she asks how he likes the new dish she prepared, he is back in that same corner. Even a carefully worded comment about his preferring a little less salt could send her off into a tirade about how he doesn’t like anything, he is impossible to please, or, just as bad, into the silent sulk. But if he fakes enjoyment, he will be in for a lifetime of something not quite to his liking. Husbands can dish it out, too. A wife may express a need or desire that he interprets as a personal attack, causing him to react in anger, storm out screaming, “I can’t do anything right!” These types of exchanges move them both away from truth, and away from each other, allowing fear and resentment to grow. Loving anyone should carry with it a commitment to accept and respect truth. Only in honest sharing can conflicts be placed in proper perspective and have a chance of compromise and resolution. Only when we rejoiceth in truth can the marriage bond be strengthened enough to withstand the storms of life.
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