– How to be Honest with Your Marriage Partner

Last Updated on June 21, 2018 by Chris Roberts

LEARNING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONFESSING AND SELF-DISCLOSING

References “Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships,” by David Schnarch, PH.D.

At the end of the day, most marriage partners (at least in the beginning) want to be connected to their spouse and want their love to grow and flourish.  The best marriage counselors should always keep this at the forefront of their minds.  Most people are aware that an optimal way to keep a strong connection with their spouse is through the consistent use of honesty.  Honesty, in many ways, is a gateway to intimacy.  Not necessarily physical intimacy, although that may occur, but in this article we are discussing intimacy as simply deep connection.

In a previous article, we discussed how men and women equally value the strength of their friendship as the ultimate predictor of a good sex life.  Again, we are not specially here talking about intimacy as sex, or physical connection.  We are simply underscoring the point that even in sex, the quality of friendship and emotional connection are rated as the most important indicator to having a good sex life.  This article will discuss how honesty can be either confession or self-disclosure, and how learning to be self-disclosing will lead to deeper intimacy, whereas confession may not.

In a fantastic book about marriage, and how to have the deepest connection with your lifelong partner, called Passionate Marriage, Dr. Schnarch writes, “Intimacy is a two-prong process of confronting yourself and self-disclosing to your partner.” (p. 106)  Confession simply for the sake of “getting something off your chest” usually does not take into account the aspect of confronting one’s self.  Confession has the concept of self-disclosure, but it relies on the other partner’s acceptance and forgiveness of the negative action in order to be successful.  Although confession may be better than hiding harmful actions from your spouse, if the confession is directed towards a positive response from your marriage partner, it will usually result in frustration and more distance.

In order for honesty to result in more connection and intimacy with your marriage partner, it must include self-disclosure and self-confrontation.  Self-confrontation means being willing to bear in one’s own soul the heartache and damage they may have caused another person.  It also means that the response of the marriage partner does not alter the meaning or intent of the action of the honesty.  True honesty results from one partner wanting connection and closeness more than forgiveness or transparency.  It takes a phenomenal measure of strength to be able to disclose an important part of one’s self, without the need for the other partner to be grateful or forgiving of the disclosure.

Marriage counseling can be helpful for spouses to work through how honesty entails both self-disclosure and self-confrontation.  Often, some of the worst fights couples ever experience is after one spouse has attempted honesty without bringing both prongs that Dr. Schnarch referenced above.

A marriage is a lifetime commitment to learning about one’s self, about your marriage partner, and about how to live and love together.  There are many great marriage therapists in Nashville, Tennessee and Chris Roberts would love to help your marriage or provide you with referrals to someone else who may best fit your needs.