Honesty and Marriage

Generally speaking, I have been a proponent of being honest with your spouse about just about everything. I say "generally speaking" because most of you know that I have not shared my prowling activities with my husband, and I'm not going to.

Why not? I haven't held back because I'm afraid he'd leave me.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't.  I haven't told him because I know it would hurt him, and that's something I never want to do.

I know some of my pro-fidelity readers/stalkers are thinking, "Well, Kat, if you weren't prowling, then you wouldn't have to hurt him or lie to him." Yes, yes, that's true, but then I would be miserable and frustrated. 

But I'm not trying to defend prowling here. I'm talking about the layers of honesty in a marriage.

I decided a while ago to tell Hubby about my friendship with DauntlessD.  I was really tired of keeping it a secret when there really was no reason that Hubby couldn't know. After I told him, I felt a great sense of relief.  I didn't have to lie about it anymore, and it just felt wrong keeping such an important relationship in my life a secret from my husband.

Well, the relief I felt in the beginning has been replaced with regret. My husband has become very jealous of my relationship with Daunt, even though it's not a sexual relationship. We're working through it and I'm sure we'll find a way to make it work, but it made me think about honesty in a marriage.

Lots of couples tell each other little lies so they don't hurt each other and, sometimes, just to keep the peace.  "Yes, dear, you look great in that dress." "Of course I don't mind if you go play poker with the guys until 2:00 am." "Mmmm....yes....I came twice. That was so good...."

Then there are the lies we tell that are part of a "training" behavior.  If my husband cleans the bathroom, no matter how poorly he does it, I am not going to tell him he did a crappy job because then he'll never want to do it again.  Instead, I'll say, "Honey, the bathroom looks great! Thank you!"  Then I follow that up as quickly as possible with sex.  That's how you get a man to do just about anything you want. He'll be cleaning that bathroom several times a week and, with all that practice, he'll get pretty good at it, and eventually you will be able to honestly say that he did a great job. That's Husband Training 101.

Oops, I hope I didn't give away any wifely secrets. Every now and then I read one of the popular married man game blogs where advice is given to men on how to get their wives to want to have sex with them. It makes me chuckle because most men are amateurs compared to most women when it comes to marital behavior modification.  But I digress.....

I was talking about honesty.....

I thought that little lies were ok (like the examples I just gave), but something as big as a friendship with someone should be shared. 

I don't believe that any more. Some men just can't imagine that a man could be friends with a woman without trying to get sex. I have learned recently that my husband is one of those men. I know that he gets it honestly, though, because he can't have a relationship with a woman that doesn't turn sexual, so he can't imagine that it's possible at all. And it's making him crazy jealous.

Unfortunately, telling a spouse something that you had been keeping secret for months is a bell you can't un-ring. So, I'm stuck with the fallout for now.

I shared with a friend recently what happened and that I had learned that you just can't be honest with a spouse about things like that, his reply was, "Yeah, stupid." Huh.  Apparently men have known this forever and it was only new for me.

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