Secrets

Secrets Can Destroy Relationships
Black Couple in Bed

(Photo Credit: Essence)

Honesty is always the best policy to employ in all relationships.  If you desire for your relationship to have staying power, then you need to be completely truthful with your partner.  It’s vital for you to inform your partner about past and present phenomena that are important for him or her to know.  You have to place enough trust in the power of your relationship to handle frank discourses.  Your partner should be happy that you’re willing to disclose with him or her things that you could have kept secret.

One couple I know has some secrets that would certainly shatter the relationship if they surfaced.  The woman has slept with her partner’s “good friend.” The “good friend,” who is a secretive person himself, refuses to inform the guy that he has had sex with his girlfriend.  A relationship like this one is doomed to fail.

Unfortunately, some people are so desperate to be in and/or stay in relationships that they’re willing to live with lies.

It’s always best to inform your partner as early as possible about things you believe may potentially cause problems or challenges in your relationship. By addressing phenomena that can be problematic for the relationship early on, this can build strength in the relationship.  It can also determine if those are things that will permit the relationship to continue, which is essential to resolve before the relationship gets too serious.

While I’m not advocating for you to become a private investigator, I do contend that it’s crucial for you to do your own research on those you wish to involve yourself with and those you’re involved with. Yes, people can change.  You may not, however, be able to stand being in a relationship with a person if you know some of the things he or she has done in the past.  While we should not hold everything in a person’s past against him or her, one does need to make the most informed decision about entering into a relationship with an individual.  The most informed decision can only emerge when the proper research has been done on your potential or current partner.  For example, I know someone who is in a relationship with a woman who has slept with at least one guy who is highly sexually active and who engages frequently in risky sexual behavior, but she has not told her current partner about this.  She’s unfairly exposing her current partner to the risk of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

If you know the secrets that a family member’s partner or friend’s partner aren’t divulging, then I do want to prepare you for the possibility that he or she will not believe you.  He or she may attack you by saying, “You just want me,” “You’re just envious,” “You’re just a liar,” “You just want him,” “You just want her,” or etc.  If you feel the need to tell your family member or friend, just know that you’re doing the right thing.

Just remember, secrets always have a way of coming out.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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It’s Natural to Grow Apart from People

You may think it’s a bad thing to grow apart from some of your relatives and friends, but you should stop feeling this way because it’s natural to grow apart from some of them. As time passes, you can begin to see differences between some of your relatives and friends that are not just simple differences but are differences that are incompatible with the core values and principles that define you. While you may have tolerated things they have done in the past that are conflicting with the core values and principles that define you, time may unveil to you that you need to separate from them. I would argue that you made a serious mistake in tolerating them in the first place and never should just simply tolerate people who you claim you love. However, we all do make mistakes and the best thing we can do is acknowledge our mistakes, learn from them, move on, and progress.

Although you may disagree with people on many political, social, cultural, and economic issues, it is ultimately their core values and principles you should be more concerned about than their political, social, cultural, and economic viewpoints. You should assess your relationship with people by who they are at their core. You should ask yourself the following query: What kind of human being is this person? Is this the kind of human being I want to be associated with and who is or can be a positive force in my life? Does the good outweigh the bad with this person? If you don’t like what kind of human being this person has become, then you should peacefully sever your relationship and ties to this person. If you don’t believe that the person is the kind of person you want to be associated with and isn’t a positive force in your life, then you should peacefully disassociate yourself from the person. When the good does not outweigh the bad with this person, then it’s time to disassemble the relationship.

Of course, you should not simply discontinue a relationship with some of your relatives and friends without making serious efforts to engage them and talk to them. You cannot worry about how other people will perceive the reality that you no longer associate yourself with these people. There’s no need to go into great details about why you are no longer associating yourself with certain relatives and friends. One of the best explanations is it’s natural for people to grow apart from one another.

When every little aspect about a person begins to irk you, then you know it’s time for you to either take some time away from this person and/or resolve whether it’s time for you to sever your relationship with this person. Far too often, we delay the inevitable when we already know the relationship is really over.

Relatives and friends who disassociate themselves from one another don’t have to become enemies. You can still be peaceful to one another. You certainly shouldn’t just maintain a relationship with one another out of fear of personal information and secrets you know about one another. If those secrets and personal information come out, then just deal with this reality but don’t let fear of those things keep you in a miserable relationship.

Always give your relationships an opportunity to work, but do know when it’s time to end them or modify them. We are all human beings and we all do change. The changes that happen with us may cause us to no longer be connected with others anymore. Accept this natural development and do what is necessary to appropriately respond to this natural evolution.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison