Ms. Redbird poses while I stalk her through a window, window screen, and patio.  Photo copyright by Lorna Tedder; all rights reserved.

I believe that a person’s word should be good enough.

I  refuse to put my hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth.  I refuse to swear to tell the truth, period.  I believe that my word is good enough.  In fact, I find the act of having to “swear” I’m telling the truth to be offensive to me and overall meaningless when it applies to other people.  If someone has integrity, they have it without putting a hand on a Bible and if someone is going to lie or mislead, then I believe that person will find a way to do so regardless of which holy book is present or which Deity is called upon.

Bibles and swearing are not some kind of “Simon says, ‘tell the truth’” tools.  In my world, you don’t get to lie indiscriminately and then, when someone sticks a Bible under your nose, you say, “Oops, NOW I have to be honest but as soon as you remove that Bible, I can lie freely again.”

In both personal and professional relationships that have failed or ended quickly, I often find myself shaking my head and frowning while mumbling, “But he SAID—“ or “But she SAID–.”  I’m always confused until I back away for a moment and realize that I’ve based much of the relationship—whether romantic or business—on the other person being truthful.  My reactions to them and the path I take in those relationships is always based on my idealistic understanding that they will live up to what they have said.  In my profession, the majority of my contracts are negotiated under the Truth in Negotiations Act, so I’m hardest hit in my personal negotiations where I often take for granted that the other person is acting with integrity.

I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and not distrust every stranger I meet.  I prefer living that way to being paranoid and hiding from the world.  Occasionally, I become involved with someone who blithely tells me what he or she thinks I want to hear or what they think it will take to get my agreement.  Then when they fail to follow through, it’s whiplash for me.

One of the sourest business deals I’ve been a party to  was when a potential business partner begged me to work with her.  I pointed out all the reasons I was hesitant, and she countered each one, telling me how she felt about the situation and how each reason wasn’t an issue to her. I plowed substantial  resources into the deal, only to find out too late that all the things she’d been adamant didn’t matter really did and always had.  When I ask why she’d led me to believe otherwise when I’d told her what battles we’d have to overcome, she stated, “If I’d told you the truth, you wouldn’t have proceeded with our deal.”  Well, at least in that, she was right.

I’ve read that instead of listening to someone’s words for the truth, you should watch their actions for the truth.  That may be so, if those actions are visible.    The guy who tells me repeatedly that he’s not seriously involved with a particular woman might be believed if I watch his actions—that I know about—and listen for the consistency in his words.  Unfortunately for him, I do have the insight into his actions that he doesn’t know about and his private actions with his too-talkative girlfriend betray his words.  Then again, I shouldn’t have to rely on watching his actions—I want to take him at his word.

Once, when I argued with a new romantic partner that he was not truthful with me, he tried to tell me that I had the wrong idea about our budding relationship.  I reminded him, word for word, of what he’d said that had lured me in.  He became angry then and told me that if he hadn’t said that, I never would have agreed to a second date and that it had been his best interest to lie to me.

“Jeez,” he said as we parted for the last time, “I guess anything I say can and will be used against me!”

I’d not thought of it that way.  It wasn’t that I was using anything “against” him, but rather, merely expecting him to live up to his word as I had.  If his word had been good, then there would have been no need for anything to be held against him.

But then, I’m an idealist, and I expect people to mean what they say or don’t say it at all.  Without having to swear it on a Bible.

I will believe in honor.

I will not become jaded.

I will not lose my compassion.

I will not be a victim.

I will conduct my relationships with integrity.

I will love myself enough to demand accountability from those who do not behave honorably toward me.

I can look myself in the mirror and not flinch.

Sometimes people disappoint us.  We can make excuses for them or we can acknowledge that they’re human.  We can even forgive them.  That doesn’t mean we have to continue our relationship in the same way, especially when we’ve conducted our side of the relationship with honor and integrity and they’ve done everything but.

There is a tendency, after such a blow, to wall ourselves off, to withdraw.  We think that if this one person we cared for can be so corrupt, then anyone can be…that anyone is…that everyone is.

The lens of life we look through can become tinted a darker shade, one that matches the experience with that one person.  Or even with many other such persons, since feeling keenly such a betrayal brings similar betrayals to us via the Law of Attraction.

But I don’t want to be that way.  My friend Jillian used to tell me I was too idealistic.  I’d learn something awful about a person or two and still give them the benefit of the doubt or be too forgiving, and later get burned.  But I like being idealistic.  I like being compassionate and trusting.  I don’t ever want to become jaded by too many heartbreaks to not be idealistic and compassionate and trusting.

Balance has been the key for me.  Holding a liar accountable.  Pulling back the curtain to show the truth, regardless of how ugly it may be.  Seeking justice to balance an injustice.  Seeking truth to balance a lie.  It helps me to believe that the world is not skewed to favor the dishonorable man.

I still believe that there are good people out there.  I like that I believe it.

Photo credit by Express Monorail; creative commons license

I have developed a tremendous appreciation for honest men.  Not honesty wielded as a weapon or as a shield but more like a cup of clear water for a thirsty woman.

Relationships are the best place to see honesty in action—and the different interpretations of honesty and the different rationales for deception.  Abuse is never a good enough excuse to tell the truth, and saving your own ass by lying through your teeth is never the same as “for the greater good.”  There’s no middle ground, and if there’s a bad feeling surrounding the honesty or the deception—for either party—then it’s nothing but poison.

Too often, I see people—both men and women—employ a “policy of truth” to justify being downright mean or verbally abusive.   These are the “friends” who will joyously tell you that the “truth” about your hairstyle or your clothes or your home décor—the “truth” always being something that stings.  Most of the time, ironically, it’s just opinion and sometimes that truth is fiction in the guise of a supportive friend who needs to feel superior.

Listen, any friend who is happy to tell you something that cuts you to the bone—whether it’s that you have chronic bad breath or spinach in your teeth after an interview or that your partner is cheating on you—is not a good friend.  Truly compassionate friends may tell you, but they’ll have to struggle to do it.

I had a boyfriend once who wielded the “truth” like a weapon.  Ultimately, it was his way of controlling me and putting me constantly on the defensive.  Honesty became synonymous with negativity.  I came to dread his honesty as much as I’ve ever dreaded a man’s lies.

He was quick to tell me if a skirt didn’t look good on me (in his opinion), that my hair didn’t flatter in that particular color (in his opinion), or that I needed to lose weight (in his opinion).   He had gotten into trouble for lying and had decided to turn over a new leaf and tell the truth—about EVERYTHING.  If he was unhappy, and he often was, he would feel compelled to tell me  The Truth about whatever was on his mind.  I never asked how he liked my outfit, hair, or weight, but he was quick to offer because, to him, he had to spew  his brand of honesty.  There was nothing  off limits.

If I proudly showed him a cool poster I’d bought for my office, he reminded me that his best friend had a signed original of the artwork,  that I had only a cheap knock-off, and that my possessions weren’t as worthy.  If I proudly showed him my home, he quickly told me how unsophisticated he thought it was because I didn’t have a unifying theme of Early American or Mid-Century Modern throughout the entire house.   When we were close to deciding to go our separate ways,  almost the last thing he said to me was that he would never marry me because he hated my natural body scent and if he stuck around, I would have to find a way to change my body chemistry to his satisfaction.

(Thankfully, my partners since then have all loved all the things he hated that became his “truth” that he just had to tell me, and the more recent men in my life cheerfully volunteer that they like these things very much, thank you.)

By the time I said good-bye to him, I felt as though whenever he was around, I was being bludgeoned with verbal abuse that he politely excused as “I have to be honest.”  Nothing he ever spewed as truth was indeed fact, which is the irony when I think back on the demise of our relationship.

I’ve also seen men (and women) use honesty as a shield to keep from allowing anyone, including me, to see them with their emotional walls down.  I recall begging for emotional support for my creative passions only to be told that my art was terrible by people with no affinity for that kind of art or its genre.  Even if they recognized that they held no expert status, they knew their honest dislike would force an emotional distance between us.  I never came out and asked if they liked my art, even though I desperately wanted them to like it because it could have been a beautiful avenue for sharing.   No, they shut down that avenue before our relationships ever got that far.

When it comes to honesty, there’s no middle ground, regardless of the supposed good reason for it. I’ve had boyfriends tell little white lies to me because they were sweet enough that they didn’t want to do anything to hurt me, but in the long run, I no longer could tell where the little lies turned into big ones.  Yes, telling me his mom was a decade older than I am made me feel better about dating a younger man, but finding out she was oh-so-much-closer to my age was inevitable.  A host of other little deceptions, so easily told for the nicest of reasons, slipped off his lips with the same deftness as far-reaching, heavy dishonesty that impacted many lives at once.  He was trying to find middle ground where it was okay to lie, but it was never okay to lie to me.  And never necessary.

There’s only a quick hop from being a man who will lie to make someone else feel good to becoming a man who will lie to save himself and consider it doing what he has to do or that he has no choice but to create huge deceptions.  The little lies make it very easy to talk himself into major fictions.

While there’s not a middle ground for honesty, there is something better.  I believe—and have experienced it several times recently—that you can be honest without being brutal.  You can tell the truth without volunteering opinions as fact or offering up hurtful interpretations without being asked.  You can find positive and truthful things to say, even if they’re opinions—rather than searching out a negative truth.  You can gently lead a person through a horrible truth with love and kindness…and with great forethought.

The secret is compassion.  Honest compassion and compassionate honesty.    It’s refreshing and sweet, like that cup of clear water after so many previous chalices of cloudy poison.    The need to be honest isn’t in the wake of all the possible bad things that can come between two people.  It’s not even considered a need because it’s simply a way of life.  And while the bad things are expressed with compassion, the honesty is more about sharing the good things, openly.