Unnecessary Openness

There is no question about the good value of honest self-expression. The act can be both healing and affirming. Its importance to our wellbeing is perhaps the reason why we feel good in confiding our well-guarded thoughts to the people we trust.

But that’s only one side to it. The secrets we share with people we most want to keep in our lives can also make us lose them. Conscious and unconscious feelings of guilt and embarrassment develop when we expose ourselves too much to others – to let our friends know too much of our most guarded secrets.

When we feel so secure to open up to a trusted friend, it could be the beginning of the end of the friendship. The personal secrets we reveal to them could turn them off. We might cause them great disappointment to know how imperfect we truly are behind the outer image we project.

The very attempt on our part to secure our cherished relationships by blurring borders of privacy can oftentimes ruin it, instead. When we share our innermost secrets to others – whether spouses, family or friends – in the spirit of openness and trust, we court the possibility of paranoia unto ourselves from the exposure, or we may cause distress in our loved ones. Whether it’s between a man and a woman in love or between two close friends, or among family members, a relationship can be spoiled by unnecessary openness.

Yes, every profound relationship involves both the impulse and the freedom to be truthful about oneself to the other person. But, like all things, these must be handled with restraint; otherwise, one may indulge in them to regrettable excess.

For instance, we may exceed the allowable limits of openness when we point out to a dear brother what we think are his defects. The flaws we cite may be essential parts of his character. And our well-meaning remarks may be misconstrued as a rejection of his person.

I once asked a friend to fill out a questionnaire when I was gathering data for a documentary film on motherhood. Instead of just simply checking boxes for her answers, she sent me a detailed and incredibly revealing letter. A day after I received it, she frantically called, asking me to burn it.

She wrote the letter late at night when she was feeling so low. In it she related that she often bitterly regretted marrying her husband, who was also a close friend of mine. He had brought her far less joy than she expected, she said, and, while she swore she loved him so, quite often she hated him.

That was the last time I heard from her. I lost contact with her husband, too. Our friendship was killed by an overdose of her openness.

There was another friend generously shared her secrets with me. Although I had no real interest in her revelations, I patiently listened believing that it’s what a good friend is supposed to do – to lend a sympathetic listening ear. I thought I was doing her a favor.

Then, she started insisting that I tell her my dark secrets in return, to be fair. I got scared. And she lost me.