"Honesty is the baseline for building trust. Honesty about big things like debt, past relationships, and mistakes you are not proud of matters, but so does honesty about the little things. For example, perhaps you said something negative about your partner to another person long ago, and they confront you about it now. Instead of taking accountability and coming clean, you lie. Because you don't want conflict, and you think things are different now, in your eyes, it doesn't matter."
"A 2014 study published in the Journal of Relationships Research found that people justified the use of white lies when they were the ones telling them, but didn't like it when they were on the receiving end. Interestingly, men, not women, were more open to benevolent deception. You may lie due to fear of conflict, abandonment, protecting your partner's feelings, or even to be socially accepted. But white lies, a lie by omission, or the feeling that you're hiding something can collectively keep your partner second-guessing your intentions."
Successful couples create strong relationships through deliberate effort rather than fate or innate skill. Trust is fragile, and once it is broken a relationship is never quite the same. Building unshakable trust requires consistent honesty about both large issues (debt, past relationships, mistakes) and small matters. White lies and omissions, even when intended to protect, erode trust because recipients dislike deception. People often justify their own white lies while resenting being deceived, and men may be more accepting of benevolent deception. Fear of conflict, abandonment, or social acceptance often motivates dishonesty, which fosters suspicion.
Read at Psychology Today
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