Exercising good habits. Honesty

Two very important principles to always have in mind in your relationships are respect and honesty. Sometimes being honest is not simple. Imagine your husband comes home with some new equipment he has bought and he is so happy and enthusiastic about it, he wants to share his experience with you but you neither understand or care about this equipment, what do you do? Or, your wife has spent three hours plus a lot of money on a new hairstyle at the hairdresser, you don't like it, what do you say? Honesty can be put to the test with children, because they will know when we are not being honest. Parents never want to hurt their children, not even by being honest. At the same time we want to teach our children to be honest with us and others and therefor we have to teach them honesty by exercising it ourselves.

So what happens then when being honest can hurt people you care for? Honesty is a virtue but just like any virtue it has a scale, and the scale is affected by other virtues. Two other virtues to have in consideration are justice and charity or love. In the first example of the husband wanting to share his experience with his "uninterested" wife, the wife can still be honest and tell him that she understands very little and therefor can not appreciate the equipment in the same way as he does, and hopefully moved out of love she will spend some time leting her husband explain for her, in the best of cases she will snap some bits and maybe understand why it is important for her husband. In the other example of the wife coming home with her new hairstyle, the husband could maybe wait with his comment on what he thinks about it and start by honestly asking some questions and making some possitive remarks, something like "your hairstyle looks quite different", "how do you feel in your new hairstyle", "was this new look your idea or were you recommended by your hairdresser?", talking about it will make the husband see some honest possitive things about the hairstyle, for instance that the new color makes her eyes look prettier, in order to be honest he should also tell her what it is about this new look he doesn't like, but then he will be giving her some good advise based on concrete things and not a negative response about the whole hairstyle.

In these two cases spouses have been fair and loving and honest and by doing so they have also showned respect for each other.
These examples where relatively simple, but quite real though. There are of course couples that go through really tough situations where they have gone so long that they find it too difficult to be honest, and in a sense they have probably lost respect for each other. Many couples brake because "they don't love each other anymore". Think that honesty, justice, respect, like other virtues, need to be exercised in order to get a strong foundation. If you exercise them in small things, like in the examples above, you will notice how much easier it is to exercise them in bigger more difficult things. In this way you will be both growing in respect and in love.