This week I sent my friend Rachel something I’d written and asked what she thought.

She texted back one word. “Honestly?”

And I laughed, because…. Duh… of COURSE honestly. What’s the alternative?

I wasn’t looking for a l lovely bouquet of comforting lies, so I could feel briefly marvellous and then go and publish something shite, that’s for sure!

But I felt a little pang of poignancy too, because I knew why she asked, and why she was hesitant to just lay it on me.

Most people who say “tell me what you think of this” simply don’t mean it.

They want to hear that said thing is brilliant, or that they’re brilliant, or both. And Rachel, a class act who knows her stuff cold, was checking what kind of person I was before she spent her honesty on me.

Ultimately, she gave me real notes that made my work so much better. I was thrilled. (more on that in the P.S.)

But I’m an Enneagram 8 (IYKYK), so my delight in blunt feedback is a bit like a duck being delighted by water. Hardly a triumph of character.

The interesting question isn’t whether I can take it, but what honesty does in a relationship, and why most of us fear it on both ends.

When I was in high school, we had a French teacher who had terrible body odour.

Nobody said anything to her face, obviously, because we were teenagers and teenagers are often cruel cowards.

Instead, that Christmas, the class pooled money and bought her deodorant. Wrapped it up beautifully. Left it on her desk. And she opened it in front of all of us.

I still feel sick about it.

The look of hurt on her face.

We had told her the truth, sure, but in the single most humiliating way possible, as a joke at her expense, publicly, with no love in it at all.

I still feel shame about what we did to this day, but I also wonder: would it have hurt as much if someone who actually cared about her had taken her aside, kindly and privately, and told her?

Of course it would still have stung.

But she might have walked away able to fix the issue, maybe even grateful, instead of walking away ashamed in front of thirty asshole kids.

She could have received the same information very differently.

That’s the thing about honest feedback: HOW it’s delivered is almost as important as whether it’s true.

Honesty can be care, or it can be wielded as a weapon. The former works; the latter ends relationships.

I see this every day with people in my office.

People come to me because something sex- or intimacy-wise isn’t what they want it to be.

If they come as a couple, one or both of them knows it could be better, and they’re stuck.

And I can tell you, as reliably as sunrise, that we get nowhere until somebody says the “honestly?” out loud.

Sometimes we have to hear, plainly, what the other person feels they’ve been swallowing. What they don’t like. What doesn’t work for them. What they need in order to feel differently. What they’ve been pretending is ok. What stopped working years ago. And what they truly want.

And nearly every time, there’s a flinch.

The person hearing it can get a bit (or a lot) defensive. It stings. Sometimes it really, REALLY stings.

That’s normal, and it’s survivable.

On the other side of that is true growth potential.

The problem is when the person hearing the truth decides it's an attack on them, slams the door, refuses to look at it, and makes their partner pay for being honest.

That’s where couples stall out.

Not at the hard conversation, but at refusing to have it openly, with the benefit of the doubt that the person giving you honest feedback wants you to grow from it.

If someone in your life learns that their honesty to you gets punished with sulkiness, defensiveness, pulling away, or worse… they stop being honest with you.

And while that might feel better for you in the short term, it spells disaster for your relationship in the long term.

So… honestly?

I want you to get braver about RECEIVING honest truths, even if they sting.

When someone who loves you tells you a hard truth, you'll probably flinch. We all do.

Breathe through it.

It’s easy to take a sting as an attack, but ask yourself whether the person telling you this truth ultimately wants you to win. Because honest feedback really wants you to win. It’s aimed at the problem, and care sits underneath it even when it’s clumsy or hurts.

Constant contemptuous sniping, on the other hand, wants to diminish and hurt you. Even if it has grains of truth, it shoots the relationship down rather than building it up.

Welcome the first. Bin the second, completely.

Also, get braver and kinder about GIVING.

Don’t be my shitty high school class with the deodorant. If you love someone enough to tell them a hard thing, do it with care. Because truth without care is just cruelty.

The people who will tell you the truth kindly are the rarest, most valuable people you will ever have. In your work, or in your bed, or in your life in general.

Everyone else hands you a bouquet of comforting lies and lets you walk out of the house with spinach in your teeth.

So, this week, two small dares. 1) Ask one person you trust for an honest take on something you may have been avoiding. And, 2) if there’s a hard, loving truth you’ve been sitting on for someone you care about, find the kind, on-their-side way to finally say it.

Having trouble doing that? Book a session and let's tackle it together. ​

And Rachel: honestly? Thank you. Always honestly 😊

When has a hard truth, told kindly, changed something for you? Or when did you wish someone had just told you? Hit reply. I collect these.

Lots of love, and bring it on,
Sylvie

P.S: A quick word on Rachel so you understand why I wanted her eyes on this specifically. She owns the Fit4Moms franchise here in the South Bay. She’s a trained fitness instructor, a certified menopause expert, and a seriously successful businesswoman. When Rachel has a thought about a health-adjacent thing I’ve written, it's worth its weight in gold. I didn’t send it to her hoping she’d tell me I’m clever. I sent it to her hoping she’d tell me what I’d missed. And she did. She gently pointed out that part of what I’d written strayed near territory that belongs to a nutritionist or a doctor, and that before I put it out into the world, I’d be wise to get a qualified pro to look it over. Which was EXACTLY right. It made the thing I was writing safer, better, and more honest. Love you, Rachel!