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Fiction #1: You can speak truth in a cutting way and your spouse will shrug it off or even accept it because they love you.
Truth #1: Just because your spouse loves you doesn’t mean their feelings don’t get hurt—even if they don’t always show it.
Jeff and the kids were watching an old episode of The Big Bang Theory not long ago, and one of the characters—a pretty, bubbly wife—was saying things to her husband like, “I’ll stop doing such-and-such when you stop being a nitwit.” She paused for the studio laughs, and her husband sheepishly shrugged and accepted it.
I thought: it sounds okay when you’re an actor with great comedic timing, especially when your next words are back to normal. But in real life, we are not like those actors and our spouse doesn’t think it is funny.
In our research with the happiest couples for The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, one of the starkest findings was that happy couples are completely honest with each other—but always in a kind way, never a cutting one. After all, think about it: would you speak to a friend in that way? A colleague? If you want to spend the rest of your life in a thriving relationship with someone, you have to care about their feelings.
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