We don’t always yell at people who say something we don’t like to hear, but we often forget how many ways we can make it very expensive for people to be honest with us. When we love someone, it’s hard even under the best of circumstances to say something that will make them unhappy. It requires a lot of vulnerability and courage to do that. We expose ourselves emotionally, because our partners’ feelings affect ours. When that vulnerability is met with defensiveness, annoyance, passive-aggressiveness, silence, anger or resentment, honesty becomes damn near impossible.
