This dishonesty caused me to feel disconnected from others and created small walls between me and my partner. When I withheld my whole truth, I withheld others from seeing all of me. This may be fine in most relationships but not in my primary relationship with my spouse, I wanted all of me to be loved, even those parts I judged as bad or wrong. If I wanted to create true intimacy and closeness, I was going to have to let my partner see ALL of me. I feel do a good job of explaining how honesty effects relationships.
Truth is the expression of love and is therefore always the necessary healing and loving action.
Love has taught us to be extremists for the truth. It is the surest path out of the old relationship-sabotaging belief systems. Many of us were taught that telling the truth is sometimes not being kind or loving, that it can separate us from what we want most, but telling the truth only separates us from our lies and our confused, limited self-images. Sure, the truth may hurt sometimes, but it never wounds the way a lie or half-truth can. Most of us were taught to avoid pain at all costs, so it is a challenge to stand in our truth, knowing that it may seem to hurt a friend or lover or a member of our family.