Unbridled Honesty Never Works
In some professional education I'm currently taking, the instructor said that unbridled honesty is just a verbal form of immature entitlement. Apparently, when you hide behind the "I was just being honest" facade, what is really happening is you are vomiting all over your partner in a way that creates conflict and distance out of your self-righteousness.
The metamessage is that "You can't attack me because 'I was just being honest.' ", "Don't you want me to be honest?", or "Don't you want honesty in our relationship?"
Unbridled honesty is a form of manipulation where you get to be your unvarnished self, but you don't allow the other person to respond unvarnishedly too. There's an implied "You must agree with me or else there's something wrong with you" mentality.
Appropriate honesty starts with love, not blaming. It starts with care for the relationship, not self-righteousness. The best honesty is respectful, loving, informative, and humble. None of those elements are in unbridled honesty.
