Healthy Relationships: Emotional Honesty

You've heard song lyrics that talk about "letting someone into your heart." It's not as easy as singing a song or saying "I love you." In a healthy love relationship, people acknowledge their emotions to themselves and communicate those emotions to their partners -- even when those emotions aren't positive or pleasant.

Signs of healthy relationships include being open to change, to the process of facing and accepting uncomfortable emotions. More than any other part of a relationship, the work of emotional honesty is founded in love. It takes a leap of faith to drop your defenses and trust your partner with the feelings, thoughts, dreams, ideas and words that are most essentially yours.

Emotional honesty -- starting with that first time you confess love -- isn't achieved simply or quickly. It takes work, work that will go on for the rest of your relationship, both with yourself and with your partner. It also brings deep rewards in the form of closeness and trust.