Does Honesty Make Relationships Stronger or Break Them Up?

Honesty is the best policy forever and ever. In a poll, conducted between 11/4/14 and 2/4/15, Meetville.com (dating app to find the right person) posed the question: “Do you think confessions make a relationship stronger?”

Number of respondents 58,358. From the USA – 61%, from – Canada 4%, from Britain – 11%, Australia – 8% and other countries – 16%.

Although majority tend to think that secrets are bad for any kind of relationships, there are situations when the best idea is to keep secrets to oneself. Christine Northam, Relate counsellor, states: “When long-held secrets are revealed they can blow a relationship apart, because the person is changed for ever in the other person's eyes. Everything they thought was true about the relationship is shot to pieces. For some people there's no coming back from that betrayal of trust, however hard they try.”

Before any confession, it’s important to think if this or that secret matters any more. “It's nearly always better not to have secrets, but sometimes it might be better to keep a still tongue in a wise head. You have to think about what you're hoping for by revealing the secret, what benefits it will have,” adds Christine Northam.

Alex Cusper, Meetville service analyst, says: “There is no doubt that honest and open communication helps to keep a relationship going. But it depends if you trust this person to confess all possible things, because the confessions we make can be used against us.”

Meetville, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find the results of the poll here. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.