By José Dominguez, August 13, 2020 — Why tell the truth when there are alternative options to avoid the painful consequences of being honest in situations when saying the truth looks so threatening? Sometimes we have the tendency to escape by choosing paths that are more neutral than offensive – less intense, less personalized. It is possible to find a cozy solution, but it has a price – mainly, the loss of the authenticity of romance.
Let me tell you the story of my sister-in-law Sara—I changed the names for privacy. Sara was Maria’s youngest sister. Their mother was less demanding to her about the multiple responsibilities in taking care of housekeeping. Nevertheless, Sara had a very clear sense of how to confront life, and by all means, she was a woman of character. When I met Maria at the same time I met her and her boyfriend Carlitos. He was a hard-working person and also a conspicuous student at the medical school. They married almost at the end of his studies. Sara was in charge of the economy of the house as only those ladies in that home knew how. Everybody was sure that Carlitos would be a brilliant doctor. Since everything he did was done perfectly. Well, almost everything.
After 3 years of supposed happy marriage, Sara came to our house and told us, “Maria, my Carlitos had a double life, a double house, a double dog, a double everything,” and she was asking for our advice. We offered ourselves as intermediates in case they wanted to find a peaceful solution and Sara accepted my intervention as a counselor to facilitate the last and final encounter, the last opportunity, because she wanted to use all their available resources to prevent a family tragedy that in those times involved also two little girls.
We decided to invite Carlitos to our house and the meeting was set for a Saturday at 11 in the morning. At the agreed time, Carlitos arrived and Sara and I were ready to start in my own library. He was gentle as always and I began with a brief introduction saying, “My role is not to assign guilt to certain persons or to analyze a thing. My purpose is very clear, very simple. It was not my intention to change anybody or to give advice. My participation is to be a facilitator and I will feel happy if I can be used as an instrument to improve communication between both in this specific matter that you are currently living.”
Carlitos was following my words with his arms crossed over his chest looking at me with disbelief. He told me, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t know what special situation. We are living as a married couple.”
Oh, Sara was tense and when she heard those words she opened her mouth surprised and moved her head in incredulity. She never supposed that Carlito was going to play innocent. In those moments, I remembered my short experience as a lawyer … The words “The burden of the proof” came to my mind, meaning that if a person is accused if he keeps silent or simply refutes the facts the accuser has the obligation to exhibit the proof. Sara was very sure that his position of not knowing was untrue. That he knew perfectly all the tales of the ordeal.
Carlitos took a look at her saying, “I don’t understand what is happening here.”
I described in a few words about the double life and that Sara told me but he didn’t react to my explanation. Sara was mad but getting in control of herself and facing him spoke, “Look, I have all the information about your other woman, where she lives, what days you live as man and wife, her name, and many more unpleasing details that are very painful to disclose here. Are you going to call me a liar, that I fabricate all those filthy dirty things? It seems that you do not know me or you are playing dumb.”
Carlitos was stuck. He didn’t know what to say but he was not going to confront Sara because he knew the toughness of her personality, and was not interested to be exposed and confronted by Sara’s proof exhibition, that very truly she had at hand. He moved his head towards Sara, looking sadly at her with a pleading voice and said, “The only thing that I have to say is that I love my family, and I love you and I don’t want to lose that love.” I was surprised about the way Carlitos tried to hold on to this mess, and I thought that he was trying to make Sara responsible for the future of the family, making her [feel] guilty about the consequences of a divorce but he was not answering Sara’s questions. So before the session moved to the silent stage, I asked Carlitos, “It looks like Sara has some information. I think she wants to know your opinion of that.”
But he didn’t mind my request and insisted, “You know Sara that I really love you and I want to keep my family united that’s all I want all I have to say.”
And Sara told him, “If you really love us so dearly, we would not be in this meeting. You are not going to convince me with your love declaration and you are not going to make me feel guilty about all the pain that is going to fall on our family in case of our separation. You know me but you act as if you don’t. If you think you didn’t do any of those things you are going to have time to think about it with your new partner. So the session is over. And I want to thank Pepe for the intervention.”
Months later they divorced and she moved to live in El Paso, Texas. She married a very rich person. Carlitos didn’t like the meeting in my house and less my participation according to him I was harassing him instead of being neutral. But I was thinking that Carlitos didn’t get the real message. He was lost in relation to the adultery facts. But Sara was waiting for his confession. She was waiting to hear the truth in order to issue a pardon. But I guess he wanted the pardon without recognition of guilt.
Well, such is life. But always I have questioned myself why Carlitos preferred to miss and lose his family instead of saying plainly that he was an adulterer. Why he did not want to confess [about] the others? In Mexico, we use a popular saying that describes the irrationality of this kind of situation, “Primero muerto de confeso.” That means “I prefer to be dead rather than confess.” I only tried to guess that Carlitos didn’t want to confront Sara because she was stronger
and he would have to disclose in a way some of his deepest and saddest weaknesses. I think he preferred not to confront Sara because he would have to start from that declaration an awareness of his fault and from that point to be reinventing himself. But he didn’t. He preferred not to face her, not to be aware of his fault not to be himself in that situation for better or for worse.
Conclusion: My terminating question is, do we have to be honest to be ourselves, or only honest with our significant others like spouses or lovers, or do we have to be ourselves with any kind of person regardless of the intimacy we have with them? I think that the main condition to be an authentic human being is to be ourselves always in any situation with any person. But do you know someone that fits in that description – a person in any condition, not pressed or conditioned by circumstances but mainly by his conscience? Perhaps that person will be a man for all seasons.
