YOU DON'T WANT HONESTY YOUT WANT AN ENABLER

My husband used to say something to me for years that honestly used to annoy me so much. He'd say the reason people either absolutely love you or absolutely hate you is because you hold up a mirror to them. Because what does that even mean? I thought, I'm not trying to expose anyone. I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad. But the older I got, the more I realised he was right. Because I've always held myself to an incredibly high level of accountability. Not in a healthy way at first. When I was younger, I'd blame myself for absolutely everything. Now it's different. Now, whenever something goes wrong, my first thought is, okay, what could I have done better? What part did I play in this? What am I missing? Because that's the only part I can actually control. So when someone comes to me with a problem, I naturally ask the same questions. Not because I'm trying to catch them out, but because I'm trying to help them. So sometimes I'll say, okay, but what do you think you could have done differently? Or, hang on, didn't you tell me something completely different last week? Or do you think there's another way of looking at this? And I've realised a lot of people don't actually want to hear that. They say they want honesty. They say they want friends who tell them the truth. They say they want accountability until the honesty points back at them. Until someone gently says, I think you've got this one wrong. And that's when people get uncomfortable. Because a mirror doesn't create flaws. It just reflects the ones that are already there. And the funny thing is, I didn't expect people to be perfect. I never do. God knows I'm not. I expect people to own it. Same way I try to own my own mistakes. If you hurt me, let's talk about it. If I hurt you, please tell me. I'd rather have one uncomfortable conversation then lose a relationship over something that could have been repaired. I think we started confusing acceptance with never challenging each other. Real acceptance isn't pretending someone's never wrong. It's loving them enough to tell them the truth and trusting that they will love you enough to hear it. Because if the only people you're comfortable around are the ones who never challenge you, you don't want honesty. You want validation.