Limits to Openness

One thing I consciously changed in my life around 2007 was openness. Previously I had been a typically stuck-up Brit, restricting conversation to safe areas wherever possible. Around 2007, I made a change, offering a lot more of my true thoughts to others.

It started at work. I had built a reputation as something of a mentor for younger people, and many sought me out for career advice. Of course, good career decisions are often very much tied to good life decisions. I started sharing things about my own career in the context of where I was in life, and this opened the door for people to do likewise.

The results were stunning. Firstly, conversations became a lot more interesting. Rather than talking about mundane matters like qualifications or bosses or strengths and weaknesses, I started hearing much deeper stories. By being vulnerable to others, I left space for others to be vulnerable with me, and I was amazed how many people longed for that opportunity.

Many times, someone would open up in a way that was surprising to me, and probably to them as well, leading to a far greater understanding of their own character and choices. I had to learn how to respond. I learned that empathetic listening and asking simple questions were often enough. The best solutions for most of our issues lie inside us, we just need someone to help us find the courage to bring them forward.

I found younger people trooping to my new unofficial clinic, situated in the coffee lounge of the Shell offices in The Hague. Women found it easier to open than men, perhaps looking for a relatively safe, older, male figure to confide in. I had no problem (to myself) justifying my time on this activity, as I am sure I unlocked some talent in the process and sometimes found myself good team members.

The second result was a major change in my own outlook. Inevitably, I started thinking more about my own life situation, and became open to more than before, both in thought and in discussion. Most of the conversations were helpful but one-off events, but a few developed into relationships where perhaps we would sit down once a month. In these cases, the balance of subject matter became more even.

Now, I have no idea whether so much change would have happened in my life in the following years without this open approach. What I do know is that a lot of change did happen, much more than in any other period of my life. And the major things holding me back before, the problems and issues that I would not spend time on even in personal thought, suddenly came to the fore.

Within two years of this change I had revised my career direction completely and engineered an early retirement at fifty. I had changed my whole outlook towards spirituality and humanity. And I had separated from my wife of over twenty years, later divorcing and starting a new lifetime relationship that is now a marriage. So all of the foundations of my life had been turned upside down.

Now it is hard to establish cause and effect here. Maybe my increased openness led to me challenging more assumptions and initiating change. Or perhaps there was a latent desire for change that required openness as one of its catalysts. A bit of both, probably.

At any rate, until now I had not really challenged the openness as a positive practice, often recommending it to others. Surely assumptions are there to be challenged and denial should be faced up to? And I continued to recommend openness even though I have retreated away from it myself. I haven’t quite gone back to the reserved citizen of yore, but I am no longer so free with my confidences as I was in 2007-09.

A book came to my attention recently to help me understand this dilemma better. I think the title is “committed” – at any rate it is a book by Elizabeth Gilbert, the lady who became justly famous for “Eat, Pray, Love”. In the book she tries to reconcile her own guiding principles with the practice of lifetime monogamous relationships.

Gilbert starts with the statements made by people who split up from long-term relationships. Most of us are surprised when we stray. Our infidelity can be as large as a break up or as small as a recurring thought or desire. Once the recurring thought leads to any action, our partners ask us how it happened. Quite often our response is “I don’t know, it just happened”. This response does not help much to restore trust or respect for maturity.

Gilbert talks about lifetime relationships having walls and windows. Once infatuation wears off, the relationship is sustained partly by a mutual respect and by comfortable habits. But none of us is perfect, and the respect inevitably becomes a little blurred over time, especially at vulnerable times.

Gilbert suggests that during vulnerable times it is better to live in a house than an open field. Smart couples make efforts to build these virtual houses. They do this by reserving intimate parts of their lives for each other, with no outsider allowed in. A couple can view the outside together through windows, and can be viewed as a couple through windows too. But the walls are solid, and our most precious secrets and most intimate facets of our being stay safely behind those solid walls. And building the walls and windows, and keeping the doors shut, provides protection when storms arrive.

I like this model very much. It fits well with my own experience. For whatever combination of reasons, my walls and windows had eroded, and my marriage house became weak. Filled with doubt, I chose increasing openness, thereby making the house even more vulnerable. In the end it collapsed. Subsequently, I have rebuilt a new house with its own strong walls and windows. This naturally limits my need for openness to others, and also makes me just a little cautious of openness as a mantra, even though the new house has big windows and lets in lots of sunlight.

If we accept the model, there are many implications for all of us, all made by Ms Gilbert.

If we are in a long-term relationship, we need to work with each other to build and maintain the walls. That means communication, and hard work. We need to carve out areas of intimacy and continue to feed them. I would say that is more important than good behaviour with others. It is better to live in a great solid house and to take a holiday, than to live in a plywood shack and try not to stray from it.

The model also explains why exes are so toxic to any relationship. Exes always retain spare keys to our houses – we can’t just change the lock. We have to respect this, allow a little latitude and even a little suspicion, and take no risks.

Then there is the transition into a long-term relationship. Habits built up when single have to be modified when committed to someone else.

If we lose a long-term partner, and the excuse is “it just happened”, we know we can look deeper and learn. Had we done enough to build the walls? Perhaps it was just the right time for the relationship to end.

In all of this I try not to argue against openness. Vulnerability is wonderful and brings many rewards, and an open life is generally a more fulfilled one. But, if we also seek the rewards from lifetime relationships, an even greater blessing for many of us, we have to recognize the importance of walls and windows, and make sure we don’t open ourselves to the risk of violation lightly.

A good acid test might be that we should avoid finding ourselves being open with a third party about anything we have not already been open with within the relationship. And in addition that there are always important things about us that only our lifetime partner knows and shares.

Thank you Liz Gilbert. “Eat, Pray, Love” was a lovely book and now you also bring some new life lessons. Would it have made any difference to me in 2007-2009 if I had known that lesson then? I doubt it. But you never know.