One of the central myths of American romance right now is this notion that you and your partner should be able to tell each other anything and everything

I am begging you not to do this

There are so many things about you that are just for you, for your soul, as well as a whole other category of things that are only for your therapist or priest to know. Both are largely things that your partner can not know and remain in a stable relationship with you

If you don't keep at least one thin inch of your interiority for yourself, & hopefully more, you will destroy all possibility of mystery, and therefore erotic charge. Worse, you lose the space in which you can withdraw & renew yourself, which keeps the relationship fresh

I'm not saying that intimacy shouldn't deepen and grow over time, or that you shouldn't know all kinds of things about each other that no one else does. There's also a special class of knowledge that you should keep in reserve just for your partner.

But it's not sustainable to expect them to be able to withstand the very worst and most difficult parts of you, especially those that are immature and grasping, or cause difficult subconscious emotions and judgments to arise in them upon seeing them

And it's not kind to yourself to cast the deepest and hardest truths of your soul before someone who doesn't have the infinitesimal layers of context needed to fully appreciate them. Some parts of your soul are cheapened when they're witnessed by anyone but you and the divine

People only have so much ego strength, and it's much more inhumane to demand infinite forbearance from your partner than it is to fail to hold every brutal, perverted corner of another person's interiority with grace

Discretion is a mercy that allows you both to be human

X. It’s what’s happening