Should The Right Hand Let The Left Know What Its Doing?

Is it okay for one person in a relationship to keep secrets from the other person? That seems to be a simple enough question. Most people would volunteer the goody two shoe answer of "of course not". That would be the easy answer, but not the most believed. There are a great deal of couples who are honest about the taste of the food, the hair styles, body appearance, and even sexual satisfaction. Unfortunately, there are not very many that are willing to be completely honest about financial situations.

I had to ask my wife for forgiveness one year. Sometimes, people keep secrets, and they do not even realize it. I privately harbored the belief that my wife would "single handily" wipe out any money that she found out about. I was operating in unforgiving ways, and judging her based on her past decisions. I thought to myself, " I will never tell her, if I win the Lottery". I thought that I would pay off all of the bills, secure our future investments, and take her shopping with the left over money. Does that sound familiar? Can I get a witness? I know someone has felt that way before. I realized that I had no right to keep such a blessing from her, if such a blessing happened. I would feel betrayed to know that my wife won $50,000, and disclose it after it was depleted. That is why I apologized, and asked for her forgiveness. I began to understand that we would never be blessed as a couple, if we could not function as a couple. Why should great things fall into our hands, when we plan to lie about it immediately.

The older generation would concede to having some secrets in order to make the relationship have peace. I suppose that concept seems like a noble one. The terrible part about keeping secrets is that they can sometimes lead to deeper secrets. Have you ever heard someone say that lies can lead you into an even deeper web of lies? Secrets can work the same way in a relationship. One secret can cause a person to tell several in order to cover up the first. It may have been a noble gesture in the beginning, but it could really hurt your partner after the heavy build up of dishonesty begins to tumble. I have personally witnessed both genders from the older generations advise people to keep secrets. Female x told her niece to keep a stash, and never tell your man. I quote, " Chowl, don't ya let dat boy know where all ya pennies be, or you ain't gone ever have none for ya self". On a separate occasion, I heard male x say, " If you ever let a woman know what your private savings is, she gone always find a purpose for it". I will not deny that it certainly feels like the old people were correct sometimes, but they were not.

I always tell my children that there is only one reason to lie. There are no valid, or acceptable reasons to lie. All reasons fall into one category. That category is fear. That is right. Everyone who ever lied, did so because of the fear of one thing or another. People fear getting fired, beaten, divorced, rejected, ridiculed, emotionally hurt, and many other things. It is all fear. What are you scared of? A secret and a lie is in the same family. Both are akin to dishonesty. Stop the lies now.

If a couple is not married, I agree with the concept of a need to know relationship. Some things are none of your business. That only changes when you are married or engaged to be married. It would be unwise to tell your boyfriend about every dime that you posses, and the access codes to all of the goods. If he gives no commitment, you don't have to either. That applies to both sexes. The bible talks about two people becoming one flesh. That also means one bank account. Even if you have two, they must operate like one. Both partners need to know what is going on. Why does it feel like freedom to not tell the other person? There is no agreement between the two. A house divided against itself cannot stand.What is his is his and hers. If you don't trust him or her, don't marry the person. It reflects your judgement, if you can't trust a person whom you have carefully probed. Discard that person, thank your intuition, and start again. Christians call that discernment. You must trust yourself, and that person will become "yourself". The two shall become one flesh. I am not going to go there completely, but quit hiding the money. A division sown any place within your relationship will ultimately cause division at the surface level. A split in the money is a split in the honey. I say, "First the bank, Then the bed". Complete separation is inevitable.People have been lolled to sleep with passivity. Its time to wake up and smell the coffee. If this hurts, this is for you.

What can you do about this whole mess? The first thing is to simply acknowledge that you have a problem in your relationship. The next thing to find out is why you have the problem in the relationship. The problem is common, and is one of the leading causes of divorce in the United States. Most people did not set out to be a fabricating dog, full of fear, and stuck to a web of lies. I said before, that secret and lies are rooted in fear. One might ask, "how do I get beyond it"? There are two immediate things to do.

1. Find out what your specific fear is.
2. Understand that you can defeat it with your mouth.

Every lie that I have ever told could have been defeated with courage, confidence, and communication.

• Courage: A necessary volitional act. A self imposed decision
• Confidence: A trust that only comes with intimate knowledge of the subject matter.
• Communication: The ability to transmit and receive the essential message to be conveyed.

Every time that I improved my spousal communications, I also improved my relationship. Improved communications equals improved relations. There is a way to talk about the fact that both people feel suppressed when conversing on money. There are deeper trust issues, and certain division at large in the relationship. These things can be resolved. You can get on the same page, even if it takes counselling, study, and a ton of prayer. All things are possible. Should the right hand let the left know what it is doing? The answer is, absolutely yes. Unison, syncopation, coordination, and relation, are words of harmony that only exist when two work together. Let's get it.

The Wisdom Of Forgiveness

We live in a world of infinite knowledge limited by elusive wisdom. We have access to multiple volumes of past human brains. We have what is known as the inspired word of God, which is considered stretching beyond human wisdom. The average man or woman can access almost anything in any language. I can speak a bit of Japanese, but i was never strong at written Japanese. Never the less, I was able to translate an entire letter from English to Japanese Kanji in a matter of moments, via Internet. Many people are not so fortunate in the area of knowing what to do with the knowledge. A intelligent person can have a profound knowledge of something, and still feel handcuffed to mediocrity. People feel this way all of the time. Have you ever believed the answer was right in front of you, but you simply could not grasp the appropriate application of the principle which leads you to the desired results? I am sure that you have. Everyone faces these type of moments in route to wisdom. Wisdom is the divine ability to apply acquired knowledge. Wisdom is the upper echelon of the human capability. It is such a heavy feeling burden when I believe that I know what to do, but I don't know how to go about doing it. This is where wisdom is necessary.

There are an array of applications for wisdom ( The how to and when to of the what). How can I take better care of my family? Who should I marry, and at what age? Should I invest in this property? How do I fix this relationship? How do I forgive? How do I go on living like this? We have plenty of input from the diverse arena of knowledge, but which input do we use? Let us choose one subject, and explore a scenario of applied wisdom.

The principle thing to know is how to obtain wisdom in a given area. However,  a "how to" method on obtaining specific wisdom is another book in itself. Therefore, I will simply give you some of my own wisdom from a particular area. Your responsibility is to sift it through your "Bull-O-Meter", and see if it is applicable for your use or discarding. Let us take the subject of forgiveness as one universally common problem in the "how to" area.  People do not understand what steps to take in order to forgive someone. Let me try to help, and you can call it wisdom or "wisdumb".

There are generally two questions to ask when going through the process of forgiveness. 

1. Did the person in question act maliciously with full knowledge and intent?
2. If the act was intently, do I need to forgive anyway?

I have seen people disconnect from others when the other person had no idea what they did, or never intended for the act to be interpreted in such a negative way. People have left churches mad at pastors. People refuse to go to a church because of something that happened some where else. Spouses have slept in different bed for years because of a single offense. How many people have you turned your back on because you think they turned their back on you first? Unforgiving begins with a root seed of offense.  
In order to get rid of the dark and unforgiving hurt, you must track down the offense. Ask yourself, "did this person really intend to offend me"? Did this person hate me? Would they hurt me on purpose? Do they communicate in a way that is different than mine? Are they more passive or aggressive than I am? I know that thousands left my church at one point. The pastor made decisions, and later admitted that the changes came to early and at the wrong time. How much more character do you want than that? He admitted he was out of season. I assessed to situation the entire time as a Christian should. The bible tells us not to judge one another, but it does tell us to judge all situations. I think I judged it perfectly. I asked myself if he did anything harmful and out of order on purpose. The answer was no. He acted with high character before, during, and after the split. I stayed. I was never taken by offense. Even if i were, i know  his heart was not of evil intentions. I would have forgiven him over and over again. I urge you to ask yourself the same question. Did your friend or spouse do it on purpose? Did your teacher or boss say it, knowing that you would be offended? Did your sibling desire to see your pain? If not, please forgive them. They knew not what they did. Like little innocent children, give them one more chance. That is what it means to be the bigger person. You become like a parent or the everlasting father. You give grace, pardons, and you sow the seed of self sacrifice. It yields a harvest of unrestricted love.

It is slightly more of a daunting task to forgive someone who malevolently abused your friendship with perfect knowledge of the forthcoming pain

Sometimes, I am not successful at picturing the offender as a retarded child. That is when I have to go to the highest level of self defense. My defense is to extract the offense from within myself because it is my responsibility physically, mentally, and spiritually. The internal stress has proven to be enough to cause bodily traumas and disease. You physically are dis-eased and a cancerous environment is given prime time within your dwelling. Your mental disposition leads back to your physical position. Where the head goes, the body must follow. If you are a spiritual person, most spiritual manuals will denounce the practice of not forgiving. The bible makes it a command. It is bad karma for Buddhist and other religions. Most spiritual people understand that the final responsibility of forgiveness lies with the person who is offended. This means that you are doing it for yourself first and the offender second. At any rate, your sacrifice of letting it go is notable. Your harvested gift will be a light, burden free, spirit, body, and soul. Your harvest/reward is beautiful, and it is all yours, due to your courageous actions. You are so smart. It takes so much inner character. You are ready. The time is now. You can do it. Let's forgive.

Ask Big Al: The Relationship Murderer

The First Step To Fixing Your Relationship