Honesty...hmm what does that really mean?

"A man can only be judged by his actions, and not by his good intentions or his beliefs."---Paul Newman

Honesty...isn't that a funny word? The dictionary definition is :

hon⋅es⋅ty 
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness.
2. truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.
3. freedom from deceit or fraud.

I know that while I was married that I was never really 100% honest, but whom of us has been or always is 100% honest in everything we do? I know that in the past I was afraid of causing an argument, or a fight or having tension in the home. So I told white lies, did it make things better? For the short-term, maybe but in the end it made things worse, much worse.

So I decided to turn over a new leaf and do my best to always be honest. It is a hard thing to do and in the beginning it was hard to always be honest I struggled with daily, it was a hard habit to break. Well then something amazing happened....what was it you ask? Well I met someone and it was easy to be honest and upfront about things. Life was still a challenge and was full of it's ups and downs, but I had someone that was amazing, treated me well and cared for me in a way that was very different then before. It was incredible to feel my heart grow more and more in love with the person. Then of course as luck would have it the unexpected happened, I was lied to,mind you a small white lie here and there surely can't hurt, however,this was a whopper, boy did it ever sting. Was I angry..maybe a little, was I mad, yes and no, was I hurt, big time!! My heart was broken into little pieces.

After having my heart broken, I had to decide what the plan of action was to be...it took a lot of thought, a little crying (OK a lot of crying). I started to think back to all the little white lies all the way up to the big whoppers I told in my lifetime, all the people I had hurt in the process. I want to apologize, I am truly sorry to those of you that I hurt with my dishonesty. OK so back to the plan of action...OK so being a girl, I went into full blown "girlie mode", the over emotional, clinging to any last hope of salvaging a relationship that clearly only one person wanted it to work or was ready for it to work.

So yes I did the typical girl thing, told him I was hurt and heart broken, and tried to convince him what a great catch I am. When in reality all I should have done was said well I'm sorry this happened, so where do we go from here? It has been a drawn out thing, yes while we are still friends, it is hard for me to be trusting again. Here lies the dilemma, how can I judge someone who's choices are ones that I have made in the past? Do I forgive and forget,act as if nothing happened ? Or do I protect my heart and shut that person out (yes, that is a hard thing to do when you love someone)? Or do I do a bit of both? Finding that balance will be hard.

While honesty is a funny word and means different things to different people, honesty is always the best policy, and yes while being honest can hurt those you love, being dishonest with them can ruin the relationship and make things a lot harder to deal with.