learning to tell the truth instead of keeping the peace

What I’m discovering about self-worth, honesty, and letting go of the need to keep love from leaving.

As I’ve begun to understand this more clearly, I’ve also had to take an honest look at how it’s shown up in my closest relationships—especially in my marriages.

I’ve also shared this part of the story on YouTube, for those who prefer to listen or watch:

If this connects with you, I’d love to have you there as well.

For a long time, I carried a lot of anger toward both of my husbands—toward the ways I felt unseen, unheard, or mistreated. And some of that anger is real. Some of it’s valid. But if I’m honest, not all of it belongs to them.

Some of it’s directed at myself.

For the ways I stayed.
For the ways I said yes when I meant no.
For the ways I allowed things I knew, deep down, weren’t right.

That’s a hard thing to sit with.

Because people-pleasing doesn’t just affect how we’re treated, it affects what we tolerate. And in some ways, it can even become its own form of manipulation. Not in a calculated or devious way, but in the sense that we’re trying to manage outcomes—keep the peace, avoid conflict, hold onto connection—by not fully showing up as ourselves.

I can see now how that played out in my own life.

I remember being told I was “the love of his life”… and it didn’t fully land.

And I never said it back. Part of me thought: If that were true, you wouldn’t have treated me the way you did.

But there was another part, too—quieter, but just as powerful—that didn’t know how to receive those words at all. That didn’t believe I could be loved with that kind of intensity.

And that’s where this goes deeper than behavior.

Because it’s not just about learning to say no. It’s about learning to believe that I’m worthy of a love that doesn’t have to be earned, managed, or maintained through self-abandonment.

I can see now how that followed me into marriage—that love was something I had to hold together. To maintain it. Protect it. Manage it. Even at the cost of myself.

There’s another piece of this that I’ve had to understand over time. For me, what I went through as a child shaped how I saw my own worth—and a lot of that became tied to sexuality.

When I got married the first time, that played out in ways I didn’t recognize at the time. About six months into our marriage, my husband told me he thought we should get divorced. He said he didn’t think he’d ever be able to please me sexually.

That was confusing to me… because for the two years we’d been together before that, that had never been an issue.

But what stands out to me now isn’t just what he said—it’s what I did.

I didn’t fight for clarity.
I didn’t question it.
I didn’t even stop to ask what was really going on.

Instead… I mirrored him.

Because the belief was already there—that love could be lost… and it was my responsibility, somehow, to keep it.

I can see now that I wasn’t just trying to keep the peace…
I was trying to keep love from leaving.

Looking back at the Kid Store incident, I can see how my response—I’ll be good, I’ll mind you—did more than shape my behavior. It shaped what I allowed myself to feel.

I learned to shut parts of myself down. Not consciously, not with intention… but because some part of me seemed to understand that showing too much—feeling too much—might put me at odds with what someone else wanted from me.

And if being out of alignment meant risking love, it felt safer not to feel at all.

For a long time, it felt like there was something hard covering my heart—like a piece of petrified wood. Once alive, once soft, but over time, something that had hardened in order to protect.

That became complicated in marriage—especially when I was with someone who needed me to emote in order to feel secure in the relationship. What felt natural to him felt almost impossible for me.

I didn’t know how to give something I had learned to shut down.

And trying to do both—keep the peace and meet that need—became exhausting.

That worked for a long time.

Until it didn’t.

I can see now that this showed up differently in each of my marriages.

With my first husband, it was easier to stay in that place. We had similar upbringings, and in many ways, we related on a more surface level. A lot of my deeper emotional processing happened outside the marriage, with friends.

But even then, there was something I wasn’t receiving from him that I longed for—something I might have called a need at the time, though I can see now that some of that need was tied to my own sense of worth.

With my second husband, it was different. The emotional dynamic was more intense. There was more of a pull—a need for me to express, to emote—in ways that didn’t come naturally to me.

And what I had learned to suppress… was now being asked for.

Often.

And sometimes in ways that felt tied to other parts of the relationship, too.

And I didn’t know how to meet that without losing myself.

But here’s what I’m learning now.

Keeping the peace isn’t the same as telling the truth. And for most of my life, I chose peace.

Not because I was weak.
Not because I didn’t care.
But because peace felt like the safest way to keep love from leaving.

But the truth is that the peace which requires self-abandonment isn’t peace at all… it’s a kind of chaos.

And I’m learning—slowly—that telling the truth doesn’t mean everything falls apart. It doesn’t mean that love automatically leaves, or that I lose my place, or that things change for the worse.

Sometimes relationships shift.
Sometimes dynamics break.
Sometimes things that were barely being held together… stop holding completely.

And that’s been one of the hardest parts for me because I spent so many years believing it was my job to hold it all together—to make it all work out.

Now, I absolutely recognize that there are parts of this I won’t ever get to work through with them. Conversations that won’t happen. Questions that won’t be answered. A kind of closure that won’t ever come from them.

Thankfully, I’m beginning to understand that healing doesn’t have to come from the other person. Some of it is happening now—in quiet times of reflection, in my relationship with God and the healing He wants to bring, and in the process of writing and looking honestly at what I’ve lived through all these years.

I’m starting to understand something different:

Love isn’t something I have to maintain through performance,
to protect by disappearing,
or to earn by being easy, agreeable, or small.

Because telling the truth—even when it’s uncomfortable, creates tension, or risks being misunderstood—is part of how I come back to myself.

And I’m still learning what that looks like. Still learning how to say no, how to speak honestly, how to feel what I spent years trying not to feel.

It’s not always easy, but I know it’s the right path forward.

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
Isaiah 43:18–19

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series.

Read the full story here
Watch Part 3 on YouTube
Go back to Part 2