People Share 40 Things That Are True, But No One Wants To Hear Them

In order to find out why exactly it's so hard to swallow a hard truth, and how we should react to it, Bored Panda spoke with Susan Petang, a certified divorce coach and the creator of “The Quiet Zone Coaching,” who teaches women how to stop feeling overwhelmed and start waking up happy in the morning again.

“When we develop close relationships, we expect those people to be gentle with us, not hurt us,” said Susan explaining why hard truths are not pleasant to hear. “When they offer up a hard truth, it violates the expectation that the person isn't going to cause us pain. We want them to love and encourage us—but we don't always realize that a hard truth is being given to us with love and encouragement, with our best interests in mind.”

“Often, what someone else calls a ‘hard truth’ we call ‘criticism,’” she said. “If a criticism is true, we can agree and apologize, then work to make it right—or we can ignore and deflect it if it isn't true.”

Moreover, Susan said that when someone we care about delivers a hard truth, we should take that opinion more seriously, because this is a person whose opinion we trust. “I advise my clients to think about the intention behind the message. If the intention is to help us, prevent us from making a mistake, or intervene before we get hurt, it's worthwhile to consider.”

Susan advises asking yourself if the "hard truth" is really true. “Be brutally honest with yourself—remember why your loved one brought it up to you in the first place!”

“It's beneficial to hear a hard truth when we're hurting someone else, hurting ourselves, or not being true to our values,” she explained and added: “So situations that look like that would be drug/alcohol abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse, bad financial or career decisions, or dating someone married if you're religious.”