What do you do when the person you thought you loved isn’t who you thought they were? And how well should – and can – we truly know the people we love?
These are the central questions plaguing Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) in A24’s The Drama, whose impending wedding is thrown into a tailspin after Emma reveals the worst thing she’s ever done.
Speaking on the New York Times′ Modern Love podcast, the co-stars (both in long-term relationships of their own) were asked to weigh in on how much you need to know before committing to someone.
While Pattinson was an advocate for surprise (“I think you kind of suffocate a relationship if you’re saying, I need to know everything about your past”), Zendaya felt it was important to know someone “at the core”.
While the secret at the heart of The Drama may be extreme, the questions it asks – about what it is to love someone in spite of their past, and the impulse to know everything about those we love – are deeply human.
Is total transparency necessary in relationships?
Dr Tim Dean, a senior philosopher at The Ethics Centre, says truth is a core tenet of moral philosophy. However, he also acknowledges intimate relationships are inherently vulnerable.
“Sometimes that means people aren’t necessarily ready for, or able to understand or interpret the truth, and so sometimes we do need a little bit of privacy,” he says.
“Ethically, you wouldn’t withhold information for self-interested purposes. You’re not trying to deceive somebody. But if your intention is to help and support your partner, then I think that is actually quite reasonable.”
Dean gives the example of past relationships and how it’s not always helpful to talk in detail about them with a new partner.
“Honesty is a very important principle underlying intimate relationships,” agrees Dr Rowan Burckhardt, clinical psychologist and founder of the Sydney Couples Counselling Centre.
However, he says there are some cases when this can bristle against other principles, like “emotional awareness, compassion and empathy”. This is particularly true for instances from one’s past.
Still, he says, “you have to be careful this doesn’t become a justification for destructive behaviour or withholding important information,” like not telling a partner about infidelity.
Psychology researcher Dr Raquel Peel points out that keeping secrets is extremely common – the average person has 13 at any one time, according to previous studies.
“It’s actually more about whether that secret keeps you preoccupied to a point where you feel like, ‘if they find out that I’m keeping this secret, they’re not going to love me, or they’re going to reject me, or think differently about me’,” says Peel, referencing research on how secret keeping affects well-being.
“Because we don’t always keep secrets intentionally. It’s just part of being human – we have our thoughts, and we are not sharing everything that comes across our mind.”
Can you ever truly know someone?
It’s a question that philosophers, lovers and laypeople have pondered for millennia: is it possible to ever truly, fully know someone?
The short (and rather unsatisfying) answer, says Dean, is no.
“We can never truly know ourselves. A lot of our own behaviour and the way we encounter the world is unconscious… And we know that we create stories about ourselves,” he says.
“So if we think about how difficult it is for us to understand ourselves, it’s even harder to understand other people – what truly goes on in their minds. And while that can be frustrating, it can also be a source of surprise.
“This is both the wonder and the pain of humanity in trying to find a relationship where our weirdness and our uniqueness can somehow become compatible with somebody else’s.”
Given these limitations, determining someone’s moral character can be tricky.
“We automatically judge people’s character all the time,” says Dean, pointing to “attribution bias”, the concept of attributing behaviour to inner character.
But this can be unreliable.
“Sometimes we’re in difficult positions, thrust into circumstances where we lose control or mental illness can have an effect. These things may be transient and that behaviour might not reflect upon our character,” says Dean.
Burckhardt thinks “it’s more important to who they currently are rather than do a forensic examination of their entire past.”
“[But] if it’s something, extremely shocking, like they’ve committed a serious crime, then obviously I think that is very important to disclose.”
Where do you draw the line?
While it may not be possible to ever truly know someone, Dean says it is important to have an idea of one’s own values.
“We need to ethically have an idea of ‘who I am and what are my rights? What am I willing to defend. And what are my red lines?’ That’s a part of wisdom and self-knowledge. It’s a journey that we all go on trying to learn and figure these things out for ourselves,” he says.
But beyond these hard lines, loving someone should involve a willingness to evolve.
“A big part of relationships is not just meeting someone as they are, but going on a journey with someone, influencing them and allowing yourself to be influenced by them, hopefully in a mutually constructive way,” says Dean.
“We are all flawed creatures, and we know that vulnerability can cause us to do irrational and sometimes harmful things.”
Peel recommends having an open conversation with a partner about these lines, which helps build trust.
“It’s important to sit down and talk about, ‘OK, what are our boundaries? What’s something that we’re willing to share or talk about?’”
“For example, are you willing to let your partner go through your phone? That’s where you start to establish the line between privacy and secrecy.”
Even something like an affair, might not necessarily be a death sentence, she says.
“That can be a catalyst for change, reflection and reanalysing what’s going on in that relationship.”
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