Honesty I thought was a child of discipline and that discipline and honesty always went together.
Interestingly I have recently come across examples where honesty is not a derivative of discipline and rules and also where discipline may not have transparency. I found that honesty has been a byproduct of openness. Openness being defined as a tendency to be willing to try out different things, being balanced, not being judgmental. This is the nature of a person who says live and let live - "You do what you want and let me do what I want" - of a person who hates to feel constrained.
Openness is very comfortable with honesty since the open person has no issue revealing about self and has no restraints and rules that condition him to quietude.
After committing what is considered to be an unacceptable thing the disciplined person might break down completely, commit suicide or confess and promise never to repeat it. As Gandhiji did. For a disciplined person, a confession is an end. He vows to be a better person henceforth. His ability to forgive himself is quite limited. Guilt kills him.
The honesty of a disciplined person stems from not wanting to be disciplined by others or shouted at. But the person does not volunteer the truth unnecessarily, if he is an introvert. He is driven by Shoulds and Musts. He has a strong dislike about being open to (trying out) many things some of which he deems inappropriate.
An open person on the other hand, after committing what is considered to be an unacceptable thing, will confess not with the idea of never repeating it but to get it off the chest. The honesty of an open person is driven by a deep dislike for hiding while such a person is not as particular about shoulds and musts.
For an open person, a confession is expected to be a beginning. He expects it to provoke an interesting discussion or action with the party that might claim to have been wronged. The confession is a stimulant and is a social act. Not repeating whatever he confessed to is not necessarily a goal.
The occasional acts which he should not have done but did results in guilt in the open person. Actually the acts themselves don't but the fact that they are hidden and not out in the open do. The guilt prevents him from getting on with life - kinda a puts a brake on his lifestyle. Hence he starts to feel regret for all the things he should have been doing but isn't. Restraining himself from going where his heart wants to is masochistic to him. This situation is addressed through acts of confession. Once he confesses, the brake is removed and he then gets to do the things that his heart bids him.
It's rather strange that honesty could be a child of two very different parents, discipline and openness. It is strange to realize that discipline and being closed can be dishonest because one doesn't reveal everything.
That raises another question. Do other acts have two very different parents (or triggers)? If yes, then the way people are different from each other is in not what they do but in what drives them to do it.
When I dwelt on this confession and openness thing some more, I realized I had missed one point completely.
The word confession implies contrition. A person is on his knees when he confesses.
There may be a case when a person X may inform another person Y of an act that X did which Y may not approve of. This is an ""FYI (FOR YOUR INFO) and do as you will. Frankly I don't care. If you say you don't want me anymore, that suits me because I don't want you either."
The confession in this case is actually an intimation and spoken from a position of power. As you would when you fire an employee from your family run business. It's a message delivered from a boss to an employee where the employee can at best negotiate for one or two more months extra salary as part of severance package. But his employment is terminated and this cannot be reversed. This act of firing, even if it begins with the employer uncomfortably saying "Look John, I am very sorry to inform you that I have found a replacement for you" is not a confession. It is intimidating and is an intimation. At times we do use the word confess when we really meant inform.
Once we see this perspective, we understand that the question is not one primarily of honesty. It is one of irrevocably terminating something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_choice - "Mate expulsion and mate switching: Women may engage in a short-term mating arrangement in order to cause her long-term partner to end their relationship; in other words, to facilitate a break-up. Women may also use short-term mating if their current partner has depreciated in value, and they wish to 'trade-up' and find a partner that they believe has higher value." Exactly what I felt.
Sometimes people cheat because they want their relationship to end, and cheating seems like an easier way to break it than to directly confront their partner. But Nelson also points out that sometimes people cheat because they want something in their current relationship to change: "Women cheat to get out of a marriage, or to stay in one," she says.
Here is another.
From https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/why-do-women-cheat
Using another partner to transition out of a bad marriage is one of the common reasons women have affairs.
"They are on a sinking ship and use it as a life raft because they don't want to just jump into the cold water," Reilly says.
In this context, I am reminded of SRK's confession in the movie Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na in which he first produces a naqli (forged) certificate showing that he passed in his exams. Subsequently he confesses to his parents and admits that he had failed - because SRK (the role) hated to hide things. And he did not really care about his exam one way or the other.
I have a final question: If in the movie, SRK cared about passing in the exam would he have confessed to forging? If we cared about the repercussion of a confession would we confess? If not, can one assume that the confession of an open person is an indication that he does not care about the repercussion?
