Withholds:

A withhold is any thought withheld for any reason. You must make a conscious decision to withhold it for a reason. Fleeting thoughts that don't cause you to make a decision to withhold them are not withholds.

Typically a withhold is a thought which if shared verbally would cause an upset.

All withholds are communicated non-verbally. You either look like you're an open, light-hearted, well-adjusted approachable person, or you look somewhat shut down, closed off (to include a rough, tough, macho, or an angry looking act), and not very happy. Someone who communicates openly, honestly, and spontaneously simply looks like they are friendly.

A withhold can be a long overdue expression of appreciation, respect, or love, or, of disrespect or resentment.

A withhold serves as a barrier to the experience of communication, of love. Your partner may not know what thought you are withholding, only that something is missing, something's wrong. They know what it would be like to be experiencing your love and it ain't there; your presentation looks like love and sounds like love but it's not the joyous experience of love.

All divorces began with each partner withholding a thought from the other. There are no exceptions to this phenomenon. Most divorced couples had one or more thoughts they withheld from their partner before the marriage.

One's arrogance, the belief that they got away with life's perpetrations, always begs to be caught.

It is impossible for only one partner to have a withhold. If you are withholding something from your partner they too are withholding a thought from you.  Withholders always always attract withholders; again, no exceptions.

If a couple have an agreement to communicate openly, honestly, and spontaneously, no withholds, and one withholds a thought from the other, the partner can tell immediately—such is the space of integrity. A withhold begs to be shared so as to restore the experience of integrity.

Examples:

• Perhaps as a teen you sneaked out to have sex and lied to your parents. That lie, that withhold, is affecting you and communications with your present partner to this very day. Once acknowledged to your parents the negative effects of the withhold disappear.
  
• Perhaps you conned your date into having sex behind his/her parent's backs, yet you presented yourself to them as an honest and trustworthy person; that deceit, that withhold, is having an effect to this very day.
  
• Perhaps you withheld a judgmental thought from someone because you knew it would be extremely uncomfortable to deliver.
  
• No doubt you've participated (as the gossiper or the enabler—the space in which gossip took place) in some damaging gossip about another and never told the person to their face.

Other withholds could be specific experiences that you stuffed such as what it was like to be on the receiving end of someone's communication. If for instance your parent yelled at you and you have yet to tell him/her that it didn't feel good, then you are out-integrity, you are incomplete, and so is your parent (they have yet to be acknowledged for that specific abuse).

If you suspect your partner is deceiving you it's for certain you began the deceit by withholding your thought of choice from them.

If someone is afraid to tell you a truth then you have not been a safe space for the truth to be told. You have in fact unconsciously created fear in your relationship. We unconsciously use fear to control others.

Children are integrity meters: They can tell when parents have lapsed into their imitation of communication, they can tell when there's a withhold in the space, as such they will do anything (cry, misbehave, do poorly in school, or even get sick) to restore the experience of integrity and love.

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