What Should I Be Honest About at the Start of a Relationship?

When men and women are really looking to settle down and find that special someone they want to get serious with, they will always want honesty. Being open and honest about everything is what's going to make any good relationship last and even get stronger with time but on a first date or in the first few weeks of a relationship how open should you be?

As no-one would want to hear about someone being in love with their ex partner still and how their whole life fell apart when they left and how they are going for custody of the kids on a first date, a little bit of common sense is required. Never talk about your ex on a first date and if you are tempted to, you are obviously not ready to date, so go and get a hobby instead.

Be ready for a date: don't be bullied into meeting up with a friend of a friend if you're not interested in trying to find someone. It will waste your time and theirs and potentially if you had waited a few months it could have been the right person and the right time.

Be Open: giving someone the idea but not necessarily the details. I believe this is the key to balancing honesty with having space for a bit of romance.

Things you must be honest about are things like your name, age, job, where you live and with whom. People don't want to find out after a few weeks that your fundamentals aren't true, that the things they've told other people about you aren't quite the truth. This will jeopardise any relationship and might even stop it before it starts. If someone can't accept these basic things about you then they really aren't right for you anyway.

Now onto the trickier things like you previous relationships, this is where a note of caution is required. You may still want to express all those feelings about your previous lover but that could frighten away the person your with, so just be open, say how long ago it ended and roughly what terms you are on. Be honest about any children involved or anything that may involve them, as your partner in the future, like does he or she own half of the home you live at, are you getting a divorce soon or is it already done and how often do you see your children. Talk about the positive things only if you can but if you happen to be going through a custody battle with your soon to be divorced wife and she's got your pet dog and your house and you could happily run her down, then I would say you're not ready to date!

You only want to give this information out if the person you are with is actually asking you, if it turns into you filling an awkward gap in the conversation with ranting about your ex, then stop talking and ask them a question about them.

Everyone is different and might not want to tell you everything straight away, sometimes they already know your just not the one and sometimes it might be something they need to trust you with and later on as the trust develops they will expand on their lives. Never push someone to talk if they are not comfortable but at the same time, if someone will not tell you anything then this could also be a sign they're lying.

The biggest clues will be the obvious ones, if they have told you where they work go and meet them from work and if they have told you about family, go and meet the family too, especially if you are feeling this could be something special. After a few weeks you should know all the things you need to know about someone but most importantly you should know how you feel about them.