Blareway To Heaven

My friends are shocked at how honest my boyfriend and I are with each other. He'll tell me I need to brush my teeth...again. I'll ask him if he's heard of deodorant. We tease each other a lot, but it's not mean-spirited. We love each other. Also, he says he's grateful that he doesn't have to constantly censor himself with me as he did with his previous girlfriends. But are we being too honest?

--Worried

Sometimes the naked truth needs a back wax before it gets presented to anyone. But it really depends on the audience. You two, for example, seem to have a mutual admiration society with moments of "Umm...perhaps you hadn't noticed..." The message? "Be yourself! But with one fewer green thing between your teeth." Marriage researcher John Gottman finds that what matters is the overall climate of the relationship -- whether it's a warm and loving friendship or the kind of "ship" where one longs to shove the other overboard when the cruise director rounds the corner. Gottman also emphasizes the importance of raising issues gently and sooner rather than later. Your way may not seem gentle to your friends, but providing that you don't start seasoning your humor with contempt (which Gottman finds is a real relationship-killer), you probably have a good chance of growing old (and smelly) together. Picture yourselves in the old fogies home, reciting romantic poetry to each other -- like this one (which I think is from Tennyson): "Roses are red, violets are blue, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one, too."