It’s clear, therefore, that conversations are much more than a way to get from point A to point B. They are a tangled knot of messages, spoken and unspoken, fumbling toward different destinations at once, sometimes at each other’s expense. “A lot of communication is more subtle than ‘to tell or not to tell,’” Caughlin explains. “Disclosing and avoiding is not all or nothing.” In a study of adult children with a parent who had suffered from lung cancer, he found that the healthiest way families dealt with competing task, identity, and relationship goals was to be generally open while avoiding a few specific topics. Families who managed this balancing act saw their openness as a positive coping strategy and employed tactful avoidance (e.g., not mentioning a father’s smoking history, which likely led to his lung cancer diagnosis) without acknowledging that it contradicted their rosy family standard of honesty. It’s as if their collective self-image as an “open” family papered over the awkwardness of leaving some topics alone.