“No marriage can be judged truly successful unless husband and wife are each other’s best critics.  The same holds true for friendship.  There is a traditional concept that friendship should be a conflict-free relationship, a ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ arrangement, relying solely on a mutual exchange of favors and compliments as prescribed by good manners.  Such relationships are superficial and intimacy-avoiding and do not deserve the name of friendship which is so commonly applied to them.  Mutual loving confrontation is a significant part of all successful and meaningful human relationships.  Without it the relationship is either unsuccessful or shallow.” ~ Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled