Buoyed by extensive marketing, The Truth About Love was a commercial success, topping the charts in eight countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, and Sweden.

In Australia, The Truth About Love became the first album to top the year-end chart for two consecutive years and was certified nine times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).

[5] Despite media speculation that Pink would take an extended break from music to focus on motherhood, her management team suggested in an interview with American Top 40 that the singer could release a new album next year.

[7] In an open letter to her fans posted on her official website, she detailed the process of crafting the record, saying, "I'm putting my heart and soul into every song and there's a lot of that these days.

[13] While her previous albums were created by working every day until the early morning, Pink said becoming a mother has changed the process of making music, essentially complying with a strict routine.

[19][21] Pink drew inspiration for her songwriting from the various emotions she had experienced in her "exhausting search" for love, as well as the year she and husband Carey Hart were separated, admitting she was "still exorcising some demons".

[19][22] Explaining her writing process, Pink told Daily News that the record reflects her life at the time and her newfound happiness, inspired by motherhood.

[13][23] Kurstin considered that the creative process was not difficult because Pink would compose lyrics fast once she felt inspired, comparing her work ethic with a stream of consciousness.

[30][35][36] According to Jon Pareles of The New York Times, the album's instrumentation makes use of "dance beats, rock guitars, piano hymns, string orchestras, and hip-hop loops".

[41] Mesfin Fekadu from the Associated Press summarized The Truth About Love as a "rollercoaster of emotions", comparing the album with "watching a reality show about the ups and downs of her relationship with her husband".

[47] Described as a breakup anthem,[48] the next track, "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)", is an upbeat electropop song with "Modest Mouse-style rock riffs" and "snappy guitars".

[17][57] The deluxe version of The Truth About Love continues with the track "My Signature Move", an anthemic pop-rock song produced by Walker,[11][58] while "Is This Thing On?"

[17] The next song is "Run", an emotional power ballad dedicated to Pink's daughter, with lyrics such as the opening lines, "Remember make believe in you/ All the things I said I'd do/ I wouldn't hurt you, like the world did me/ Keep you safe, I'd keep you sweet".

[90] The singer was a main headliner at the 2012 edition of Jingle Bell Ball, an annually-held event promoted by Capital FM, which took place at the O2 Arena in London.

[96] It received positive commentary from music critics; reviewers complimented Pink's vocals and the song's anthemic chorus, being heralded as a return to form.

[102] Released on October 10, 2012, the video portrays Pink and her lover, played by Prattes, expressing their intense love story and frustrations through an elaborate choreography inspired by the Apache dance.

[97] In the United States, "Just Give Me a Reason" spent three consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Pink's fourth number-one single in the country.

[106] The accompanying music video, directed by Diane Martel, is mainly set on a floating mattress surrounded by mist and water and features a cameo from Pink's husband.

[97] An accompanying music video showing scenes of Pink playing, fighting, and riding bicycles with her family, interspersed with clips from a tour performance, was released on July 1, 2013.

[35] In a positive review for MSN Music, Robert Christgau viewed that, apart from its last two songs, the album "hit[s] every time" and summarized it as "a recorded image of [Pink's] feisty, heartfelt, all-over-the-place love/sex life".

[131] Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic applauded the album for "expanding and deepening [Pink's] music without succumbing to stuffy pretension", calling it "weird and willfully, proudly human".

[17] Caryn Ganz of Spin compared the album favorably to Stronger (2011) by Kelly Clarkson, stating that both records "are stocked with confidence-jolting up-tempo jams, broken-hearted weepers, and candid explorations of their own flaws".

[46] The Boston Globe's writer Sarah Rodman praised the album for juxtaposing "rock muscle, pop froth, and expressions both heartfelt and petulant".

[37] Writing for The Guardian, Caroline Sullivan noted that the singer "funnels her thoughts into some of the most pungent songs in pop" and commended her for having "the nous to convert raw emotion into pop-punk earworms".

[130] Hermoine Hoby of The Observer favored its "workmanlike ballads delivered with beyond-workmanlike shading" over its "chunky guitar pop stuffed with shouty, bad-girl choruses", which she considered dominant on the album.

[132] Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune perceived "formula production and hack songwriting", but complimented Pink's personality showcased in its "handful" of worthy tracks.

[45] Jody Rosen, writing for Rolling Stone, viewed The Truth About Love as "supercatchy", although he opined that the album "devolves into self parody" as "Pink strains to shock, peppering songs with gratuitous curse words".

[134] Billboard ranked it as one of the best albums of the 2010s decade, with reviewer Sarah Grant affirming that Pink "created a ramshackle masterpiece that reminds us of what it's really like to be human" by "figuring out how the foreign experiences of a family-woman fit into [her] repertoire".

[138] The Truth About Love became Pink's first number-one album in the United States, debuting at the summit of the Billboard 200 chart with 280,000 copies sold and earning her biggest first-week sales at the time.

[149] In other regions, The Truth About Love reached number one on charts in Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland,[150][151][152][153] and peaked within the top ten in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, among others.