If you’ve been in couple’s therapy before, you may be familiar with a common policy that many (or most) couple’s therapists have, called a “No Secrets” policy. Family therapists often have this policy, as well. In couple’s therapy, the “No Secrets” policy states that if one person in a couple privately reveals information to the therapist that they’ve been keeping secret from their partner, they must reveal that secret to their partner – usually in the next session.
Why do therapists have “No Secrets” policies?
Therapists who work with couples and families routinely put this policy in place because keeping a secret from other people attending therapy compromises the integrity of the therapeutic relationship.
How, you ask? Well: say one person revealed a secret to the therapist – in a one-on-one session, a phone conversation, or an email or text message – and the therapist didn’t require the secret to be shared.
At that point, the therapist becomes a secret-keeper, too.
Secret-keeping on the part of a therapist is a loose cannon: at any point, the secret-keeper could choose to reveal the secret, or the partner could find out some other way. If the partner then discovers that their therapist not only knew this secret, but had been keeping it from them for some time, the partner may feel like the therapist is siding with the secret-keeper, and even colluding with them to deceive the partner. (Many people would say the therapist is, in fact, doing these things).
Though unintended, the effect of this secret-keeping is to destroy the trust that had been so carefully built between that client and the therapist. In this way, a therapist’s secret-keeping carries immense risk of harm to the therapeutic relationship, and can undermine or even destroy the ability to conduct ongoing therapy if that secret is revealed.
My Limited Secrets Policy
While a “No Secrets” policy serves some crucially important purposes by preventing collusion and a relational imbalance in the therapy room, there are some additional therapeutic considerations that I feel it overlooks. Thus, I’ve adopted a policy with some important differences from the “No Secrets” policy described above. I call it a “Limited Secrets” policy.
In this post, I want to describe what my Limited Secrets policy is, and why I have taken this approach.
My Limited Secrets Policy:
If one partner in a couple shares something with me that they’ve been keeping secret, and in my professional judgment I determine that this information is something that would prevent the secret-keeper’s partner from participating in the relationship with fully-informed consent, then
I will ask the secret-keeper to disclose the secret within three weeks.
Why do I establish this longer timeframe for disclosure? For me, it goes to the reasons why a person may keep a secret from their spouse or life-partner in the first place.
Why do secrets happen in relationships?
If a person has been keeping a secret for a long time, there’s usually a reason related to the secret-keeper’s current emotional capacity to tell the truth. (This also applies to lying, either by deceit or omission.) When people aren’t open about the truth, it’s often because they have some important needs that a part of them feels would be jeopardized by disclosure. In other words, they wouldn’t be keeping a secret if they didn’t think that being honest would involve some significant relational fallout – and at least for now, they can’t tolerate that fallout.
Dishonesty rarely happens when everything is hunky-dory in terms of trust and communication within a relationship. A lack of honesty is often simply just one symptom that points to underlying emotional or relational challenges. In the secret-keeping partner, these can include…
- a fear of hurting their partner
- a perceived lack of intimacy, connection, or acceptance that inhibits openness
- a fear of their partner’s judgment
- a fear that their partner will reject them or end their relationship if they knew the truth
- avoidant attachment, leading them to distance themselves from their partner when feeling emotional overwhelm
- having experienced punishment (or negative reactions) when they were honest with their parents during childhood
- a desire to avoid the reactions that happened in the past when they were honest with their partner
…to name a few. Exacerbating factors on the other partner’s side can include…
- anxious or avoidant attachment
- unpredictable reactions
- patterns of yelling, screaming, or crying during heightened emotion or conflict
- patterns of criticism/blame, defensiveness, contempt, sarcasm, or meanness during heightened emotion or conflict
- patterns of withholding affection or intimacy while processing emotion, which can trigger the secret-keeping partner’s fear of abandonment
Often, the person keeping a secret feels absolutely ashamed and remorseful about the action they took. They are often regretful about their actions, and now realize their mistake. No matter what, they are painfully aware that their actions would hurt their partner’s feelings, if they knew about them. They don’t want to perpetrate that hurt! What’s more, for every secret someone shares, they are actually admitting two trust violations: their original behavior, and their subsequent lack of honesty. Because of this, they know their partner will experience a double dose of hurt when they learn the secret. So, not wanting to hurt their partner, they delay revealing their actions.
People don’t keep secrets just to avoid triggering pain in their partner. They also keep secrets because they don’t have the capacity to manage the emotions that will come up for them when they encounter their partner’s hurt. Their awareness of the hurt their partner will feel often magnifies the secret-keeper’s feelings of shame. Also, they may not feel ready to face the unknown: what will their partner think of them once they know the truth? Will their partner still want to be with them? Their anticipation of a negative reaction and potentially also rejection by their partner leaves them feeling afraid, overwhelmed, and ultimately frozen. Until the secret-keeper gets to the point where they feel emotionally resourced and ready to rip off the band-aid and tell the truth, they will be perpetually stuck in the avoidance of dishonesty.
Given these factors, it seems to me that a therapist demanding a client disclose a secret in the very next session is not very reasonable or compassionate.
I want to take a moment to add an important caveat to this blog post: abusive, narcissistic, and sociopathic partners exist! In all of the above, I am making the assumption of good faith and remorse on the part of the secret-keeping partner. As a relational therapist, I work to screen all couples I work with for intimate partner violence (IPV), which encompasses not only physical violence, but emotional abuse and diminishing and controlling behavior. I do this because ethically, it can be harmful to provide couple’s therapy when there is an ongoing pattern of IPV or abusive behavior, since the information shared in the therapy room can often be used by the perpetrator(s) to control, coerce, and harm their partner. In the couples I work with in couple’s therapy, both partners are sincere, committed to the therapy process, and ready to admit and own their contributions to the challenges within the relationship.
How a Limited Secrets policy works in practice
So, what happens when one of my couple’s therapy clients tells me about a secret they’re keeping?
First, I evaluate whether the secret that was revealed is something that the partner needs and deserves to know. This can be a nuanced question! It’s not one that I want to spend much time on here. The main question I ask myself is: how likely is it that this information could be material to the couple’s current relationship? For now, I’ll give an example:
Say a husband started dating his wife 5 years ago, and they are now married with a child. I learn his ex-girlfriend donated a kidney to him 10 years ago, but he never told his wife about it. He shared this in a side-conversation with me about a doctor’s appointment, while we were making a schedule change.
If he doesn’t have any ongoing relationship with his ex, and hasn’t since before the clients got serious, then on the surface this secret doesn’t seem like something that he needs to reveal to his wife. In this case, I’d advise the client that he needs to tell his wife if circumstances change, such as if he steps up contact with his ex again. (In any case, he probably needs to tell her if he has only one kidney!)
However, if he has been maintaining a friendship with his ex-girlfriend (even with the wife’s knowledge of this), or even if he did during the early part of their committed relationship, my judgment would be different, because the secret casts his friendship with this other woman in a different light. For the wife, this information could change how she interprets their past together, especially if they had struggles in the early part of their relationship that are still impactful today (something I as the therapist may not yet know about!). In this latter case, the wife deserves to learn about the ex’s kidney donation, so she can have an accurate view of the true parameters of that friendship.
Once I’ve determined that a secret needs to be disclosed to the partner, I commit to working with the secret-keeper one-on-one over the next two or three weeks after they disclose a secret to me. The goals of these sessions are to:
- help them understand the dynamic that kept them holding the secret this long;
- figure out a plan for disclosure; and
- learn emotional regulation skills they can use during the disclosure session.
It’s my view that the best way to both repair the relationship and build a foundation for honesty going forward is to first help the secret-keeper assess the situation they’re in. Also, it’s very likely that someone in the position of secret-keeper is going to need some help managing the emotions that come up around disclosure! This means…
- helping them identify their partner’s likely reactions, and their likely reactions to those reactions;
- helping them name and practice ways of noticing and acknowledging their feelings in the moment; and
- introducing self-soothing practices they can use in the moment to stay calm, aware, and receptive and attuned to their partner
After learning about a secret, if I feel that information is something their partner needs to know in order to remain in the relationship with fully informed consent, I schedule two to four hours of sessions over the next two weeks to work with the secret-keeper individually, depending on how much time the client feels they will need.
Questions that we might discuss in our one-on-one sessions include…
- What led to your original behavior? What needs was it meeting? Were those needs not getting met in your relationship with your partner?
- Are you remorseful, or would you do it again? What does that say about your current relationship with your partner?
- Why did you feel initially unable to share about that behavior with your partner? What’s keeping you from sharing it with them now?
- How does your original behavior align with your values? How does secret-keeping align with your values?
- Do you have intentions to change your behavior going forward? What might prevent you from doing so?
- How has your partner reacted before when you’ve done something that hurt them?
- Have you kept secrets before, that you have told your partner? What happened then?
- How do you think it will affect your relationship when you do eventually disclose your secret?
- What are your hopes related to revealing your secret? What are your fears? What do you imagine as the best-case and worst-case scenarios, when you do disclose?
- How do you want to reveal your secret? Do you want to write things out and have them read it, or do you want to verbally tell them?
- What could you say to help your partner understand why you did what you did, and what has changed for you since that time?
- Is there anything you can say before or after you reveal your secret that might reassure your partner about your love for them, and help them understand what you want for your future together?
- How do you think your partner will react to hearing the secret? How do you typically respond to those kinds of reactions?
- If you start feeling overwhelmed during the secret-revealing discussion, what steps do you want to take to soothe yourself so you can continue the conversation?
- If your partner starts feeling overwhelmed during that discussion, how would you recognize that? How do you want to respond? How can you soothe them so you can continue the conversation?
- What do you think your partner might need or ask for, so they can trust you?
I will sometimes send these and other questions to the client in advance of our one-on-one time together, so they can begin to reflect on their situation. Using these questions for journaling is ideal.
Once this foundational work is done, I invite them to plan ahead to share their secret during the next relational therapy session. This way, I can be there to help regulate both partners and ensure all parties feel able to share their thoughts and feelings, and feel heard and understood. Allowing extra time for this session is a good idea. I may ask the secret-keeper to make sure that logistics like extending babysitting are in place.
Why is a Limited Secrets policy helpful to couple’s therapy?
Partnering with couples to help disclosure happen with thoughtfulness, compassion, and care for all parties is so important!
Simply being forthright about the fact there often are secrets in relationships, and showing there is a deliberate and caring approach to opening up about those secrets, can help dissolve the shame blocks that keep secret-keeping partners from feeling able to engage in therapy. Shame is often part of what keeps a secret hidden. Shame is poison to connection!
Setting expectations that help both partners know at the start of therapy that a secret-keeper will have one-on-one therapeutic support can be crucial to cultivating the sense of safety necessary for them to finally be candid.
The longer timeframe of this policy is purposeful. I feel allowing several weeks for this process is much more realistic than expecting disclosure immediately. Taking the time to help the secret-keeper become aware of and start to work through the topics above is empathetic towards the pain, trauma triggers, and unmet needs that may have been keeping them stuck in dishonesty.
Tending to the emotional needs of both partners paves the way for successful future therapy sessions. The usual No Secrets policy prioritizes the rights of the violated partner. But when the secret-keeping partner feels supported through the disclosure process, it provides a sense of security that can help that partner drop their shame, fear, and defensiveness, equipping them to dig in to try to understand the situation more deeply. The overarching sense of support for this process can also help the violated partner feel more secure and supported, so they’re better able to examine their role in the dynamic.
How I introduce my Limited Secrets policy
It’s important that all my couple’s therapy and family therapy clients understand my Limited Secrets policy from the very beginning of our therapy journey together. I have an intake document I send to all relational clients that provides an overview of this policy. Also, in our kickoff session at the start of therapy, I explain my approach to all my couple’s and family therapy clients, and answer any questions they might have.
As I’ve talked with clients about my Limited Secrets policy and what it means, I can tell my clients feel supported as I describe this approach to handling secrets. I often see both partners nodding, and I sense of ease and relief permeating the energy of the room. I imagine that if a client is holding a secret, they may feel hopeful that this approach is what they need to finally feel able to disclose their secret to their partner. And for clients who don’t personally have a secret they are keeping, I imagine they feel more confident about engaging in therapy, knowing a thoughtful approach is in place to help their partner be more open and honest with them, if it turns out that’s something that is needed. This sense of even-handed support can be especially helpful when there are past betrayals at play.
A secret is like a mushroom: it’s the fruit of a web of factors hiding under the surface. These issues need to be explored, and dealt with – not only in the revealing of the secret, but in the ongoing process of couple’s therapy. When therapists take a purposeful, reasonable, and compassionate approach to handling secrets, it paves the way for important truths to come to the surface. Cultivating a therapeutic environment that invites honesty by recognizing the very human reasons that people keep information from their loved ones is the best way to support partners in building ongoing trust and openness.
