Steve & Sarah have disconnected over the years. Steve shared in our marriage counseling session that he was seeing a therapist individually for years. Sarah was taken back that she was hearing this for the first time. Steve said, “I used to share personal things with you in the past, but in some later fight, you would bring these things up to hurt me, so I stopped sharing.”

Steve talked about all the ways he stopped sharing. He no longer talked about his difficult family history, work, finances, catching up during the day or talking about the relationship itself. He thought not disclosing his therapy was small compared to the larger themes about which they had disconnected.

Sarah didn’t have an issue with Steve going to therapy—she supported and respected that he wanted to improve himself. Not sharing that he was regularly going to therapy symbolized how disconnected they were. Steve said he was feeling safer just to share that. His feedback to Sarah was the importance of not taking personal information and using it to attack him. Sarah heard this and was committed to supporting Steve, no longer using personal information against him.