A multi-speaker YouTube panel (uploaded by Nick Stumbo / Pure Desire Ministries) discussing how engaged or newly married individuals who 'struggle' with secrets can be helped to open up to their partner. Speakers argue that secrets consume emotional energy, inhibit reciprocity, and damage relational health; they use metaphors (e.g., basketball under water) and cultural references ('you're only as sick as your secrets') to encourage safe disclosure, integration of one’s 'dark side,' and building emotional safety. The discussion also notes longitudinal research (Harvard, ~70 years) linking close relationships to life satisfaction.
So I'm guessing you and Leslie have worked with a lot of couples, and as you've maybe gotten to know someone, you find on a one on one basis that they are carrying some secrets. And I think we've all heard people say, oh, I'm just, I'm going to carry this secret to my grave. I don't want to hurt them with it. It's better if they don't know. So as you work with couples and like building trust and dealing with difficult things, how do you help someone that is just maybe convinced that keeping the secret from their spouse is better and better for the relationship? What kind of conversation or dialogue do you have with to help them come to a place of truthfulness in their marriage?
When you're talking one on one with this person, I'm assuming, yeah, I'm assuming.
They'Re, they're only sharing with you or you found out something in confidence with them and they're just saying, no, I'm never going to tell them.
Well, you know, there's that old adage that comes from AA that you, you're only as sick as your secrets. Right. And so it's not healthy to carry, you know, to have a big chunk of your life that is known by you, that is not known by anybody else. The metaphor I often use, it's like taking a basketball and you're in a swimming pool and you're, you, you're submerging that basketball as deep into the pool as you can. Right. But you still have your head above the water and you're acting like, yeah, I'm doing just fine here. But, man, you are exhausted from holding that basketball under the, under the water because all it does is want to come to the surface. And if you're using so much psychological energy, emotional energy to repress all those secrets, it's just not somebody in your life, whether it's a trusted friend or like I said, a, a mentor or a counselor, a pro that you can confide in that can see your dark side. Right. And it's really important. Our dark side, our shadow self, we can never fully become integrated and whole and healthy people until we acknowledge our dark side. Until we go. Yeah. Might say. And in acknowledging that, you take some of the pressure away. Angry right now. Yeah. And so it's that kind of denial and that kind of repression and that kind of defensiveness and that kind of just suppression. Consciously doing that repression is, is unconscious. Suppression is conscious. Right. But all of that, why are you taking all of your emotional energy to just keep that stuff under the surface. Now that doesn't mean you share it with everybody, but you got to have an outlet to where you can relax and be known and accept it. Right?
Because if you're not, it just perpetuates the problem. You're just trying to keep this secret and you're never going to be known or accepted. And also you're never going to have the resource of someone else being able to help you process through whatever that is, whether it's anger, pornography, whatever it may be.
That's exactly right. Because there's no reciprocity when you're doing that, when you're caught up with that. And you have so much of stuff that is known to you but not known to others, your secrets, and you spend so much energy on that, you cannot, you cannot shift your focus away from yourself. It's like having a toothache and I can't think of anything else but my toothache. And it's. I can't focus on your pain. I can't focus on your stuff because I'm in pain myself. And so you, it's just so important. Come back. I'll say it again. Your relationship can only be as healthy as you are.
I just got a tingle down here from the tooth extraction I had last year. I can just feel it. I remember that pain well.
Definitely.
Yeah, that's a powerful image. It becomes the lens through which we see everything else. And I think if we can take that positive because a lot of, you know, if we're not sharing something that's a secret in our life, it's very fear based and we're fearful of the damage, we're fearful of the hurt and the pain. And I mean, we know it's not going to be an easy or fun situation. It's like, well, this would be better. But if we can see the flip side of the health that could come from it, of I'm removing something from my life that will actually increase my capacity to care about you and to care for you, to put your needs ahead of myself, that, that might at least in some regard give us a little positive motivation to say this, this will make my capacity for a relationship with my spouse stronger if I'll deal with it. Because the lie that we listen to as well, you know, them not, you know, I don't want to hurt them with the lie when the truth is by them not knowing, you're already hurting more damage.
Totally.
Yeah, that's right. And it's, it's, it really all comes down to emotional safety. Right. You've got to feel emotionally safe in this relationship. And that means that you, you know, this person has your back and if you don't have that, you know, what's the point really? You know, to share your income and have a house to a roof over your head? No, you want to have that bonded. That's the greatest fulfillment in life is our relationship, our close ones. And by the way, are you guys familiar with the longest study that has ever been done on well being in our lives? It started 70 years ago at Harvard. It's a longitudinal study. Are you guys familiar with this?
I think a little bit, yeah.
The bottom line of that study and they look at a life well lived and well being for everyone. It all, it had everything to do with relationships and have to do with how much money you made or where you lived or what your title was or your career or whether you had a sailboat or any of the stuff that you might think is going to bring you happiness. The number one source of fulfillment and contentment and happiness is our relationships. And we need to do everything we can and fight like mad to keep our close relationships close and healthy.
