Recently, I received a thoughtful, courageous note from a betrayed partner who follows me on social media. She reached out with her concerns about therapeutic disclosure, after having gone through the process herself, and she shared her perspective with remarkable clarity, honesty, and care.
Her letter stopped me in my tracks in the best possible way.
Therapeutic disclosure is often presented as part of the “healing prescription” for couples trying to recover from sex addiction or compulsive sexual behavior. In many treatment models, particularly those rooted in the work of Patrick Carnes, disclosure is designed to break secrecy, establish accountability, and support the recovery of the straying partner. Over time, disclosure has also been framed as something that supports the healing of the betrayed partner by ending gaslighting and creating a shared reality.
For some couples, this process is experienced as clarifying, grounding, and ultimately helpful. For others, it is far more complicated.
The letter below reflects one betrayed partner’s experience and critique of how disclosure is often framed and delivered. While her perspective will not resonate with everyone, I believe it raises important questions that deserve reflection rather than dismissal. I am deeply grateful she trusted me enough to share it.
What follows is her letter, shared with permission. Afterward, I include my response.
Letter from a Betrayed Partner
(Shared with permission. Identifying details removed.)
To the professionals who facilitate therapeutic disclosure,
Therapeutic disclosure is routinely presented as an act of empowerment for the betrayed partner—a structured, contained process meant to promote safety, predictability, and healing.
But that framing omits a central truth.
Patrick Carnes, whose work shaped the modern disclosure model, has been explicit that disclosure is a core component of the addict’s recovery and accountability. It is a treatment intervention designed to externalize secrecy, document behavior, and interrupt denial.
In other words, disclosure is not primarily a partner-centered intervention.
It also serves as a recovery intervention for the addict.
That distinction matters—yet partners are consistently told the process is exclusively for them.
We are told disclosure restores agency, while we are denied access to the disclosure document in advance.
We are told it creates safety, while surprise is built into the process.
We are told we “choose” disclosure, while its structure and boundaries are largely non-negotiable.
This is not empowerment.
It is managed participation in someone else’s treatment plan.
There is another dimension that is rarely acknowledged: for many partners, therapeutic disclosure becomes a final form of violation. The most intimate details of her life—her marriage, her sexuality, her private reality—are revealed to her only after all professionals and the addict in the room have chewed over this information for possibly weeks or months. While she is the object of delivery, she is simultaneously observed, documented, and interpreted by professionals as surprise is delivered. What was once violated through secrecy is now violated through being a spectacle.
This is not neutral.
It is a profound boundary crossing that deserves ethical scrutiny.
The theoretical foundations of disclosure help explain why this is so rarely questioned. Carnes’ co-addiction framework positioned partners as developing parallel pathology—framing injury as illness rather than as a normal response to relational trauma.
Once that premise is accepted, the model becomes self-justifying:
If the partner is assumed to be dysregulated, her judgment cannot be trusted.
If her judgment cannot be trusted, informed consent becomes conditional.
If consent is conditional, authority consolidates with the professional.
More recent “partner-sensitive” models claim to correct this imbalance. The language is gentler. The posture more validating. But the underlying message often remains unchanged:
You are not okay.
You cannot handle this on your own.
We know better.
I have witnessed many partners spiral during the waiting period before disclosure—not because they are disregarding guidance, but because knowing a written disclosure exists while being told to “wait” intensifies loss of agency and hypervigilance. In that interim, many partners begin searching for the document itself—and more often than not, they find it alone, defeating the purpose of a “contained therapeutic disclosure.”
This is not impulsivity or defiance.
It is a predictable response to being treated as though access to information about one’s own life must be earned through compliance.
Being told “not yet” in this context does not create safety. It recreates a parent–child dynamic at the precise moment when autonomy and orientation are most needed.
Partners are told that withholding the disclosure letter in advance is for their protection—to prevent confrontation, spiraling, or emotional escalation outside the therapeutic container.
But no clinician can control what happens once the session ends.
Partners leave your office and return to the same marriage, the same home, and the same nervous system—now carrying new information without the illusion of containment.
Disclosure does not prevent confrontation or reactivity.
It merely relocates it.
This matters because there are documented patterns of partners acting out after disclosure—emotionally, relationally, or behaviorally—and these reactions are often cited as evidence that partners are unstable or dysregulated.
A more honest interpretation deserves consideration:
If destabilization reliably follows disclosure, then disclosure itself is destabilizing.
What is often omitted is that both parties tend to act out afterward—though in different ways. The addict frequently experiences relief after “telling the truth,” which can paradoxically create new space for secrecy or boundary slippage under the assumption that transparency has been achieved. Meanwhile, the partner is expected to absorb shock and return home to care for a family, often spiraling privately as she tries to regain orientation and control.
A process cannot produce shock and then use the predictable effects of that shock as proof that the participant required control in the first place. That is circular reasoning—not trauma-informed care.
In fact, this logic runs counter to every established trauma-recovery model. Nowhere else in trauma treatment do we intentionally deliver destabilizing information all at once, restrict access to it beforehand, and then interpret the client’s resulting dysregulation as evidence that more control was necessary. In medical trauma, domestic violence, or acute grief interventions, clinicians prioritize orientation, informed consent, and pacing precisely because shock impairs integration.
Trauma recovery models aim to reduce overwhelm, not manufacture it. They do not rely on surprise as a therapeutic tool, nor do they equate containment with control. To do so is not only counterproductive—it contradicts the very principles of trauma-informed care the disclosure model claims to uphold.
That is circular reasoning—not trauma-informed care.
Partners are told disclosure restores agency and predictability—yet surprise is integral to the process.
Partners are told they are centered—yet their reactions are quietly assessed.
Partners are told this is “for them”—while its primary function serves the addict’s recovery.
If we fall apart, we are unstable.
If we remain composed, we are dissociated.
If we express anger, we are unsafe.
There is no correct response—only acceptable ones.
This letter is not an argument against accountability, structure, or recovery work. Addicts need accountability. Therapists need frameworks. Documentation has a place.
But honesty matters.
Stop telling partners disclosure is for them when it is an essential intervention for the addict.
Stop invoking “safety” to justify surprise.
Stop claiming agency while controlling access to truth.
Disclosure may serve recovery, documentation, and treatment goals.
Those functions deserve to be named plainly.
What is missing from the current discourse is flexibility.
There is no ethical reason disclosure must be delivered in a single, uniform format to be considered legitimate. Trauma-informed care is, by definition, individualized. Yet partners are rarely offered meaningful choice in how or when they receive information—only whether they comply with a predetermined structure.
What if a partner chooses staggered disclosure?
What if she wants to review the disclosure letter privately with her own therapist first—so she can orient, regulate, and make sense of what she is reading—before confronting or engaging with the addict?
What if she needs time to process reality before being observed in her reaction to it?
These preferences are not avoidance. They are reasonable attempts to preserve agency after betrayal.
More importantly, receiving information and holding an addict accountable are not the same intervention—and they do not need to happen simultaneously to be effective. The partner’s need for orientation, pacing, and safety does not negate the addict’s responsibility for honesty, repair, and accountability.
Separating these two processes would allow each to be addressed with integrity: the partner receiving truth in a way that supports regulation and agency, and the addict engaging in accountability without relying on the partner’s immediate reaction as proof of completion or relief.
Accountability does not require shock.
Healing does not require surprise.
And empowerment cannot exist where choice is constrained.
Sincerely,
A betrayed partner
My Response
Dear betrayed partner - thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful, honest, and deeply personal letter. I read it carefully, more than once, and I felt the care, intelligence, and lived experience behind every word.
Before anything else, I want to say this clearly: it takes a great deal of courage to reach out to a clinician you don’t know, share your perspective so openly, and advocate so powerfully for betrayed partners. Speaking up the way you did, especially in professional spaces and on the internet, is not easy. You should be very proud of yourself for using your voice with such clarity and integrity.
You are naming things that many betrayed partners feel deeply but rarely feel safe enough to say out loud. Your perspective matters.
I agree with you on many core points. Therapeutic disclosure did not originate as a partner-centered healing tool. Historically, it was developed as a recovery and accountability intervention for the straying partner, meant to break secrecy and support honesty. Over time, the language around disclosure has shifted, and I agree that we haven’t always been honest enough about its dual purpose. When that distinction is blurred, partners can understandably feel managed rather than empowered.
I also agree that secrecy is rarely helpful for the injured partner. Being told to wait for information about your own life, especially when you know that information already exists in written form, can intensify fear, hypervigilance, and loss of agency. Those reactions are not pathology. They make sense.
Your point about choice is especially important. True empowerment requires meaningful choice, not just participation within a tightly controlled structure. There is no ethical reason disclosure must look the same for every couple. Trauma-informed care should be individualized, not rigid.
I believe staggered disclosure can be appropriate. I believe some partners benefit from reviewing information privately or with their own therapist first. I believe couples should be supported in finding a process that feels right for them, even when that means adapting traditional models. Accountability does not require shock. Healing does not require surprise.
I was also deeply moved by how you described disclosure feeling re-violating for some partners, especially when intimate details have already been reviewed and discussed by professionals before the partner encounters them herself. That experience deserves more reflection and care than it has often been given.
Your letter is not anti-accountability or anti-recovery. It is a call for honesty, flexibility, and respect for partner autonomy. I value that deeply.
An Invitation to the Conversation
I’m sharing this letter and response because I believe our field, and our community, benefits from thoughtful dialogue rather than rigid answers.
Disclosure can be helpful.
Disclosure can be destabilizing.
Both things can be true.
There is no single “right” way for every couple to receive truth, rebuild trust, or pursue healing. What matters most is transparency, collaboration, and respect for each person’s nervous system, agency, and needs.
I would love to hear from you.
If you feel comfortable, I invite you to share your perspectives, experiences, or ideas in the comments. What helped you? What didn’t? What do you wish clinicians understood better about disclosure, timing, pacing, or choice?
My hope is that conversations like this move us toward more humane, flexible, and compassionate care for everyone involved.