The Open Window

Honesty  ·  Crisis

Why Can’t I Stop Asking?

Everyone says the past is the past. The need to know the whole story may be how healing works.

3 min read

It is 1.15 in the morning. Sana is standing in the kitchen holding a credit card statement.

“The fourteenth of March. You said you were in Pune for the audit.”

Dev rubs his eyes. “I was in Pune.”

“Dinner for two. In Pune. At the audit.”

“Sana, please. We have been over this. It is finished. Why do you keep digging?”

She has no answer. She only knows that every unanswered question sits in her chest like a swallowed stone. She cannot sleep around it.

Everyone has advice for her. Her mother says not to ask, it only makes things worse. A friend wonders what good knowing will do. Dev says the past is the past. Are they right?

The need to know is not nosiness

The psychologist Shirley Glass thought they were all wrong. In her view, hearing the full story is how a person recovers from being deceived.1

When you have been lied to, the past itself becomes unreliable. Was that birthday real? Was that weekend? Sana is not tormenting herself for sport. She is rebuilding a timeline she can trust.

Researchers who treat couples after affairs say the same. Betrayed partners often cannot move forward until they understand why the affair happened.2

Glass had a blunt image for couples who try to recover without this conversation. She compared it to waxing a dirty floor.

Silence protects the secret

Glass cites a survey of 1,083 betrayed partners by the writer Peggy Vaughan. When the unfaithful spouse answered every question, 86 percent of couples stayed married and 72 percent rebuilt trust. When the spouse refused, 59 percent stayed married and 31 percent rebuilt trust.

Grouped bars. When the unfaithful spouse answered every question, 86 percent stayed married and 72 percent rebuilt trust. When they refused, 59 percent stayed married and 31 percent rebuilt trust. Answered every question Refused to answer Stayed married 86% 59% Rebuilt trust 72% 31%
Peggy Vaughan’s survey of 1,083 betrayed partners, as cited by Glass.1 People who answer surveys like this are not a random sample.

We imagine that silence spares the relationship. It spares the secret. And the secret is what keeps the affair alive.

Leave the courtroom

So the question is never whether to talk. It is how. Glass describes three ways the conversation can sound.

Three ways the conversation can sound, from worst to best: the courtroom, where traps and denials produce nothing true; the interview, neutral and workable; and the conversation, where both people feel close again. 3. The conversation Two people who care try to understand how it happened. Each can say what the other must feel. Closeness returns 2. The interview Neutral, like a journalist with a notebook. No sarcasm, no defence. It works 1. The courtroom Traps with evidence. Denial until cornered. 1.15 in the kitchen. Nothing true comes out
Glass’s three styles of talking after an affair. Most couples start at the bottom. The work is to climb.1

Most couples start in the courtroom. The work is to get out of it.

If you are asking

Begin with facts: who, where, when, how long. Save “why” for a calmer day. Reward the truth when you get it. An honest answer met with an explosion teaches your partner to stop answering.

The order to ask in: facts first (who, where, when, how long), then why, then what it meant. Graphic details are best left out. First: the facts Who, where, when, how long Later: why On a calmer day Last: what it meant About you, about us Graphic details usually better left unasked
Start with facts, save why for a calmer day, and think twice before asking for graphic details. Glass found they tend to become images that haunt you.1

If you are answering

Volunteer. The most healing information is the kind your partner did not have to dig out. Do not minimise. “It meant nothing” confuses more than it comforts.

When the same question comes a tenth time, hear it as a request for reassurance. Answer it a tenth time.

Ask a better question

Glass offers questions that go beneath the facts. Three of them change the conversation almost every time.

  • What did you tell yourself that made it acceptable to cross the line?
  • What did you like about who you were in that relationship?
  • What did you share about us, and what did you keep back?

The second one surprises people. We are often drawn less to another person than to another version of ourselves: funnier, more admired, more alive. Once that is named, a couple can ask whether that version could exist at home.

A jar of folded question slips. One partner fills it; the other draws a slip they can answer today and answers it in person. ? 1. One partner writes each question on its own slip. 2. The other draws a slip they can answer today. 3. They answer it fully, in person. 4. The asker listens and says thank you.
The question jar, adapted from a technique Glass used with couples.

When this is not enough. If the questions take over your days and nights for weeks, or the conversations turn into shouting or threats, stop and get help. A couples therapist can hold these talks safely. If you feel unsafe, call the Women Helpline on 181 or emergency services on 112. Need to talk to someone now? Tele MANAS is free, day and night, on 14416.

Inat Therapy · Anahita Tanwar, Clinical Psychologist · online sessions across India

These pages are for reflection and self-help. They are not therapy and do not replace a doctor, counsellor or lawyer. If you are struggling, Tele MANAS offers free support day and night on 14416. In an emergency, call 112.

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