Omaha Relationship Counseling Blog

Lying Takes Energy

“When you tell lies, it costs your brain a heck of a lot more resources than when you tell the truth.” Dr. Kang Lee, a professor at the University of Toronto, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/politicians-lie-actually-were-all-pretty-good-at-it-by-age-5/2016/04/28/7ca64708-073a-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html).

I quote Dr. Lee because he supports something I have seen in couples therapy and relationship therapy with individuals for a long time. Most, if not all, of the clients who come to me that are harboring important information from their spouse or significant other will, at times, talk to me about the burden of keeping secrets. And there is almost always some relief (often along with other consequences) when the secrets come out.

My point? Keeping secrets is a powerful and often devastating issue in relationships, and it takes mental energy to keep them. What do you want in your relationship? What happens if you open up and share your secrets? And what happens when you don’t?

I do not see my job as a couples counselor to get people to tell there secrets. But it is also not necessarily my job to help them hold their secrets. One goal of my work is to help the clients that come to me to understand the consequences of their thinking, their feelings, their actions, and their secrets. That is, in many ways, the focus of couples and relationship work (and the latter is often done in individual therapy). I don’t know what the best thing is for you to do with your secrets. But couples therapy, relationship therapy, and individual therapy are all ways that a therapist can help one to figure out the costs and benefits of secrets, as well as what they are thinking and feeling.