Oh, yes. Completely normal. And I want you to sit with that for a second, because a lot of people who come into my office carrying this question are also carrying a layer of shame around it. Like there’s something wrong with them for wanting to know. There isn’t.
Here’s what’s actually happening when you want the details. Your brain has been handed a story with enormous holes in it, and it is doing what brains do. It is trying to construct a coherent picture of reality. Because right now, the reality you thought you were living in turned out to be at least partly false, and your nervous system is working overtime trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t.
You need the details to figure out what was real.
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The questions aren’t morbid curiosity. They’re your mind trying to get its footing again.
I had a client tell me she needed to know where they went to dinner because she’d been making his favorite meal every Tuesday for three years, and she couldn’t figure out if those dinners meant anything to him. Another wanted to know what music was playing in the hotel room because music had always been their special thing. These aren’t sick requests. They’re attempts to map the territory of what’s real.
There’s also something else going on, and I want to name it gently. Sometimes the details feel like they will give you control over the pain. Like if you just know enough, you can somehow contain it, make sense of it, get ahead of it. That part I want you to be honest with yourself about, because the details rarely do that.
They often create new images, new wounds, new questions. The information doesn’t close the hole. Sometimes it makes it larger.
What I’ve seen in my work with couples after betrayal is that the question underneath the details question is usually something like: Was I enough? Did you choose them over me? Did any of it mean something to you? Those are the real questions. The ones that actually matter for rebuilding.
So if you’re asking for details, first acknowledge that it’s completely human. Then get curious about what you’re really looking for. Because sometimes what we think we need to know and what we actually need to heal are two different things entirely.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
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