How to Write a Full Disclosure

When a marriage has been rocked by the discovery of sexual betrayal, husband and wife both ask a central question: “How can we heal and move forward?” Most pastors and church members have no experience thinking about the practical and specific steps involved in moving forward when they’re looking at the rubble of what they thought their marriage was. Restoring a marriage, repentance, forgiveness, and ultimate healing take time. One small part of this complex process is a full disclosure. But how do you write a full disclosure?

Though you won’t find a verse in the Bible that says, “thou shalt do a full disclosure,” this step is important in a trajectory of repentance. If you’re a spouse or a helper and you’re convinced that this is a step you’d like to take or facilitate, I want to offer some specific guidelines about how to write a full disclosure after sexual betrayal.

What Is a Full Disclosure?

My previous article, Full Disclosure: Why Should I Tell My Spouse About Past Sins, explains what a full disclosure is and why it is an important step. But please note that your primary motivation for engaging in a full disclosure ought not to be saving your marriage, as counterintuitive as that may sound! Health and reconciliation in your marriage may be an outcome, but your primary motivation for writing a full disclosure should be to obey and please the Lord, seeking to walk in the light as he has commanded (1 John 1:7).

Furthermore, a full disclosure is not something to do impulsively to “get things off your chest.” To cultivate the transparency needed to rebuild trust after sexual betrayal, your disclosure should be planned, written out, and facilitated by a trusted pastor, counselor, or therapist.

How Do I Write a Full Disclosure?

1. Pray. Sincerely ask for God’s help and grace. Pour out your fears and needs. Ask that the Lord would uphold and comfort your spouse through whatever comes. Pray boldly for the Spirit to help you walk in the light and recall what’s needed to write a full disclosure that will serve your spouse.

2. Move through your history and ask some questions about major time periods of your life:

• How did I learn about sex?
• How was I formed in my views of sexuality and my gender? What messages did I absorb?
• What did I begin to pursue on my own and when? (Be specific about the behavior you engaged in.)
• How was deceit involved in your pursuit of sexual sin? (Consider deceit regarding time, finances, and words as well as omissions of the truth.)
• How has your sexual sin coming into the light (to the extent that it already has) impacted you?

3. Write a full disclosure as a letter to your spouse. This should read like a personal letter, NOT bullet points of your sexual sin. Within this letter, express not only what has happened and what you’ve been involved in, but also sorrow for the impact of your sin on your spouse. After reading this letter, your spouse should be able to say that they know you—your patterns, your temptations, what you’ve been doing in secret, and how you feel about it. This does not mean you need to describe specific sensations, images, places, and experiences that would leave unnecessary visuals in your spouse’s mind. The primary purpose of the full disclosure is to walk in the light, to be known.

4. Ask a trusted pastor, mentor, counselor, or other helper to review your full disclosure, and discuss it with them before sharing it with your spouse. The helper’s role is to evaluate if the way you’ve expressed yourself in the letter is loving towards your spouse. This can be a very difficult question, because, as it is, this letter will likely be devastating to your spouse. Your evaluation is not primarily aimed at avoiding hurt feelings, but at speaking the truth in love, even if the truth is ugly and wounding. Helpers show dignity to betrayed spouses by acknowledging that they’ve been sinned against in an excruciating way. This also means there is no place for paternalistic efforts to hide information from an offended spouse simply because you know it will be painful to learn. Don’t take choices away from a betrayed husband or wife. Aim for the goal of ensuring that the offended spouse leaves this letter knowing things as plainly as they can.

If you’re a helper, what does it mean for you to ensure this full disclosure is written lovingly? It will be important to flag any wording or language that appears to assign blame, justify sin, or give only partial confession. Call it out! Be ruthless to avoid those things making it into the final version of the full disclosure. Be honest about what you’re seeing. You may say things like, “I think this phrase comes across as blame shifting.” “Your wording here makes you the center—you appear to be a victim of your circumstances.” “These details are overly vivid.”

5. Invite your spouse and helper to a set-aside time for you to have the full disclosure. This should be mainly led by the offended spouse’s desires and preferences, not what you prefer. You must ask your spouse what the best way for them would be to experience you reading this full disclosure. Remember: while you know your secret sexual sin all too well, your spouse is about to hear the extent of your struggles for the first time. This will be painful. Approach this meeting with humility.

Here are some questions you might ask your spouse:

• Who will be praying for you, knowing that you’re pursuing this important step in our marriage?
• Would you like a friend, counselor, or women’s/men’s ministry leader with you when we meet for the full disclosure?
• Where would you like to be when we meet to read the full disclosure?
• What would you like to do afterwards?
• Do you want to hear the letter read aloud, read it on your own first, or something else?
• Would you like a written copy of the full disclosure to review afterwards?
• Would you like to schedule a follow up discussion about how this impacted you, or would you like to discuss it together, one-to-one, without helpers present?
• What can I do to serve you in this?

6. You’ll also need to identify support, outside of your spouse, for yourself. This is a significant step for you, too. You need prayer, follow up, and love from brothers or sisters, pastors, and other helpers in your life. God is for you, and he uses his people as his instruments. Pursue care for your heart as one way to serve your spouse.

After the Full Disclosure Meeting

Decide ahead of time how you’d like to structure the remainder of the day after the full disclosure. Immediately after the full disclosure meeting, it can be helpful to have a brief time for questions. Sometimes these questions are specific: “Did you lie to me when we were on vacation?” “How did you hide those expenses?” Sometimes they’re much more broad and emotionally charged: “Did you ever love me?” “Who are you?”

Some spouses want time apart, and some want to process the full disclosure together. If you choose to process together without a helper present, be wise about how much time you spend with one another in unbridled reflection. It can be good to have time apart to pray, lament, and grieve. This will be a difficult day. It’s important to remember eternal truths and the reality of who you are in Christ on a day like this.

It’s also important to remember that this day is not your whole marriage, though each spouse may feel very differently about it. The disclosing spouse may feel a newfound freedom and peace now that the secrets are out, while the betrayed spouse may feel like they’ve been tossed into a stormy sea, wondering what their life and marriage has really been. Emotions will be unpredictable. Let your words be few, if possible. Allow space for both spouses’ varied experiences and perspectives.

Move Forward with Courage

It’s understandable to be afraid to write a full disclosure—while important, it is a costly choice. I will leave you with these words of Scripture as you consider this vital step of repentance.

Hebrews 12:4–11 says:

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

            “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

                        nor be weary when reproved by him.

             For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

                        and chastises every son whom he receives.”

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

May you walk as a beloved child of God in the path of repentance and discipline, for your good and God’s glory.