A week is a long time in a marriage. By the time a couple sits down for their next session, the fight from Saturday night has already been replayed, reinterpreted, and retold several times. What the therapist hears is the version that survived.
In Parallel Therapy, partners send me notes between sessions. Some write a few lines. Some write long, detailed accounts. Either way, the notes give me something a weekly session can't: what happened, told close to when it happened.
What the early notes look like
Early on, the notes often read like evidence. A partner lists everything the other person did wrong that week, sometimes a dozen faults in a single email. It's tempting to see this as unhelpful. It isn't. It shows me exactly how that person is organizing their experience of the marriage: as a case they are building.
That's useful information. It tells me where the work needs to start.
How the notes change
Over time, the notes usually shift. There's less about what the other person did and more about what the writer noticed in themselves. A partner who once catalogued every failure starts describing a moment when they wanted to snap back and didn't. Or a moment when they did, and what they wish they'd done instead.
That shift in the writing is one of the clearest signs that the work is taking hold. It often shows up in the notes before it shows up anywhere else.
Responding in real time
Because I know what happened on Tuesday, I don't have to wait until next week to respond to it. Sometimes I send something targeted: a short video on reactivity, a handout on the feelings that sit underneath anger, a guide to listening. The material lands differently when it arrives right after the moment it's about.
Two notes, one event
Often both partners write about the same evening. Reading the two accounts side by side is one of the most useful things I do. Where they overlap, I learn what actually happened. Where they diverge, I learn what each person was protecting.
The same transparency applies
The notes fall under the same agreement as everything else in Parallel Therapy. Anything a partner writes to me may be shared with the other. That's not a technicality. It means no one is using the notes to build a private case with me against their spouse.
What the notes are for
The notes aren't a substitute for sessions. They're a bridge between them. They let me see the marriage as it's actually lived, day to day, and they give each session a starting point grounded in what really happened rather than what's remembered a week later.
If you'd like to talk about whether Parallel Therapy fits your situation, I offer a 20–30 minute video consultation. You can reach me at (212) 327-3624 or contact@drherwitz.com
