In my case, I recently realized that, for me, disengaging was burying the hurt and being too much of a coward to engage people about important things. Sometimes engagement shows love. Sometimes talking about things to others rather than the person that hurt us might mean we haven't forgiven them (and they might have hurt us because they are unable to show their hurt and cover it up with anger). I know that occasionally, when my H and I fight, if the fight gets too intense, we bring up things we did to each other in the past. I only recently figured out I am not as forgiving as I thought I was. I beat myself up sometimes instead. But am becoming a little more brave about letting other people know when they have hurt me. It can be hard to discuss things sometimes. It can be hard to let go of angry words. My H and I are figuring this out and I pray that my children will eventually understand all the collateral damage all of our hurts and misunderstandings caused. It is the hardest for the children to figure out a parent is a mess and understand it.