What are your expectations of privacy when confiding in a friend who has a significant other?

My dad taught me that three people can keep a secret as long as two of them are dead. I may not like the truth that most people, even sworn to secrecy, will blab. But truth doesn’t work by approval ratings. Truths I hate are every bit as true as truths I love. So I have a simple rule for keeping secrets. Tell NOBODY. And for Gawd’s sake, don’t post secrets on the Internet. A billboard in Times Square is a better hiding place than www.topsecret.gov.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t keep secrets from my husband. Don’t tell me if you don’t want him to know. I also would never put anyone else in that situation.

I strongly believe that anyone who wishes to confide a secret should ask first. Not everyone wants to receive a confidence. That’s the time to talk about expectations. When someone says to me, “This is just between us,” I will usually ask whether that means I’m expected to keep it from my husband. Whether or not I agree varies with the circumstances, but I do not want to be told a secret first and then hear about the conditions afterward.

I know how to keep a secret. The only way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone. I also know how not to act like I have a secret. The fact that I can keep a confidence secure means that I’ve been told a lot of them over time, both in my personal life and in the workplace. That includes just about every boss I ever had.

If someone asks me not to tell and I agree, I don’t tell. Sometimes I have to say “Is it all right if I mention this to my husband?” But much of the time he won’t be interested, and he wouldn’t care that I didn’t tell him. I would never keep something from him that affected him in any way.

One friend was super-anxious not to let it be known that she was a lesbian. I knew her for about five years before she came out to me, and she asked me not to tell anyone. I didn’t, not even when someone else told me. My husband never even knew until she and her partner came to our house for the evening. I knew it wouldn’t matter to him one way or the other, but it did matter to my friend.

@Jeruba ask first great answer. I try not to have secrets, and if anyone wants to tell me something, I warn them in advance I can’t (don’t) keep secrets.

Right now I am in a fix because the family is supposed to keep a secret from my elderly MIL and I’m just glad I am too far away to talk to her much.

I expect they will tell their SO. If they confide in me, they should expect me to tell my wife. I don’t keep secrets from her.

Truthfully though, the only person I ever confide in is my wife. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to begin with.

When I confide in my 3 good friends who have husbands, to me it’s a given that they may tell their husbands what I tell them.

I keep secrets completely to myself unless there is a moral reason not to. That is, if someone is being hurt or could be hurt. In those cases I usually consult my husband to get a third party opinion on how to proceed.

I do keep secrets for my friends from my husband if they stress they want no one to know. It’s probably the only thing I can think of that I do keep from him. Generally, I tell my husband everything and expect my friends will tell their spouses everything also, but if I ask if they will keep it private from their spouse and they agree, I hope they honor their commitment. I do think it is a risk though. There is a reasonable chance they will tell their spouse.

I expect them to tell their SO and they should expect the same from me. It might not be the right thing to do, but that’s just how it is.

Because I know how hard it can be to keep some secrets, since I keep others’ and a few of my own, I tend not to confide in others “in secret”. By the time I talk to someone (other than a physician) about something that’s bothering me, I’m ready to let close friends know, and at that point it’s just a matter of “who first?” I can’t even remember the last time I told someone “you can’t tell anyone”. If I have a secret, it’s secret.

I keep secrets well myself, even when I think it’s against the actual interest of the person who has asked me to keep it, and even when it’s against my own interest. That’s how I know how difficult it can be sometimes.

I trust my fiancé completely, and my friends also know that he is equally as trustworthy as I am. It helps that we are both fairly quiet, introverted people who dislike small talk and chit-chat, and we detest gossip even more.

I don’t have any secrets or things to confide; but if I did, I would always assume that anything I tell someone would be repeated to their SO. Chances are, a person I deem trustworthy would not likely be involved with someone whom I distrust. If they have chosen a partner of questionable character it makes me question their character, therefore, I wouldn’t trust them as much.

I take people’s privacy very seriously, and if the secret is something deeply personal, there is no reason for me to share that kind of information with an SO. If I thought it might cause my friend distress for me to share the secret, I would want to be sure that sharing it was ok with him/her. I think it’s more important to consider what the friend would want. I’m not talking about juicy gossip here, I’m talking about things that are more serious. for example, if a friend came to me, and told me they’d been abused as a child, and that they’d never told anyone that before, I would not report it over the pillow that night. That would be incredibly inappropriate.

I tell my fiancé everything. The reason for this is because I trust him and I like to hear his take on certain things.

I didn’t tell my ex anything because he was a twisted bastard and he would find a way to hurt people with anything that I ever told him.

Zero expectations. Telling a friend with an SO is like telling the SO yourself—almost.

I say “almost” because anything you tell person A who tells person B is bound to get get editorialized and changed in some way.

You have no expectation of privacy when you are dealing with someone in a primary relationship.

As for whether I will tell my SO. it depends on if I think it is something he needs or wants to know, but no one can expect me not to tell him.

I would ask my friend first, before I tell them the secret, whether they would tell their SO. If the friend says yes, friend does not get to hear my secret. I would be extremely upset for my secrets to be passed on to someone I don’t know, and have no assurance that I can trust them not to share with their mates down the pub.

The only exception would be if the friends SO is also a friend of mine and I was able to speak to them both together to get an assurance of confidence from both of them.

Likewise if a friend tells me something in confidence, I do not tell my partner, unless it’s something that directly affects him.

“I tell my So everything” is not that important to some So.
Really do you want to know when your So flirts with others?
This would create stress and undue fears in the realtionship.
So only if the secret could cause another harm , then I would keep it to my grave.
Usually people need to talk out a problem with another in confidence and really arre not asking for advice, but just a listening board.
So hear the secret with that understanding and let it go.

I really don’t understand why trusting your SO has anything to do with telling him/her someone else’s secret? The point is the friend or relative who entrusted you with something very private and asked for no one else to know. What if they would be uncomfortable knowing your spouse knew next time you were all together? Doesn’t your loyalty and respect for your friend matter? I don’t see how it is disloyal to my husband to not tell him my best girlfriend was diagnosed with an illness that she is not ready to share with many people yet, or is thinking about leaving her husband, or had an abortion when she was 17. I know my husband would respect her privacy, and by that I mean he would respect that he was not told.

My mom always told me, if you don’t want anyone to know, don’t tell anyone. So true.

Excellent answer, @JLeslie.

> I know my husband would respect her privacy, and by that I mean he would respect that he was not told.

And if I were in that situation, and my husband asked a question that I couldn’t answer without breaking the confidence, I would have to say that I’d been asked to keep it to myself. He would understand and would ask no further. And I consider that to be an expression of trust.

@Jeruba Thank you.

I completely agree with your last paragraph.

@JLeslie & @Jeruba Thank you. I was beginning to think that I had to consider all married people untrustworthy.

@glacial Maybe you should. How are you going to know for sure they won’t tell after reading the answers above. The best you can do is ask straight out if they will tell their husband or wife before divulging your secret. I ask my friends if it is ok to tell my husband if they have not mentioned it. Often they will say, “don’t tell anyone, but it’s ok to tell your husband,” without me even having to ask. I say similar things. We clarify it. Basically, because we know most couples tell each other everything; and, here is the kicker; a spouse is someone you can basically gossip about it with who you feel is safe and won’t breach the trust and tell someone else.

It doesn’t happen often anyway. We don’t have tons of secrets going on at once in my circles. Thank goodness. A secret would be something extremely major and understandably private usually. We don’t have a big mess of fibs trying to keep information from people. It isn’t about keep lies, this is about privacy.

@Jeruba Oh, I have heard this before on Fluther, and have realized that I can’t assume that a confidence will be honoured – but what I am saying is that at least there exist trustworthy married people.

I guess my point boils down to: if a secret feels like it might be “gossip”, then I can understand telling the spouse. But some secrets do not fall in that category, like the example I gave above. Those kinds of secrets are not right to tell, even to a spouse. There’s nothing to savour in them, there is only pain.

@glacial I use a loose definition of gossip. I think gossip really is defined as people talking about someone or something and it is not confirmed it is true. I usually use the word rumour for that though. For me gossip is talking about anything you should not be talking about. That in some way talking about it is behind someone else’s back. If you promise to tell no one, and then tell your spouse, you are talking behind the secret giver’s back.

It’s difficult to keep a secret, especially when you are not telling a person you always tell eveything too. You don’t have to fully keep the secret if you tell your spouse. You unburden yourself from not being allowed to spill it to someone.

@glacial, did you mean to address @JLeslie with your last comment?

To respond anyway, I would have to say that those two dimensions (trustworthiness, marital status) form four possible groups:
– trustworthy married people,
– untrustworthy married people,
– trustworthy unmarried people, and
– untrustworthy unmarried people.
There are people in all four groups.

@Jeruba I did, and shoot, I missed the editing window by a hair. :(

Here’s my story and why I refuse to keep secrets from my husband.
Two of my children had some horrific things happen to them at different times when they were teenagers.
They confided in me and swore me to secrecy.
I lived with those secrets and they effected my relationship with my husband. I couldn’t tell him why I was sad and he never really understood completely why the kids were so vicious at times as teenagers.
It only came out at a family counseling session when my son was hospitalized.
My husband was angry that I had to carry the burden alone and that the kids put me in that spot. It was unhealthy for the entire family for several years.
Now that my children are married with families of their own they know it was wrong for me to keep this information from my husband and we all know that if we share anything with anyone we are also sharing it with their spouse.

@Judi I can’t speak for everyone, but I was not considering secrets of children. Whether it be your children or your friends I assume you tell people that you tell your husband everything. Kind of a fair warning. Then it is their choice whether they tell you a secret or not. I see not problem with that.

I really don’t know what I would do for sure if I had teenage children who I worried their father might have a terrible reaction. I would not keep a secret about my kids from my husband just because they were afraid to tell him, but I might if I deeply felt he would make things worse. That situation is very difficult, and I don’t have children. I probably can’t for sure know what I would do.

He’s a step father but he’s raised them. The kids felt shame (and they were victims, they shouldn’t have) but they were afraid their father would see them differently.
(My son was 18 and my daughter was 16. That awkward age between children and adults. )

I don’t keep secrets from my wife. I also have a very bad memory so it is likely that things she doesn’t know are the ones that I forgot. It is probably a good thing that I don’t have much of a memory for gossip.

@Judi Understandably difficult. I’m sure you wanted your children to feel like they would always come to you and breaching a trust risked they might clam up. Since you are the person responsible for their care, especially under 18, it puts you in a very difficult spot. With friends and adult relatives it is very different in my opinion, because they are responsible for themselves and have the maturity to handle situations on their own.

I will add to my comment that anyone who knows me well enough to confide in me also knows my fiancé and knows that he is trustworthy. I would honestly be surprised if any of them would tell me something alone and ask that I don’t tell him – but if they did, I would respect that, and he would respect if too.

The hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep was between two friends I’ve had since early elementary school. One came out to me as being homosexual and asked that I don’t tell the other (who no longer lived nearby) because they wanted to do it themselves. Fine. But THREE YEARS passed before they had that talk, so when the third party asked me how the second was doing, it was very awkward. I’d be asked if they were dating anyone, and so on. It was very uncomfortable to lie to one close friend on behalf of the other equally close friend. I really hated being put in that position.

…which is when I’d say something like, “I’m so sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable discussing details of Second Party’s social life because Second Party asked me not to. Why don’t you go ahead and give Second Party a call yourself?”

I am really disturbed by the answers to this question.

@hug_of_war perhaps your expectations were out of sinc with most

Thank you all for your feedback! I’d like to clarify that I wasn’t referring to (idle) gossip. I was asking about deeply personal secrets that do not affect anyone other than the friend telling you the story (confessions along the lines of them being homosexual, having been sexually abused at some point, having had an abortion, etc). I can say for sure that if a friend ever felt comfortable enough to tell me something like that, I would never in a million years consider violating their trust by telling my SO, especially since it would have nothing to do with him and/or our relationship.

I’m a very private person and there are only two people to whom I open up completely. One of them is single and the other one just got married a couple of weeks ago. I’ve known them both for many, many years and I know they would never spill my secrets to anyone. Just the other week I was going through a situation which I shared with my married friend and it wouldn’t have bothered me in the least if she’d shared it with her husband (I know him and he’s a great guy) but she told me she wouldn’t say anything to him until I assured her it was fine by me because I would’ve liked to know his take on the situation.

On the other hand, I stopped telling things to another friend (not one of the two mentioned above) because she tells her fiance everything anyone tells her and I just don’t feel comfortable with him knowing certain things because of how he is. I cut her off when he started giving me unsolicited advice on how to get around to swimming when on my period (basically, she’d asked me to go swimming with them one day and I told her I couldn’t because it was that time of the month and I wasn’t comfortable swimming then. She obviously felt she had to tell him the full details and he, in turn, thought he’d broach the subject with me). I was totally put off by that, particularly because it wasn’t her first violation, and I haven’t shared anything with her since.

@JLeslie Excellent answer!! Like @glacial, I, too, was starting to reconsider married people in regards to their trustworthiness lol I would absolutely respect my SO’s right to keep his friends’ secrets and I would also expect the same from him. Being in a relationship does not mean you should abandon your previous loyalties, especially if your friends have been around longer than your SO.

Surely the rule about “not keeping secrets from your spouse” should be “not keeping your own secrets from your spouse”? That’s what I understand by it anyway. Other people’s secrets are none of his damn business.

I fully accept and expect them to tell their SO and so, if that really bothers me, then I don’t tell them anything. If my friend is in a serious relationship then I don’t think it is fair of me to ask them to keep secrets from their SO (although, most of the time, I know they probably won’t bother because it is irrelevant to them or their relationship and so it’s not an interesting topic of conversation anyway!) and, so far, I can’t think of anything I have told my close friends that I am not happy with them sharing with their SO.

I am fine with my boyfriend keeping his friends secrets from me if he is able to do that with ease. I tell my boyfriend most things and find keeping secrets from him quite difficult (we talk so much that things tend to come out unintentionally at times) so I would rather people not tell me stuff if they really don’t want me telling him because I can’t guarantee that it won’t slip out accidently.

@downtide That’s another great wait to explain it.

I was thinking more about @Judi‘s situation and it was important to tell her husband because it affected her marriage. But, when my friend Sally is having a rough time it doesn’t affect me in a way that it affects my marriage. My husband I feel has a right to know what might affect our relationship with each other.