AIBU to think telling your partner something I told you in confidence makes you a bad friend?

It shouldnt be on the friend to have to ask!

Actually, I've thought about it out of interest, and I've (only) done it three times with close friends that I can think of 🤔

Once when a friend disclosed she was having an affair, something that I didn't ask to know, and which really bothered me thanks to my childhood. We're no longer friends because I distanced myself from her.

The second was when one of my friends told me details about her relationship, which I discovered was abusive. I was concerned about her children, and not sure what was best to do, so talked it through with my husband.

And the last, she had told me about a cancer diagnosis that she didn't want known publicly yet, and my DH noticed I was upset and asked me what was wrong, so I told him the truth.

Generally speaking though, I wouldn't tell him things just for the sake of it. I think it's reasonable for someone to want to seek support or advice from their SO though, if your disclosure impacts on them. Although I do think if a person explicitly asks you to not tell anyone, it's best to keep them anonymous and not tell your DH who said it to you.

I really didn't think I needed to spell out that something I told my friend was for her, and only her, not her husband too, and honestly I still don't think I should have to say that explicitly, in principle. But I'll admit, reading through this thread, some people on here really would need to be told outright before it even occurred to them that their friend might not be okay with them sharing it, or would even class it as unreasonable of me to have assumed that in the first place.

In my experience, they would still tell their husband, after promising you not to.

Very many years ago, I trusted a friend with some personal information and she shared it with her husband. Her attitude was the same as your friend's. Now, I simply don't share ANY information with anyone. Sad, but safer.

A friend did this to me and the issue I had with that is her partner was a recognised nasty low life who constantly cheated on her, made her life a misery and turned her children against her. I did not expect her to tell someone like him about my extremely sensitive situation (I’m older and wiser now) and of course he then took great delight in letting me and others know what was going on. We are still friends but I recognise now that she’s not as strong as I thought she was and I’m more careful. Since then I have friends who might disclose secrets to their partners but they’re not absolute arseholes. I guess what I’m saying is it might depend on the sort of person he is. Do you usually get along?

You do have a say. You can ask for the OH not to be told.
Most healthily married couples tell each other pretty much everything, and that should be the assumption. If you want something to stay just with the friend, tell them so. Simple.

Well, if ask your friend if you can discuss her problem with your husband and they agree that would obviously be fine.

But, if you’re so invested in the problem but also can’t be bothered to check with your friend betraying their confidence, you are just gossiping.

I agree with you that a lot of those lines get trotted out and it's grim, but I can kind of see where the "I need support to process this too" angle comes from, at least as a human impulse, even though I don't think it makes it okay. Genuinely, if something like that ever came out, I think it needs to go to someone completely separate, someone with zero relationship to your friend, a therapist, a helpline, whoever, not your husband, because even if he's never met her, he now knows by proxy, and that's not nothing. Whether she ever finds out he knows or not doesn't really change that something's shifted that she never agreed to.
And if it absolutely has to be the husband, for whatever reason, then it should be vague at most, and honestly the friend should be told upfront, something like "I'm sorry, I can't sit on this on my own, I do need to talk to my husband about it", so at least she has the choice and the heads up rather than finding out after the fact. Whatever she does with that afterwards is up to her, maybe it damages the friendship, maybe it doesn't, but at least it was her call to make. Not telling her at all and just offloading it anyway is where it tips into betrayal for me.
Not that I'm one of "these women" by the way, playing a bit of devil's advocate here, I'm very much in the don't tell your husband your friend's secrets camp.

I’m going to add that my husband would think less of me if I shared something that was extremely personal to a friend. He’d consider me indiscreet and gossipy. And quite frankly he wouldn’t want to know.

And I know that because he just told me!

do your friends know you share their confidential/sensitive information with him? If they know and don't care, then no issue I suppose

This is so insightful and I completely agree!

Very perceptive.
10/10.
Of course there's no guarantee the dh will be equally as open.
It's magical thinking.

I would always tell my husband. No-one else, just him. And yes, we are one of those couples who don’t keep secrets from each other.

I’ve told him many things friends have shared in confidence over the years, it’s just the way it is. It’s never once caused an issue.

I always assume that people might tell their significant other anything that I tell them. People often want to share 'secrets' they've been told, and may consider their SO a perfect person to share with, without it going any further. Also, many people don't like keeping secrets from their SO.

Personally, I will tell my husband if it's something that's playing incessantly on my mind and bothering me, or something I want another person's opinion on (if it's something major and worrisome) - although it genuinely doesn't go any further than him, as he's not the sort of person to share. He would also never let slip that he knows a thing. Generally speaking, I don't though.

Dunno, there's a wide range here I think. There is a lot I wouldn't tell DH because it is physical or personal, ie: a friend having gynae issues I wouldn't mention, or if they disclosed something traumatic. A friend having marital issues I might talk through with him, because his input would be useful to my thought processes about it.

I don't see him as a 'part of me' or whatever, but I do trust him to keep confidences etc so would never pass on or use anything we talked about.

So in other words, you are more concerned about things "playing on your mind" than you are about protecting your friends' right to privacy.

Agree.
I wonder if the one of the reasons marriages fail these days at such a high rate is because of this - imo bonkers-idea that the spouse is literally the same person as they are?

It's fecking insane to me.

I prefer the two inter-linked rings concept:some things in common, others not.

It's strange to rush to tell your partner everything

I totally agree with you, as do all the right-minded people on this thread, so you don't need to add the hyperbole to make your point.

The speed at which the confidence is broken is irrelevant.

Absolutely spot on!

There is a huge difference between keeping secrets from your partner and keeping someone else's confidence.

I don't 'keep secrets' from my partner but I don't betray the confidences of anyone to anyone.

Your secret is preying on my mind-so I break your confidence. Bloody hell, some people are awful.

Yanbu.
What a shit friend. To be expected, though.
I don't believe spouses should share everything, either.

Plenty of things I don't share with my dh.
And vice versa.

I presume that 'absolutely everything' includes even confidential medical information? Wow! I hope you make this very clear to your friends (if you have any) that everything they tell you will be immediately passed on to your husband, no matter how personal or sensitive.

I couldn't imagine being friends with someone like you.

I’m so surprised by this thread. My best friends know categorically that we wouldn’t share with our husbands. Why on earth would we? It’s NONE of their business.

And I very much doubt that all these women telling their husbands everything about their friends private lives are getting the same level of indiscretion from their husbands about their friends.

@Ifiwere I would feel betrayed and it would change the value I held that friendship in.

Because if my friend had been raped I would be upset about it and I could be more helpful to her if I had calmed myself by talking it through with my calm, steady husband. But for something as personal as that I would 100% clear it with her first. I absolutely can keep confidences from him.

Or your secret is playing on my mind and the most trustworthy person I can share that with is dh?

My dh never has any answers. He just a has the right reactions.