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

It's not holding a secret, it's not telling them a piece of information that has nothing to do with them and they don't need to know. It's strange to rush to tell your partner everything when it has nothing to do with them. I would expect that most married people would be capable of maintaining a simple confidence and not telling a partner something that isn't relevant and not their business.

What they will say is-
I don’t keep secrets from my husband
He’s so wise he’ll have good advice
We are soulmates-telling one is just the same as telling the other.
It’s not fair to ask me to keep secrets

There are several other equally bullshit comments I’ve seen on here that I can’t remember. They all basically mean I can’t keep my mouth shut and are equally disgusting.

Huh, its kind of expected between me and my best friend that our OHs would know everything we talk about, like she has said to me oh i told OH about that thing btw and im like obviously and its the same the other way, its not done maliciously or gossipy, i just talk to my OH about everything and so does she, if she said to me “please dont tell your OH about this i wouldnt but she never has.

So if I'd been raped, or was at risk of losing my job, or something else major, and confided in you, you'd tell your husband about what I'd told you? If so, why?

I assume that anything I tell to a married person will get back to their spouse tbh.

I do know friends who almost certainly wouldn't tell their spouse (especially if I asked them not to explicitly) but I still work on the assumption that their spouse could know.

If a friend tells me something in confidence I generally don't tell DH, but I know plenty of people who think like your friend. I don't view them as bad friends.

I agree with you, it's absolutely NOT ok to blab a confidence to anyone. That's gossip and it's just not acceptable.

All this bullshit from people who feel they have to tell their other half everything and vice versa is a nonsense, and even more despicable if the person they blabbed to can't be discreet. It's not their information to share, it's private to the person who shared it with them and grown arse adults should be able to manage that.

I have a couple of friends who can't keep their mouths shut and I'm very careful what information they get from me.

When I was married, there is no way I would break my friends trust to share things with him that weren't meant to be shared. Private conversations between me and my friends were just that. Private. He had no need to know, and I certainly wasn't going to share something that obviously wasn't public knowledge.

I always assumed that would be the case in other marriages, I never dreamt that everything I told my best friend would also be shared with her husband. Until I found out it was.
It did damage the friendship, and I was never ever as open with her after, as every time I spoke to her I was conscious that it would all be relayed back to her husband.
If I wanted her husband to know these things, I'd have told him myself. There was a reason I didn't.

I expect your friend had complete confidence that you wouldn't repeat it.

That makes no sense! I think a lot of posters saying this are acting defensively or just regretting some of their shares with friends.

It would depend on the secret. If you’re dying, having an affair, killed someone then yeah I’d tell dh. If you had piles or an std, it wouldn’t be shared.

If it was gossipy stuff then I would tell dh because I’m quite inclined like that. Plus my friends know this so don’t tell me certain things I’m sure!

Exactly. This is proper respectful friendship and a healthy marriage on your part.

I assume you mean to my husband?

To be clear, if a friend asked me not to tell my husband, then I wouldn't. I don't believe that I have to share everything. And sometimes, if I wasn't sure, I would ask her.

It's really just that I can't think of anything I would tell my closest friends that I wouldn't be happy for them to share with their husbands. Those husbands fall into two camps, those who are also trusted friends of mine, and those who I have almost nothing to do with due to distance etc and therefore it doesn't much matter what they know. And I believe my closest friends would feel the same about my husband. But if I was genuinely in doubt, I might check.

It's not "gossiping". It's talking through important stuff that is on my mind with someone who is close to me but slightly removed from the situation.

So much. See also ‘we come as a package’.

I don’t think ‘I tell my husband EVERYTHING’ is quite the badge of honour some people think it is. It smacks of codependency and an insular marriage, with the need to share everything in order to keep that special bond between them, and to keep others at a distance.

Interestingly, the strongest marriages I know are where I know I could tell the woman something and she would not be blabbing to her husband.

I agree with you OP. One of my friends had an issue with their husband and Children's Services and I stepped up support, helping with bedtimes for the kids etc. I still haven't to this day told my husband why and he respects what my friend told me is in confidence.

I think finding it 'important' to tell a partner 'everything' often stems from the need to feel its reciprocal. 'We' have no secrets, is often about setting boundaries for self protection. If I make that our thing, he's not going to hide anything from me. When in reality, there's very few people who don't have some areas of privacy. And quite right too.
Spilling the secrets of friends as a gesture of great trust between partners is actually just performative honesty. It offers nothing of your own private self, so is safe, but bolsters an illusion of two as one, that people in secure relationships don't need to perform.

I think there's always a risk that, months down the line, someone may forget that it was supposed to be kept private

But I've previously been surprised on MN by how many people say "of course I tell my husband everything". And they're usually pretty smug about it, as if it's something to be proud of (it's not. Not at all)

'I tell my husband everything anyone tells me, because we are 'as one' makes me cringe a little. 😬

I wouldn't dream of telling my husband my friends secrets. Married 38 years and he's decent.

Chit chat yes, personal business no.

I don’t agree with this. There’s loads of situations where I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be treated “as one”. I learn confidential information at work all the time that I don’t tell my husband. I doubt my employer would accept we are “as one”. I trust my doctor doesn’t tell her husband about my medical information as they are not “one person”.

if you say “that’s different that’s work” then you clearly accept there are scenarios where you and your husband are not “as one” in which case why could keeping a friends secret not be an exception?

I agree with you, Blossom. Our friends don’t get down graded after marriage, and their lives don’t become titillating gossip between husband and wife.

Totally agree. I made a mistake many years ago about telling my husband a friends secret. My friend was a bit upset and I apologised as I was in the wrong. I have since had my own issues and been clear I don’t want her partner to know. I keep all of her secrets now as my husband has no need to know them as they aren’t about me or him. There are obviously stuff that I don’t mind her partner knowing and vice versa so it’s not everything but every now and then there will be something either health based or relationship based that we talk about and we don’t want husbands/ partners to know and I think that’s completely fair enough

ive also had situations where I’ve asked about my husbands friends and he’s said he can’t say what’s going on as it’s private and I totally respect that. His friends are due privacy too

I actually believe it’s not so much that when they say I DO they consider themselves one person with their SO - more that they’re the type of person who can’t keep a secret, and are in close proximity to another person they can happily share the information with. Being married is a cover for the fact they enjoy a good ol gossip- the juicier the better. If they were living with their parents/ sibling/close friend you can be guaranteed they’d be sharing with them also.

I agree with this. 'Oh I tell my husband EVERYTHING, even everyone else's secrets, and private and personal issues they have shared with me, because I have a better marriage than you!'

That's the vibe I am getting from some anyway... 🙄

So you have like a pyramid of friends, and everyone on the lower levels gets their secrets gossiped about with the people on the levels above, and DH is top of the pyramid so he has to know all your friends' private business until/unless you ever make a better friend

Tbh i wouldn't hold your breath on making many new friends

Make sure you tell your friends that you are going to tell your husband everything that they tell you then. Let's see how many secrets and personal intimate information they tell you then!