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

You'd be proud that your husband colluded in another man lying to his wife (your close friend), cheating on her, exposing her to STIs, and raping her by deception? You think that your DH telling you about your friend being cheated on, so you can discuss how best to handle it - whether you inform her, or he tells her husband to come clean - is him being a wet blanket?

Well, to each their own, I suppose. Personally, I'd expect my DH to have more of a moral code than that. I would certainly expect him to tell me, as if nothing else, wouldn't want anything to do with her cheating prick of a husband anymore.
I wouldn't expect my DH to put 'bros before hos' as the misogynistic saying goes.

You put it far more politely than I could. I was too busy 😂.

And the award for the most batshit post of the year goes to...
😂
Nothing comes between husband and wife.
That's the funniest thing I've read all year.

OP I agree with you, but there are some odd people who think that they have to tell DH everything.

I wouldn’t keep a secret from DH that concerned him
in some way, my loyalty is with him. But the idea that I have to tell him private business of close friends that has nothing at all to do with him is plain odd.

I know years ago a friend had told me she was pregnant in confidence (early days), she bumped into DH and seemed to assume he would know. DH was understandably baffled as to what she was on about. Interestingly we got closer friends after that.

I'd be proud that I'd married a man who could keep his f*ng mouth shut and not betray a friend's confidence.

That he wasn't some wet blanket who felt he had to share his f*ng feelings all the time.

Women think - as evidenced here- they want a man who is like them (half of women here have no concept of confidentiality to a friend it seems) but they don't. Not really as such men are the types who don't step up in a crisis as the ability to keep a secret often goes with stoicism.

A man who has no duty to his friends has no duty to anybody else - including his own family.

If a female friend told you about a gynaecological issue that she was undergoing medical treatment for, would you automatically tell your husband, even if she had told you in confidence?

Why would your husband need (or even want) to know that she had fibroids or endometriosis or heavy periods?

Secrets between each other, but disclosing a secret someone else has toldyou in confidence DOES NOT NEED TO BE SHARED TO YOUR PARTNER , its not your secret to share.

I guess it depends on the context. For instance mutual friends separated, initiated by the wife. She told me certain things and over time watching the marriage implode there’s been anomalies in what she says to what he says, so it’s been discussed between DH and I.

but I certainly didn’t go running to him repeating the conversations either..

I hate when people tell their spouses something told to them in confidence - and I have to say it is usually women who do that, men generally tend to keep quiet. I think it is called, "Pillow talk". I would never betray a confidence and, quite honestly, I don't think my husband would have been sufficiently interested anyway.

Yes, she is a bad friend. Unless you'd confided something like you'd committed murder, nobody should have been told.

In your OP title you say you told your friend “in confidence” but then in the post you say you told them something that “was clearly personal”.

For me these are different. For me, in confidence means you’ve explicitly said don’t tell anyone. I would respect that including my DH.

But if you’ve told me “something personal” without saying it’s confidential, then I might well tell DH - there was no request to keep it secret and I would trust him not to spread it further.

It also does depend what it is IMO, something “clearly personal” could cover a whole scale of things, at one end of the scale it could be that you’d been raped or abused say which I absolutely wouldn’t share. Or it could mean that you are having joint pain issues or are at risk of redundancy, say, which are also personal but I wouldn’t see as to be kept strictly to myself (ie telling DH would be ok).

So your partner was fine with your sister knowing he was impotent?

So you'll happily betray your partner's trust by sharing private, embarrassing information you know he'd be horrified to have anyone else know about...and yet you're horrified when she betrays your trust, by telling her partner?
That really doesn’t make sense.

Although her partner is clearly a perv and more fool her for putting up with him. Gross!

Agreed. Keeping a friend’s confidence is not keeping secrets from your husband. It’s not YOUR secret.

Shows how many gossips there are. I find you can pick them pretty easily as the same type also tell others.

A good friend of mine confided in me when she had an abortion over 20 years ago. She is now a good friend of my husband too. To this day I have not told a soul. It is nobody’s business but hers.

I think it would be horrible to do anything else.

My fingers hovered over the voting bar for quite some time, the results reflect that and the first 2 opposing posts nail exactly why .
It's a toughy , but my answer depends on whether they are all part of the same friendship group .

Or course not, no man would be! That's why I told her "in confidence", I was hoping she could offer me advice. I was horrified when I realised she had told her "best friend". I told her about him making passes and suggesting we meet up and she brushed it off saying, "That's just his sense of humour."

You don't know that for certain! See my oost re my BIL. My Sister is completely in the dark and you could be too!

Well, at least you found out he was a dirty sleaze, and could tell your sister that! Yuck!

Was your partner okay with you telling your sister that he was impotent, though? Because I find it hard to believe any man would be fine with his partner's sister knowing that!

I used to confide in my Sister until I realised she was sharing my confidences abour my partner's impotence with her husband. His attitude towards me and my partner changed. He acted arrogant and superior with my partner and started making passes at me and suggesting we meet up to "help" each other! 🤮

I am not sure why it is necessary to share another person’s secrets with your husband . I would be really unhappy if I asked you to keep it to yourself.

I would rather my husband had the hump with me for not telling him.than my friend had the hump for me telling him. (Not saying he would cos he wouldn't know and even if he found out, tough)

I would never repeat anything that I was told in confidence to anyone, including my husband. I honestly can’t believe how many people think it’s okay to share their friends’ private business with their partners — it’s not.

You're not a bad partner, your a rubbish friend!

I work on the belief that anything I tell anyone will become public knowledge. People can't help themselves. Clients would be shocked what I know about them, usually because their family/friends who are also clients blab in appointments and it becomes office gossip at morning tea. I have zero faith in anyone's ability to keep their mouths shut. I also have a DM who is like a one person broadcasting station. Within 5 minutes the entire world knows.

So I don't tell anyone anything I don't want the world to know.

I really think it depends on the context of how person A shares the confidence with person B (and to an extent, if A and B’s husband have a warm relationship). If it’s something major or taboo (e.g. people up thread have mentioned terminations) then I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s not for discussion with another soul, and it should be obvious not to tell hubby. Likewise if A says “please don’t tell anyone”, that of course means don’t tell hubby.

However I think there is a zone of stuff where it’s fairly private but not super confidential, where I’d be annoyed if a friend broadcast it down the pub but don’t mind them mentioning to their husbands e.g. “screentime is a bit fed up at work and thinking of changing jobs”.

I think it’s normal to care about the major characters in your partner’s life (ie their friends) and so talking about how they are getting on isn’t coming from a gossipy place. Sometimes it’s kind of more like knowing that others are going through similar struggles (“x is having the same trouble we are”).

Might be relevant, though, that my husband and I know a lot of each other’s friends fairly well and inquire as to how they are. First questions I ask when he comes in from a night out are 1. Did you have nice food and 2. How is [name]? But we wouldn’t then repeat stuff more widely, so it’s clearly not for public consumption.

I'm always wary because my 'best' friend knows I was abused as a child, and a few things her husband has said has made me pretty sure she has told him about it.

Now, I guess it's not a "secret", but it's also not something I go around telling just anyone.

I'd told her about it many years before she even met him, so it's not like she would ever have been sharing the new information of the day. She must have made an active decision to tell him about it.