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

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 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 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 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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.