Is she being unreasonable making this request of my husband?

[Souredstones]

Husband has a female friend who is a complete drama queen, and tbh I find it tiring and so limit my contact with her. Tonight he gets a call from her, clearly about something major, and with the request 'you're the only person I've told, please don't tell anyone, not even Souredstones about it'

Now my automatic inclination whenever anyone says 'you're the only person who knows this don't tell ANYONE' is to call 'bullshitting liar' but I think it's even worse to expect a husband to keep something from his wife. I don't want to know what micro drama is affecting her life, I have no interest in it, I just have issue with her asking my husband to keep a secret from me.

I also take umbridge with him keeping said secret.

Aibu or is she?

I also agree with Scruffey

I don't tell people things I wouldn't be happy for them to tell their spouse

curlew

It's hard to explain. I don't automatically tell me DH everything someone tells me, but I would resent being told not to.

It's the modern day equivalent of them standing in a corner whispering and pointing at you.
Childish and rude IMO.

What does he get from this friendship? What kind of man has a drama queen female friend who says things like that?
I wouldn't be comfortable with it.

I don't not have their consent. They know I would share it with him if I needed to. They have the choice not to tell me.

I also assume that if I share a secret with a friend they might tell their partner if it was weighing on them.

I just assumed that is what people do in marriages, they share things that are bothering them and therefore, if I tell someone a big heavy secret I assume they may go to their husband for advice as well.

Also, unless you are generally unreasonable an tiresome,OP, your husband should really recognise that this bothers you and put your needs above his friends needs (male or female) and tell you the "secret" to put your mind at ease.

Samu

Agree again

Not sure. I guess there could be situations where you would want to confide something to a married friend whilst asking them not to tell their spouse.

But I wouldn't them to tell their spouse "I've got a secret I can't tell you" either!!

If my friend told me she was dying of cancer and asked me to keep this secret no I bloody well would NOT go and tell DP. Frankly she would be going through rather more than me, and my need for 'comfort' would not mean I refused to do something for my dying friend (keeping her confidence). I think that's a really revolting thing even to contemplate

Hmm. What's the history of your H's friendship with this woman? I see two possible scenarios here.
ONe is that your H quite likes keeping you on your toes by having intimate friendships with other women and sort of playing you off against each other ie he pretends to think she is a mad drama queen but, when he's with her, he probably tells her that you are a boring unemotional housewife.

The other is that you are unsympathetic, monogamy-obsessed and controlling, so you do not want your H to have any female friends, and he has to pretend to find his oldest, closest pal ridiculous in order to be allowed to talk to her at all.

mother

I think I'd ask her why? Then I'd discuss it.

I can't really imagine that happening, TBH, but obviously I'm not completely insensitive!!

The reason I feel strongly about it is because the time it was asked of me was definitely to invite me into an intimacy and separate me from someone else. I think the OP's situation (especially the friendship with someone of the opposite sex), has echoes of that.

Sounds to me she is creating drama where there isn't any and trying to make something of the relationship she has with your DH in to something else.

She sounds a total drama llama. DH's eye rolling suggests he's bored of it too.

Generally if I am asked to keep a secret I will. I have recently kept a secret from DH, because to tell would cause a conflict of interest.

I don't think it's wrong to keep a secret from DH, and I would respect the confidentiality of the teller if requested. But it's silly and childish to say "don't tell Soured" when you know a conversation has taken place.

I'm OK with keeping a friend's real secret from dh if it's a serious request and matter and I'd be OK with dh doing the same. In fact I have when my friend started IVF in difficult circs.

BUT OP's dh's friend sounds like an-ex friend of dh's who was a drama llama and demanded loads of attention for various crises - including when I was very heavily pregnant and she rang up and claimed to be suicidal (had been through so many crises with her by then I knew it was all attention-seeking). I was very pissed off about that one and made it clear to dh, who realised she'd gone too far. He has kept his distance ever since, although meets up with her and her baby and our ds about once a year.

If you are unable to keep a secret as requested, you are a blabber mouth and shouldn't be trusted with anyone's confidences.

These confidences are not your secret to tell.

Agree with Solid that it is very difficult to know exactly what is going on here: we don't know you, we don't know your husband, we don't know the friend. We don't know whether he is deliberately teasing you with "other person told me all this information which I'm not to tell you, ner ner ner" or whether he cannot have a quiet conversation with a friend without being pestered with "what did she say, what did she say, what did she say" or whether it is the friend who said "and don't forget to tell your wife she can't know this secret ner ner ner". Or quite possibly none of these.

But I do feel by the number of posters who think it is wrong and disloyal to expect somebody to keep a secret from their husband.

So if you confided in a close friend about something personal and intimate, would you feel she was being disloyal if she didn't skip straight off and tell her husband. Have to admit that never occurred to me. So if they don't discuss the state of my vaginal wall with their other halves, this is driving some kind of wedge into their relationship.

Surely lots of wives are in professions where you have to keep confidential information to yourself even if it is worrying and upsetting?

The point isnt that you trust your dh/dp's more than anyone in the world. Your friend confusing in you, doesn't have that relationship with your husband/partner. They trust you

I find this aspect of coupledom, wholly pathetic and self-absorbed

confiding obviously!

What if you confided in a friend, if you were having a problem with your husband...could your friend go and tell him?

YADNBU

she is out of order

curlew Sat 22-Jun-13 08:32:38

Well, frankly, I never have before, but after reading this thread I sure as hell will in the future.

If its that big a secret then you should just keep it to yourself then. I'd be quite offended if someone told me not to tell my DH something. It's rude and if anyone said that to me I'd tell them not to tell me, because I don't know when I might mention something in passing to him and then realise I was sworn to secrecy. You always have a choice not to share info, otherwise make friends with single men and women.

Fakebook, so if your friend wanted to confide in you something deeply hurtful or painful from her past, something she actually couldn't tell others you'd say 'keep it to yourself, I'd have to tell my DP?' And you'd be offended if she just wanted to trust you with it? You really couldn't be there for her in that respect, support her through what the confidence is without sharing it onwards?

I'm just interested in knowing because i see it as a serious breach of trust to tell my partner if someone's asked me to keep it private. IF i found a friend doing this then the trust would automatically be gone. I'd expect her to tell me upfront she wasn't happy sharing secret but i'd think less of her as a friend if she couldn't keep an important confidence.

OP have to be honest, she may well be being a drama queen but your DPs attitude to it sounds like he's also being a bit of one. He should tell her straight if she's sounding dramatic to him not eye roll and then irritate you by adding to the drama with 'she swore me not to tell'. Honestly, they both sound immature and the 'secret' doesn't sound too personal, though possibly your DP could just be being a bad friend so who knows. But if it was a personal secret then he should have just said to you 'sorry X is going through some stuff, hopefully it will sort itself out' and left it at that. Hasn't divulged anything, hasn't made it out to be a big deal and if you wanted more then that would be just wanting gossip more than anything else.

Mia4, if my friend was a very close friend, who had known me for a long time, she'd know that I do share things with my DH. Therefore, as a good friend, she would tell me her secret knowing full well I may or may not tell my husband. It's not a breach of trust when the person knows you and your relationship with your DH. Infact I've had two friends who have told me personal family issues they have and they have said to me that they don't mind me telling DH because they know he won't tell anyone.

Obviously personal problems to do with sex and health I would never share with DH, but other things I might.

OP, I think there are two slightly separate things going on: one is that you clearly don't like this woman, and resent her friendship with your DH. This means that you are bound to view what she says and does with suspicion. Secondly, you seem to be in the "I tell my DH everything" camp, which means that the request for DH not to tell you something jars with you even more.

FWIW, DH and I don't tell each other everything, and I would never betray a friend's confidence unless there was real harm likely to arise as a result of me not sharing the information with someone. I would be mortified if I thought that all my conversations with my girl friends were being automatically relayed back to their DHs.

Why are sex and health issues different from other issues, Fakebook?