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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is she being unreasonable making this request of my husband?

203 replies

Souredstones · 21/06/2013 21:53

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?

OP posts:
Boomba · 22/06/2013 22:47

Yeah, I've read nothing that makes much sense samu....it just boils down to you being shit mates, it seems

justmyview · 22/06/2013 22:48

Very surprised how many people think that "Keep this to yourself" means you can spill the beans to your DH / DP. I hope I haven't confided in you ............

ShellyBoobs · 23/06/2013 00:12

Boomba I have explained and many others, why we may want to share a friends confidences.

What you mean is "may want to betray a friend's confidence".

And you can't have explained it, because it's inexplicable; not being able to resist gossiping with one's spouse about a friend's problems isn't a positive trait.

ShellyBoobs · 23/06/2013 00:15

I would never stand for this best friend of the opposite sex business.

Confused

Perhaps being controlling goes hand-in-hand with betraying friends' trust.

BOF · 23/06/2013 00:31

I would absolutely keep a female friend's confidence, and have done. I don't just share stuff with my partner to gossip about if it's to the detriment of the person who has confided in me.

Equally, I know that anything I tell my partner will go no further, and if I'm spending all night on the phone or messaging the other person, I feel I owe him the courtesy of at least outlining the situation

It's a bit different though, I think, if the secret-teller is a dramallama of the opposite sex, and trying to draw you into some spurious circle of trust and drive a wedge.

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 23/06/2013 06:51

Shelly

Ftft

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 23/06/2013 06:51

Or even rtft

curlew · 23/06/2013 07:55

"Boomba I have explained and many others, why we may want to share a friends confidences."

I understand perfectly why you may want to.......but I cannot begin to understand why you would

Fakebook · 23/06/2013 08:57

...it just boils down to you being shit mates, it seems

Why don't you let our friends be the judge of that? I've only been married 7 years and we have known each others friends for 10+ years. We haven't lost any family friends because of this in this time, and who knows, maybe it makes us better friends?

I will give you a personal example from a week ago, I told my friend a very sensitive piece of information about my dad's health. It's not something I'd share outside the family. She listened and went and asked advice from her long term partner as he is doing a phd in a similar field and knew the ins and outs of my dad's problem. She came back with sound advice and I was thankful to her. I'd never even thought of asking her partner as it slipped my mind what he did. Not only did she help me, she helped my siblings too about making a decision about something. Sometimes in these types of situations you may end up helping a friends immensely by sharing a problem.

You're just making pathetic goady comments trying to instigate a fight now and it's a pretty lame way of going about things.

You'll find that a lot of couples share information with one another and it's not something new. It's more common than you may think.

curlew · 23/06/2013 09:02

fakebook- your friend should have asked you whether it was all right for her to consult her partner, or suggested that you did. Why didn't she do that?

motherinferior · 23/06/2013 09:16

What happens when you get divorced and remarry? Can you tell your new DH the stuff your old DH told you?

Fakebook · 23/06/2013 09:17

😒 Because if you read my first post on this thread, you will see that I always tell friends information knowing full well they may discuss it with their husbands/partners.

TheYamiOfYawn · 23/06/2013 09:18

And can your ex tell all your secrets to his new wife?

Sallystyle · 23/06/2013 09:25

Boomba, you don't have to like the explanation but it has been explained.

I am not a shit mate in the slightest. I am a very good friend in fact.

I texted my best friend last night and asked her if she would expect me to share a secret of hers with my husband and she said that yes, she would, depending on what the secret is . So at least we are on the same page.

Anyway, my friends all have pretty undramatic lives where these situations don't really come up.

Curlew, perhaps she didn't think to ask her if she could share it with her partner because she knows Fakebook well enough to know that she wouldn't mind getting some advice from her partner. My friends know I wouldn't mind a secret being shared with their partners so why would they ask me?

Sallystyle · 23/06/2013 09:30

Motherinferior I was married before and I see no need to tell my 'new' husband any of my exes secrets. why? because that would be gossip and I don't gossip for the sake of gossiping. His secrets do not affect me, they do not weigh on my mind, I do not need or want my husbands advice on how to deal with them. So why would I share them?

I find it amazing how some of you can't grasp this. We don't share secrets to gossip, only when we feel the need to talk it through with our husbands and I have no reason to want to discuss my ex husbands secrets when they don't affect me any more in the slightest.

And if he shares any of my secrets with his wife? meh. I personally wouldn't care. But I love and trust her so....

MortifiedAdams · 23/06/2013 09:43

I couldnt give two hoots if DH was told a secret from a friend, male or female.

My only issue would be DH going to them (male or female) for confidence instead of feelibg he could talk to me

Boomba · 23/06/2013 09:51

samu have you chosen to overlook the part of your friends reply, where she says 'depending on what the secret was'?

Sallystyle · 23/06/2013 10:04

No. I have said all along that I would only talk to him depending on what the secret was. Meaning she would expect me to talk to him if I felt the need to discuss it with him but wouldn't expect me to tell him about her dodgy periods because that would just be gossiping.

I have known her most of my life, she knows me.

Boomba · 23/06/2013 10:10

Ok, I have friends like that also. Because I would confide in their dps also.

I think we may be at cross purposes then

In the OP, the friend specifically asked for her confidence to be kept, and not betrayed. In those circumstances, you wouldn't tell tour dh then?

plieadianpony · 23/06/2013 10:21

I'm not sure. It just sounds a bit tiring to me. With a DH who has had a dramary female friend I can only thing that the reason that she has asked him not to tell you about what is happening in her life is that she is embarrassed about what you might think of her?

ShellyBoobs · 23/06/2013 12:03

JamieandtheMagicTorch - I've read the fucking thread, thanks.

Reading it any number of times wouldn't change the meaning of "I would never stand for this best friend of the opposite sex business."

It's not difficult to understand what that means.

Viviennemary · 23/06/2013 12:14

I know that was a bit strong, but the trouble is that it leads to problems like this. And in any case why do you even have to know there is a secret to be kept. It's this we know something but we can't tell you, that's causing the problem. I agree with keeping confidences but I don't agree on relying on somebody else's DH to be your best friend, confidant and counsellor.

Miamiami · 23/06/2013 12:30

OP this is bad, very bad. Your DH is just as bad as this drama queen, for coming off the phone and telling you he has to keep a secret from you Confused- You see, this, is the crux of the problem
I find the whole thing extremely weird and absurd. You have a hell of a lot to mull over as regards your DH and his "friend"

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 23/06/2013 13:35

Shelly

I apologise for swearing. But it's hard to see how you have reached the conclusion that we are talking about gossiping to our spuses, if you have read the whole thread

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 23/06/2013 13:35

Spouses