To be surprised she told her husband my secret....

[Writerwannabe83]

A few months ago I confided something to my best friend and asked her not to tell anyone.

A comment made to me this this morning by her DH indicated to me that she had repeated to him what I'd said.

I just got off the phone to her and she openly said that yes she had told her DH but didn't think that would be a problem as her DH wasn't just 'anyone' in her eyes and they tell each other everything. She said had I specified that I didn't want her to tell anyone, including her husband, then obviously she would never have said anything to him. She told me she thought it was normal for married couples to share and that it was strange that I was surprised they had been discussing me.

It wasn't a major secret or anything horrific so I'm not overly annoyed at her, I do know her husband quite well and this won't affect any of our friendships or any thing, but I still feel a bit confused.

Would you share with your husband something you'd been asked to keep quiet about just because he's your husband and "that's what married couples do"?

But what about his friends trust who he has betrayed?

Because a strong trusting relationship means accepting that you have parts of your lives that are separate from one another and in those parts of your life, you may find out things which you are not permitted to/have been asked not to share with your spouse. And for that to not be a threatening or scary thing but is perfectly acceptable and fine, precisely because you have a strong trusting relationship.

But we aren't talking about you being able to tell him anything. We are talking about him telling you something that a friend asked him to keep to himself.

No I wouldn't tell and DH wouldn't be bothered if I didn't tell him. He doesn't have the right to know bout the private life of my friends. I don't know tuff about his mates either.

IMO a 'strong trusting relationship' respects other friendships and the need for privacy. I'd find a man who expected me to tell him everything very weird and rather scary.

What I mean is you are saying that you would tell your dh anything because you trust him.

I'm asking how you could trust him,to keep a secret if he told you something that a friend told him in confidence.

Ergo he has broken the trust his friend put in him.

I'm
Wondering how that works.

Fictional senario but clearly an interesting debate

And what you're really saying is 'if I get any juicy gossip I'm supposed to keep private I immediately spill to my DH. But it's OK because obviously he wouldn't tell anyone'.

But you shouldn't be telling him in the first place! It's just an excuse to gossip.

"But I don't worry about DH's ability to keep a secret giles because I know he can/could and that's why I might talk to him."

So would it be OK to share somebody else's confidence with anyone you felt equally sure of?

And what a lot of you are also saying is 'yes, I betray my friends' wishes for confidentiality on a regular basis but I excuse that to myself because it's only to my partner'

But yet you still both know something you shouldn't.

if people trust eachother surely they are able to trust that the secret thy are keeping isn't being kept because the spouse doesn't trust you or is trying to deceive you.

If someone asked me not to tell anyone, I wouldn't tell anyone. It's beyond me why anyone would think anything different about such a clear request tbh.

Sexually Transmitted Gossip, innit.

Golferman
No secrets between us, nor should there be in a strong, trusting relationship IMO.

I rather understood 'no secrets between us' to mean that if Linda and Dave have a strong, trusting relationship, Linda and Dave will never feel they have to hide things from each other. Dave can tell Linda about his credit card bill at the Savoy, and his plans to deal with it, and Linda can tell Dave she really fancies Jamie Theakston.

It doesn't mean that Linda has to tell Dave about Alice's corns, if Alice would rather she didn't!

I tell DH most things. I thought everyone shared stuff like that with their partners. He tells me confidential stuff too.

My point is that if someone has told you something in confidence, whatever the content, the fact that you are in a long-term relationship doesn't give you a get-out clause to betray that confidence.

If I wasn't comfortable with the husband of a friend knowing, I wouldn't tell the friend; better safe than sorry. What I do worry about is when you seek advice from a friend on a professional level (eg financial), we all know what's supposed to happen, but is there REALLY never a word discussed with their wives?

Golferman is assuming his DW tells him everything.