"Well of course I was going to tell BF"

[WarwickDavisAsPlates]

I originally wrote quite a long post detailing the entire situation and how this came up but it got too long.

So basically what I want to know is: if a friend told you something and said "but please don't tell anyone" would you think that included your OH?

For those who would find it shocking that someone would say 'please don't tell your OH' are you all good friends with each other? Would said friend tell your OH thier secret/problem before telling you? If the answer is No then I don't see where the insistence to tell your oh everything comes from. I was friends with a lot of my friends before I was with my oh so if they ask me not to say then my friendship with them comes first.

It's all about you isn't it? Your friend had had a miscarriage but it's all about the big gesture you made by offering not to tell, and your sadness at not being able to blab to your husband.

Thankfully my friend has the same views on marriage I do, so understood it. She knows my DH would never ever allude to it to or tell anyone.

Surely if you're good friends you know this about people?

How can you be friend with 'tellers' and not know this about them? Is the friendship all about you and your views?

Warwick You can confide in me

I truly am baffled by the 'tellers'. It's not about you or your partner or a reflection on your relationship. It's about a mate in need who wanted to talk about their personal life with you and you alone.

I tend to tell mine unless told not to, but it's well known that he doesn't talk to anyone anyway, so it's pretty safe!

I just can't imagine a friend telling me about their miscarriage and my thoughts of sadness being purely about me and not her sad situation.

Batteries I wonder this too. Who are these friends that confide such important secrets but know so little about you as to not know about your basic beliefs and relationship.

I would make a judgement call but (a) I hate the idea of secrets, even "nice" ones that are surprises - if you don't want me to accidentally blurb it, don't tell me to start with, almost nothing good ever comes from not-nice secrets anyway, and (b) I especially dislike the idea of hiding things from my OH.

That said, I appreciate that real life sometimes involves people disclosing things, accidentally, or on purpose, that you'd rather not have known. If it affects me, my life, my OH, our DC, whatever, he gets told because he has a right to know. If it has literally no bearing on him (e.g. some dirty gossip about what A did to B and A/B are nothing to either of us), I fudge it under the rule of "stuff he wouldn't give a shit about anyway". Because he genuinely probably wouldn't. Otherwise if people ask to confide in me and I have a chance beforehand, as a rule, I make it clear that I don't keep secrets from my OH, so they should bear that in mind. Interestingly no one has ever stopped after receiving that warning, even though some of them didn't know my OH. As it happens he's the least gossipy person I know, so their secret wouldn't get out through him, but still. Some of them didn't know that.

Anyway, just my two pence.

Batteries id rather not be your friend if your that self absorbed

It doesn't matter if he doesn't share it, allude to it, remember it or even care about it. That's not the point.

Well unless my dh/dp was a figment of my imagination

Then no as my dh/dp is someone

How does Ellie feel? Isn't this a situation where the men can support each other better now they know?

I've read the whole thread and I still don't really understand the tellers.

Me NOT telling my DH private matters which relates to my friends personal life does not undermine my marriage.
We love each other and are building our lives together - whether or not my friend has had a termination/an affair/is considering swinging has got nothing to do with us as a unit. He just doesnt need to know and especially doesnt need to know if my friend has asked me not to talk to anyone about it.

I an amazed at people's open version of confidentiality.
I've always been a HCP, where it's obviously important, but all the professions ( that I can think of) require confidentiality. If you can't do it you are really cutting down what sort of jobs are open to you.
And to people who day it's not the same in your home life, why not?

My Dsis told me about her pregnancy very early on. I never breathed a word to DP until I knew she had told the rest of the family.

The only time I ever told DP a friends secret was with her prior permission and only when I knew that he could give great advice and practical help to resolve that particular problem.

Ohyesiam a cousin was most miffed when her colleague mentioned that he'd been treated by her DD in hospital some weeks earlier and that her daughter never told her he'd been in for treatment or even sick. She was insistent that keeping a person's medical confidentiality meant telling no one except your mum.

I'm bad I tell dh everything. But everyone who talks to me knows I'm compulsively honest so they know he'd know, even my best friend knows he's often there while we text all the time

Well obviously my question was in context and wasn't my main priority at the time, but feel free to keep not giving me the benefit of the doubt

As I said, I don't know how you can claim to be close to someone but not know they would tell their partner things. That sounds self absorbed to me.

Ohyesiam all the professions ( that I can think of) require confidentiality.

There's a difference, though, I think, to a personal/private/family/friend disclosure and a professional one. You can choose your profession and you walk into it knowing what you're choosing. You can also leave it. And the "secrets" that you learn in that employment are not likely to be the kind that have a direct bearing on your partner anyway. The personal disclosures are much more likely to have a direct impact. I'm not saying there aren't weird cross-overs, e.g. discovering that your employer is defrauding someone and has dragged you into the mess, potentially leading to consequences for you, but I'm not talking here about weird exceptions.

I don't work at the moment but when I did if I knew someone I would declare conflict of interest and not work on it. It would have been frowned on to have a personal connection to a client and continue to work with them, quite possibly a disciplinary matter.

I would expect a HCP who was friends with me / DH / family to declare conflict of interest tbh. I guess maybe that's not possible in small towns? Never considered it to be honest.

And the "secrets" that you learn in that employment are not likely to be the kind that have a direct bearing on your partner anyway.

Oh you're trying to kid yourself that a friend's confidential information will have a direct bearing on your partner,

Too funny.

I'm with you OP. I had a rough patch and was talking to a friend about it. Her DH joined us, and it was clear she'd been telling him all about it. He is not my friend, or husband. I would not tell that stuff to someone I know in that level. Not telling him isn't keeping a secret, it's not breaking my trust. I don't tell her anything anymore - I don't want him to know that stuff about me. My friendship with her is between us - he isn't part of it.

The language being used by the Tellers is interesting. Words like "hiding" and "withholding".

Hiding - deliberately concealing something where someone would wish to have it revealed.
Withhold - refusing to give something another would feel owed to have.

As if not telling your husband that your mate has had a termination is "hiding" or "withholding" information. Your husband has no right to have that "information", he is not in a position where he is owed that "information", nor would he necessarily like it revealed.

How can it be viewed as "withholding"? I can see why it's "holding a secret", but not "withholding a secret".

It would make me feel very sad
Why? Genuine question.

Batteries we must have different understanding of the word confidential and secret then. Bcos if someone tells me a secret in confidence, by telling my oh means I have broken that. Surely that's not an assumption you need to make?