"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?

if he told me any of those things about friends of his I wouldn't repeat them

But if I didn;t want anyone else to know then it's because I didn;t want anyone else to know not the fact that they can be trusted not to tell anyone else is besides the point.

If I wanted your DH to know I could have told him myself. I really hope all you tellers make it clear to your friends that you can;t be trusted not to blab everything they say to your DH.

warrick since many people on this thread who do tell their partners have stated that they assumed others told their partners, I doubt your friend will have a problem with it as she probably assumes you tell your partners anyway.

I think it would be sensible to have a discussion between the 3 of you about your perceptions of secrecy between you. She may genuinely not have thought it a problem. She may know fine well and not have cared. She may be perfectly happy to modify her behaviour in light of your differing versions of normal behaviour.

You can't know until you talk about it.

It's fascinating how few of the "oh, I tell hubby everything" group are prepared to address the very simple practicalities of what you tell. Everything? Really? down to which F&B they'be chosen for the living room? A full disclosure of 3 hours of pub chat? I think not. It's just juicy bits of gossip that it is suddenly imperative to pass on because "I don't lie to my husband" As I said. Ick personified.

Nope not just the juicy bits if we're discussing something then yes there isn't a censorship with DH.
Likewise I wouldn't tell someone something without assuming it may get discussed with DP. That said I don't have any juicy gossip to share 😂

It's just juicy bits of gossip that it is suddenly imperative to pass on because "I don't lie to my husband" As I said. Ick personified.

that's what you chose to believe, if it makes happy to interpret other people's lives and relationships, go for it.

Posters are very insistent on picturing someone who talks with their partner as some kind of gossip, laughing and bitching behind friend's back with a glass of wine. It doesn't show you in a great light if that's how you imagine someone with a close relationship.

It does say something about the depth of some posters' relationships outside their marriage. I have known my oldest friend longer than I have known my DH (and that is a long time). When she told me about her medical issues, no way was I scampering back to my DH with that information. And no way would she have confided that she sometimes craps herself if she thought I would tell my DH, who she knows and socialises with.

My close female friendships really matter to me. I value and respect the wonderful women in my life. I am not sharing their deepest fears and concerns with my DH. He wouldn't expect me to and in fact would consider it inappropriate and intrusive to be told the intimate details of other women's lives and bodies.

That said I don't have any juicy gossip to share

Obviously your friends know they cannot confide in you without you blabbing - which keeps friendships pretty superficial.

Ithaka You wouldn't tell your DH but you just told all of MN…?

No, Photograph, that is your attempt to depict it. You're trying to trivialise our perception in order to belittle it.

And you haven't answered my question.

Ithaka, exactly. Friends matter.

You may be laughing with a glass of wine; you may be solemnly sharing everything in the sanctity of your marriage bed; you may be angsting over the phone.

You're still saying the same thing.

No one said friends didn't matter, but I would find it completely out of order to request that mine keep something from their partners. If my friends want to talk, they can, they are grown up. Who am I to decide what they share with their husband/ wives or not. Very strange.

But don't you think by that same logic who are you to decide what parts of their private lives are shared with your husband?

Ithaka You wouldn't tell your DH but you just told all of MN…?

FFS, no one on Mumsnet knows me, I change details of any bits of my life I share and name change now and again. Hardly breaking a confidence, is it?

Ithaka FFS, no one on Mumsnet knows me, I change details of any bits of my life I share and name change now and again. Hardly breaking a confidence, is it?

Let's get this straight. You can tell MN about your friend's confession to you because we don't know you? So this step of one not knowing the other seems to be the key. If so, by that logic then, you would have no objection to telling your DH something about one of your friends as long as he doesn't know them, right? And you'd be fine breaking a professional confidence by telling your close friend about a client as long as they too don't know them?

Have you broken a confidence in your post about your friend? According to the standards of a few people on this thread, it would seem that yes, you have.

And you think no one on here knows you. But you can't know that.

Mumsnet is an anonymous forum, whereas friends are part of our social circle - I would have thought that didn't need explaining, but there you go.

Ithaka So if I came on here and told everyone the intimate confession that my friend shared with me yesterday, that wouldn't be breaking her confidence?

I have to say "let me post a Wikipedia link to explain what that really recondite, obscure concept 'lying by omission'" is battling "I'm not boring I'm taking a mini-break to Denmark!" as the most LOL-worth comment on this thread.

It doesn't show you in a great light if that's how you imagine someone with a close relationship.
No, that's how we imagine unhealthy and weirdly co-dependent relationships.

And really the fact you don't have any defence except to brag about your picture perfect marriage and shit all over everyone else's really makes both your opinion on this subject and your marriage look a bit sus. People with genuinely happy relationships don't do that.

Sorry Tabasco, some of us have left high school quite a few years ago

That's some nice cultural stereotyping you've got going on there, Tabasco. Any others you'd like to share with us?

I've got to say, I wouldn't post my friends confidential information on mumsnet, either. I know it's anonymous, but it still doesn't sit well with me. This forum can be read by anyone.

I'm not the one making constant childish personal attacks, calling child rape survivors whiny attention-seeking drama queens, and bragging about my amazing life and perfect marriage and claiming anyone who respects the adult concept of "privacy" and "respect" obviously has a terrible marriage!

ForTheSakeOfFuck I have literally zero idea what you're referring to? Pretty sure "people who take mini-breaks" are not a discrete cultural minority group.

Hilarious thread, including some random anonymous on the internet taking a photo of a random house through the buses (stalkery, much?) to prove they've got a better lifestyle than some other random anonymous on the internet

although I find myself wondering what the real Caryl Churchill would make of this thread

Tabasco, NotCarylChurchill Let's take a look at the "joke" shall we.

"I have to say "let me post a Wikipedia link to explain what that really recondite, obscure concept 'lying by omission'" is battling "I'm not boring I'm taking a mini-break to Denmark!" as the most LOL-worth comment on this thread".

The "amusement" seems to be predicated on the notion that there is a contradiction between the two phrases, e.g. "I'm not [some negative quality], I'm taking a mini-break to [place that has this negative quality]." After all, I doubt that you think people who take mini-breaks to Italy or the Alps or New York or Dubai are boring, right? So it isn't the mini-break that's the issue. It's the place they're going. In other words, the only sensible way for your "joke" to be "funny" is based on the cultural stereotype that Denmark is boring.

Unless you have some other perfectly cogent explanation?