Is it ever reasonable to expect friends to keep things from partners?

[ghostsliveinmyhouse]

I'm not talking about things like affairs or emotional cheating.

I mean things like, if you confide in a close friend about having a mental health issue, or about something traumatic that happened in your past. If it reasonable to not want that friend to tell anyone else, including their partner?

I know people shouldn't keep things from their partner (obviously) but should that still be the case if it's something personal about someone else.

I've recently confided in a friend as I was having a very hard time - they pushed me to open up and I felt at breaking point so it was a relief to let it out finally. But I've now found out they've told their other half about it and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't like to think I'm a topic of discussion among other people.

AIBU?

I find it amazing that a grown adult can't differentiate between keeping a confidence about something that is nothing to do with their dh and "not being honest with" their dh. confused.

Let’s extrapolate a hypothetical situation. Husband notices a huge dent and broken headlight on his car. He’s a bit cross and asks you whether you’ve heard or seen anything or anyone bumping into it.

Your friend who did it, asked you not to tell anyone. Where is the honesty? “No darling, I didn’t know it was damaged? “ How then does he feel when a neighbour tells him he has the numberplate and description of the person who hit his car and drove off? Where’s the honesty when he asks if your friend said anything?

I don’t think it’s quite as set in tablets of stone as people think, is it?

I thought the discussion was about things that had nothing to do with the partner? Assuming that, then I would only break a confidence for things a counsellor would have to. That would be to the relevant person or authority though.

@LemonRoses

I find it amazing that a grown adult can't differentiate between keeping a confidence about something that is nothing to do with their dh and "not being honest with" their dh. confused.

Let’s extrapolate a hypothetical situation. Husband notices a huge dent and broken headlight on his car. He’s a bit cross and asks you whether you’ve heard or seen anything or anyone bumping into it.

Your friend who did it, asked you not to tell anyone. Where is the honesty? “No darling, I didn’t know it was damaged? “ How then does he feel when a neighbour tells him he has the numberplate and description of the person who hit his car and drove off? Where’s the honesty when he asks if your friend said anything?

I don’t think it’s quite as set in tablets of stone as people think, is it?

That's something directly about your husband in that scenario though?!

Nobody is saying never ever tell anyone has told you in confidence ever, point blank, period - just as doctors swear to keep things confidential but are not required to do so if their patient is at risk of harm from themselves, harming others etc.

In your posts, it seems your default is to always tell your husband everything your friends have told you whether it has any impact on him or his own friends / family at all.

In many people's lives, mine included, my default is that if someone has said they wish to share a confidence with me, my default is to maintain that confidence unless it puts someone in danger or affects someone close to me.

Obviously if my mate told me they smashed up my partners car and asked me not to tell my partner I would tell them not to be silly because it needs to be sorted. Because that's a sensible reaction in that scenario.

If that same mate said they'd scraped their husbands car and were scared of his reaction because he's an arsehole to them, I wouldn't feel any need whatsoever to tell my husband about the car. Because it would be something told you me in confidence that has no effect on him at all.

@BackforGood

But LemonRoses, those aren't the situations this thread is about at all.

The OP was asking about if she tells a friend something deeply personal about her own life , does she have a right to expect that that information remains only with the person she has trusted to tell.

Which, of course she should fully expect.

Your scenarios are completely different.

No I’d think drink driving and knocking a cyclist off his bike then driving off was most definitely something personal about their own life. I’d think a partner having child porn on their phone was pretty personal and about their life.

People just don’t want to accept confidentiality is not always such a good idea. Nice idea, but naive.

Even professionally it is sometimes necessary to override confidentiality. Unless you’re a priest in a confessional.

@kowari

I thought the discussion was about things that had nothing to do with the partner? Assuming that, then I would only break a confidence for things a counsellor would have to. That would be to the relevant person or authority though.

You put this far more clearly and succinctly than me! Same here.

So are we saying that there are times most reasonable people would break a shared confidence? That feels very different from any suggestion of sharing made me them devil incarnate.

@LemonRoses personally, yup that's the level of confidentiality I expect from a friend if I tell them something in confidence. I have things 'in the vault' from friends that I will absolutely take to the grave and believe mine are equally safe with my friends. If I found out they'd told a husband or partner I'd know I couldn't trust them and would massively downgrade the friendship. We could be mates still but not on that deeper level. I wouldn't confide in them about anything in future. If I want to tell their other half, I'd tell him myself.
Re your bizarre selection of scenarios a friend might discuss with you, the only ones I can see any reason to expect you might possibly discuss with your husband are the ones that involve him - his infidelity or the car one. It's a very disingenuous question though.

People just don’t want to accept confidentiality is not always such a good idea. Nice idea, but naive.

In fact, what people have said is that while it isn't always a good idea, there is no need for it to not be the rule rather than the exception.

Your scenarios are extreme and many fall into the exception to the rule.

But you made it clear early on that you tell your partner everything, not just things that are related to violence / abuse of children / criminal damage etc.

Those are the sort of exceptions to the rule that most people would be able to separate very easily from other 'deeply personal' things friends share with their friends that don't need to be reshared with that friend's partner, like relationship niggles, health issues, work problems etc.

You're taking it to extremes to try and prove a point but it doesn't work logically because in extreme circumstances yes people break confidences to keep people safe and safeguarded.

That has no bearing on believing it should be the default to break a confidence just because you're married. Out of interest, how long into a relationship does the rule apply? Or is it just once the marriage is official?

LemonRoses you keep describing situations that have become the partner's business. This entire thread is about the appalling habit of automatically sharing someone else's business.

I am deeply saddened that there are so many of these awful yappers around, and conversely would love to be friends with a great many of you who have a firm grasp on integrity and sisterhood. Beautiful to see.

Nobody is saying never ever tell anyone has told you in confidence ever, point blank, period - just as doctors swear to keep things confidential but are not required to do so if their patient is at risk of harm from themselves, harming others etc.

Exactly. And going right back to my example at the beginning about the suicidal friend, that's exactly why I immediately called a helpline, because I didn't know what to do. I told them, but I have never told anyone who knows this friend. Because that would be shitty of me.

@LemonRoses you are deliberately misunderstanding what this thread is about, in order to try to justify your stance.

@LemonRoses

So are we saying that there are times most reasonable people would break a shared confidence? That feels very different from any suggestion of sharing made me them devil incarnate.

Of course there are times you would break a confidence, that's totally different from what's being discussed in the OP.

Of your list I would support my friend to do the right thing e.g. go to police.
And I'd be there for her in the fall out no matter what, because I love her.

I wouldn't gossip about her with my husband.

@Dutch1e

LemonRoses you keep describing situations that have become the partner's business. This entire thread is about the appalling habit of automatically sharing someone else's business.

I am deeply saddened that there are so many of these awful yappers around, and conversely would love to be friends with a great many of you who have a firm grasp on integrity and sisterhood. Beautiful to see.

I agree with you, but it's not about the sisterhood. I have male friends who are just as deserving of my loyalty.

Everything youvegottenminuteslynn and kowari said.

How have we gone from a number of posters claiming it's totally fine to blab confidences that have nothing to do with the husband to their husbands because they are so open and honest and trusting and have a wonderful marriage, to a range of situations that do concern the husband as a way of justifying gossipy pillow talk?

I’d never gossip to my partner about a friend. I’ve got a friend who had a termination and didn’t want to tell her husband, she neeed support and I’ve to this day not told a soul including my husband. During lockdown many of my friends have confided in me about marriage issues and so on. Again, that’s not something I’d say to my partner. I’d see it as a huge breach of trust.

@LolaSmiles

How have we gone from a number of posters claiming it's totally fine to blab confidences that have nothing to do with the husband to their husbands because they are so open and honest and trusting and have a wonderful marriage, to a range of situations that do concern the husband as a way of justifying gossipy pillow talk?

Because it's supposed to be some justifiable AHA! moment. If you tell your husband about your friend's pedophile boyfriend, I can tell mine about my friend's genital warts.

Or to try to discredit and to make them look like hypocrites the posters that have said they keep confidences.

Yep, they're pretending that because you don't keep all confidences, you needn't keep any.
Nonsense!

@saraclara

Nobody is saying never ever tell anyone has told you in confidence ever, point blank, period - just as doctors swear to keep things confidential but are not required to do so if their patient is at risk of harm from themselves, harming others etc.

Exactly. And going right back to my example at the beginning about the suicidal friend, that's exactly why I immediately called a helpline, because I didn't know what to do. I told them, but I have never told anyone who knows this friend. Because that would be shitty of me.

@LemonRoses you are deliberately misunderstanding what this thread is about, in order to try to justify your stance.

No. I think people are avoiding the challenges that guaranteeing confidence brings to justify a stance that in reality cannot be reasonably guaranteed.

I go back to the question at what point do you agree to absolute secrecy? Before or after a disclosure?

Because it's supposed to be some justifiable AHA! moment. If you tell your husband about your friend's pedophile boyfriend, I can tell mine about my friend's genital warts.

Or to try to discredit and to make them look like hypocrites the posters that have said they keep confidences.

You're right, it's a fairly silly strategy.

They'd be better off owning the fact they love a good old gossip with the Mr and don't want to be honest with their friends in case the friend stops sharing the good pillow talk material.

@LemonRoses and you haven't answered why you need to tell your husband about your friends breast lump or the fact she fakes her orgasms?

[quote RubyFowler]@LemonRoses and you haven't answered why you need to tell your husband about your friends breast lump or the fact she fakes her orgasms?[/quote]
Yes, interested to know this too.

I go back to the question at what point do you agree to absolute secrecy? Before or after a disclosure?

Again, you use the word 'secrecy'. No one has ever asked me for 'absolute secrecy'. They've generally started to tell me something, and a short way in have said something like "please don't pass this on" or "please keep this between the two of us".

I'm certain that no one has ever said." I want to tell you something but I need absolute secrecy" without me having any inkling of what the issue was. If they did, I'd say the same as anyone in a counselling role would do. That of course I'd respect their confidence as long as it didn't compromise their safety or that of anyone else.

I'm certain that no one has ever said." I want to tell you something but I need absolute secrecy" without me having any inkling of what the issue was. If they did, I'd say the same as anyone in a counselling role would do. That of course I'd respect their confidence as long as it didn't compromise their safety or that of anyone else

I'm no counsellor, but I'd say I can't promise that until I know what it is, but I can promise to do whatever you need me to do to support you best.

If someone is gripping my hands demanding absolute secrecy I'm assuming at this point its not that she doesn't like her husbands new hair cut

I'm no counsellor, but I'd say I can't promise that until I know what it is, but I can promise to do whatever you need me to do to support you best.

Yep. That's better. Like I say, I've not been faced with that situation, but if I am I hope I'll say something sensible like that. Maybe a combination of the two.

Oh my goodness - I had no idea that the ‘sanctity of marriage’ included big, fat blabbing other people’s private issues to your Nigel.

Hilarious!!