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?

@ThePlantsitter

I'd be disgusted to think I'd sat in safeguarding meetings only for a colleague to have gone home and relayed what was discussed to her husband.

I don't know what the content of a safeguarding meeting might be to be perfectly honest but if it is potentially horrible things happening to vulnerable people you can't expect people not to share that with someone they trust. You're asking for staff burnout otherwise.

You offload within the group of people within the meeting, or if no-one in your organisation was there, with another professional at your workplace who observes the same code of conduct. If you work in safeguarding or in any area where you work with difficult issues, there are channels within which you can deal with your own reactions to what is discussed.

@ThePlantsitter

I'm sure the Samaritans has structures in place to enable people to do that. I'm less sure that schools/social work/children's homes do.

They should have I meant, not they do have. If a voluntary agency can manange it, surely professional orgs can. The Idea that staff can not get appropriate emotional support from line management is pretty awful

You should have made it clear to them that you didn't want anyone else told. One friend specifically asked me not to, and of course I completely supported her and did not tell my DH. but generally I tell my DH everything.

I'm not saying it's the right thing to do just what I've done/do.

I don't really give unsolicited advice and I'm happy to be an ear but with my friends that isn't really how we work, we usually are asking for advice

My DP and I have an understanding between us that we tell each other everything, but any 'secrets' remain between us. So far, neither of us has ever gone against that.

I remember an ex of mine being told that a mutual friend was pregnant. He was told in a group chat on Facebook, which I wasn't in, because I didn't have it at the time. They were told not to tell anyone yet, and he didn't even tell me, even though if I had Facebook I'd be in the chat. I felt pretty hurt by that.

Iyland it's good you realised that it wasn't a good place for you. Compartmentalising is one of the reasons I'd not want to go any further in safeguarding because it would be too emotionally difficult.

ThePlantsitter What should happen has been explained by sara. In one of my roles we had regular supervision meetings to discuss issues and in my current role there are channels to discuss things.

Confidential information should not be discussed with your spouse.

Put it another way, how many people who say they think it's fine to share everything with their husbands would want the professionals around their child to be going home and sharing their child's medical details, SEN information, behavioural issues, mental health issues, family circumstances and so on with their husband? Would anyone saying they don't keep secrets so tell their husbands work confidences genuinely accept "but I love my husband and we don't keep secrets" as a reason why their child's details were shared?

I think it's kind to not share personal info about other people with your DP. My best friend once told me she was pregnant before she even told her bf, I did not tell my DH until some time later, she had an abortion and some time had passed and she said I could tell DH if I want. I think it was unkind of your friend to tell her DP straight away

Lola I'd be really surprised if my ds's teachers weren't discussing him because he was very challenging. They need to offload too and there aren't processes in place in schools to help with that.

There's a big difference between 'I'm really struggling with a little boy at school and I can't get SMT to take it seriously'

And

'here's this boys file with his every detail. Have a gander'

[quote saraclara]@LemonRoses so your friends are less important to you than your work clients?

I don't understand this. You either understand the concept of confidentiality, or you don't. Who the person is who asks for it has no bearing on the concept, other than in exceptional circumstances (criminal activity or safeguarding, say).

If you can keep quiet about work related events, you can keep quiet about a friend's distressing circumstance. Neither are 'secrets'. They're just things that your partner doesn't need to know.[/quote]
Not at all. My work setting is my work setting with professional guidance around good practice and explicit rules around relationships. The detail is of no of interest to my husband .its not about people he knows or wants to have any knowledge of.
My friends lives are his friends lives. Our relationships overlap. We set the ground rules for sharing.
For work, I could talk about a situation without breaching someone’s confidence. They could know the general information and context but not need or want any identifying information.
At home, they would know who I was talking about. My friends husband is likely to be his friend. It blurs boundaries.

My marriage is more important to me than our friends.

Lola I'd be really surprised if my ds's teachers weren't discussing him because he was very challenging. They need to offload too and there aren't processes in place in schools to help with that.
There's a big difference between 'I'm really struggling with a little boy at school and I can't get SMT to take it seriously'
And
'here's this boys file with his every detail. Have a gander
I agree, however "I'm having a tough time finding something to work for a child in my class" isn't confidential.

People on here are saying they share confidential work information with their husbands and know lots of people who do.

Any teacher who shared confidential information about your child would be hugely unprofessional.

The fact some people think that their husbands are so wonderful that their friends, colleagues and service users/clients aren't entitled to their confidences being kept is concerning.

For work, I could talk about a situation without breaching someone’s confidence. They could know the general information and context but not need or want any identifying information.
At home, they would know who I was talking about. My friends husband is likely to be his friend. It blurs boundaries.

You have just argued against yourself. It's the fact that your DH knows your friend, that makes keeping their confidence MORE important. Do you really not see that?

That's why when faced with being told something we can't handle, we should turn up helpline, or at worst, to someone who had never met the person involved and never will, and who is told absolutely nothing that identifies the person.

If I opened up to someone and they discussed it with someone who knows me (and knows other people who do) I'd be horrified and embarrassed, and worried that all my friends now know.

If the listener told me they'd talked to their mate in Australia who's never heard of me I could probably deal with that.

Turn TO a helpline, even

If anything, I think it's a shame that there aren't confidences between friends and the general assumption is that people tell their other half everything unless you specify. I don't think you should have to specify some things that are clearly personal. It's not healthy to be so codependent you have no life or mind outside of your partner.

I would ask those who say they can't cope with someone else's emotional issues without offloading to their partner, what they would do if they didn't have one or indeed what they think single people do?

"Keeping it" from your partner implies that it is information that they have a right to have.

Except they don't have a right to other people's personal information just because their partner was entrusted with it.

Christ, some of you are really shit friends

@emilyfrost

DH and I tell each other absolutely everything, so if you tell one of us something you’re telling both of us.

The other one doesn’t tell anyone else, though, so it still remains a secret 🤷‍♀️

Do your friends know this? Have you explicitly told them?

@VettiyaIruken

"Keeping it" from your partner implies that it is information that they have a right to have.

Except they don't have a right to other people's personal information just because their partner was entrusted with it.

Exactly!

Do your friends know this? Have you explicitly told them?

@sammylady37 No, I haven’t told them because it’s never come up, but it’s really none of their business what I tell DH. He isn’t going to tell anyone else so I don’t see the issue.

@emilyfrost

Do your friends know this? Have you explicitly told them?

@sammylady37 No, I haven’t told them because it’s never come up, but it’s really none of their business what I tell DH. He isn’t going to tell anyone else so I don’t see the issue.

Of course it’s an issue. If someone confides in you about something deeply private, they are telling you as an individual — not your husband who they may not know, or may not like. And they haven’t signed up for their private business becoming a topic of marital conversation, even if it never goes any further — the friend who confided in you didn’t get to make an assessment of your husband’s trustworthiness?

That’s a real breach of trust on your part.

I don't get this OP.

I absolutely have been told confidences from friends that it would NEVER occur to me to tell my husband.

None of his business.

Funnily enough I have one friend that I know is similarly as discreet.

But I am a private person and am not someone who confides in others, never have.

I can't stand people who break confidences.

I really judge those that do, harshly.

@emilyfrost

DH and I tell each other absolutely everything, so if you tell one of us something you’re telling both of us.

The other one doesn’t tell anyone else, though, so it still remains a secret 🤷‍♀️

So you're told something in confidence, you blab it to your OH and you think it's still a secret?? I find it amazing that so many people tell their partner, parents, the cat everything they're told 'in confidence', can't recall ever doing that but I don't have the modern 'let it all hang out' gene!

@sammylady37 No, I haven’t told them because it’s never come up, but it’s really none of their business what I tell DH. He isn’t going to tell anyone else so I don’t see the issue
It absolutely is an issue.
If i told you something it's because I wanted confide in YOU, not confide in you and your husband. If I wanted to confide in you and your husband I'd have invited him to join the conversation myself.

The fact you haven't told your friends that you spill everything to your husband is quite telling. Surely if it's no big deal you'd tell your friends that you discuss all their confidences with your husband, or are you concerned they might stop sharing if they know you choose to gossip with your husband?

It's funny how the honesty card is selectively applied in these situations: wife has to blab to her husband because honesty is ever so essential and we could never have secrets, but honesty goes out the window when it comes to denying your friends the choice over whether their lives become marital chit chat. Friends don't seem to deserve honesty and transparency.

Still don’t see the issue 🤷‍♀️ They don’t need to know what I tell DH and he isn’t going to tell anyone.

@emilyfrost

Still don’t see the issue 🤷‍♀️ They don’t need to know what I tell DH and he isn’t going to tell anyone.

It's a betrayal of their trust, whether they find out or not.