To ask my DSis to keep something confidential from her DH

[Whatamoraldilema]

Last week I told my Dsis something in confidence about my young DS. In hindsight I'm not sure if that is a fair thing to ask. Do you think it's reasonable to ask your sibling to keep something confidential from their partner?

I would always keep my sister's secrets.... tbf my other half wouldn't really care and probably would no interest in stuff she told me and if his family had asked him to keep somthing between them I wouldn't have a problem

Totally reasonable.

Fucking hell, can some of you not use your own judgement on whether something needs to be blabbed or not? Do you really need to be specifically told that you shouldn't tell anyone else?

None of my friends have ever asked me to ‘not tell DH’ etc..
If they did, I certainly wouldn’t. But they dont 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Maybe they don’t because they assume you are a loyal and trustworthy friend? I think you should have the decency to tell them your default position is to tell your DH- they deserve to know that.

If you’re going to tell your partner, have the decency to be honest at the start of that very conversation with a friend.

If you’ve been together 2 years, then the relationship ends, do you do the same with your next partner? Not many people only have one relationship in their adult lives. Seems like it’s about gossiping in some situations.

Everything my sister tells me is in confidence. It would never occur to me to share it with my DH. In fact, it's the same for all my immediate family.

I don't understand the notion of telling one half of a partner means you've told both.

@Mickarooni

If you’re going to tell your partner, have the decency to be honest at the start of that very conversation with a friend.

If you’ve been together 2 years, then the relationship ends, do you do the same with your next partner? Not many people only have one relationship in their adult lives. Seems like it’s about gossiping in some situations.

Yep. Some of the friendships will no doubt be of longer standing than the relationships/marriages, but the friends aren’t deemed worthy of respect and integrity. I’ve said it before, but some posters here are really shit friends.

Of course not. Your sister's boyfriend doesn't need to know information about your child. If she is a gossip, she may tell him.

'Other half' is just a (stomach churning) phrase you know. Husbands and wives are two entirely separate people. Telling one means just that - one.

Sorry, if you tell me, you tell DH. The only exception is confidential work-related stuff such as safeguarding which obviously only the people who need to know know.

Totally depends what it is. I had a friend ask me to not repeat something to anyone and I haven’t, not to a soul but although it was serious to her, it wasn’t really serious. Something serious I wouldn’t expect a sibling not to say something to their spouse.

(Skipped to the end, so somone else may have said this first.)

It matter what the secret is. If it's something that barely affects the spouse, then it being kept secret from them doesn't matter.

I wouldn't care if I didn't know something about a spouses nephew that the parents didn't want me to know.

@pollymere

Why though?
If I told you I was bisexual (to use my previous example) or had an abortion years ago and I didn’t want anyone else to know, why would you tell dh? For gossip? For moral support? Neither thing is a burden to you but both incredible private.

@Orangejuicemarathoner

I dont think it is ever fair to ask someone to keep something from their partner. If you tell one person in a marriage, you have told both

Bullshit. They're two SEPERATE people.

@pollymere

And would you go out of your way to deliberately tell your dh?
‘How was your day darling?’
‘TryingAndFailing39 told me a secret. She came out to me as bisexual. I just thought you should know.’

Seriously why would your dh need to know something like that?

@pollymere

Sorry, if you tell me, you tell DH. The only exception is confidential work-related stuff such as safeguarding which obviously only the people who need to know know.

I hope you're no friend of mine.

@TryingAndFailing39 Why not? We'd generally sit down and have a chat/gossip. It would probably come up in one of those.

I think if it was anyone other than your sister who asked you to keep a secret it would be fair enough to tell your DH, but it's different if it's a close family member.

I think it depends what it is, if it is something fairly inconsequential then it won't matter not saying anything but if what you said might have an impact on how your sister treats your son or behaves around him, her husband might notice and question.

@pollymere

At least you’ve actually admitted you’d tell your dh as gossip which is blatantly the reason most people on here would divulge secrets to their dh.

I can’t believe that you would class anything deeply personal about your friends as mere gossip to share with your husband. That’s really shitty.

If you felt burdened or distressed then that’s slightly different but the fact you’d sit down and tell your dh about your friend’s abortion/sexuality/ abusive childhood etc as gossip is awful and I don’t know how someone could have such little integrity as a friend.

@pollymere
Why not? Because when I came out to my closest friends it wasn’t just a piece of throw away gossip to share with your dh over dinner. Your attitude, of all of the posts on here, disgusts me and also worries me that I have friends like you.

No, if someone trusts you enough to tell you something important and secret to them you keep that trust. The only way I'd even contemplate telling someone else is if they were going to harm themselves or others.

I'd add to that - if you don't think you can keep their confidence then you should stop them when they want to tell you their secret.

[quote TryingAndFailing39]@TintinIsBack

If it’s a really personal thing (like sexuality or an abortion) I wouldn’t tell my dh anyway and my default would be to assume that she didn’t want my dh to know and also why on earth would he need to know?[/quote]
Because actually it depends a lot on what is going on. It’s not about whether DH was interested or whatever. It certainly isn’t about gossiping.

The friend who lost a baby due to dv, she needed support. Was i supposed to spend time on the phone/weekends with her but not tell dh what was going on?

When my MIL told me about the state of her marriage, am I supposed to say nothing to dh? (I haven’t btw but there is a question to ask there as he is actually directly affected by what she told me)

I’ve had quite a few instances where the secret shared was actually triggering for me (death following cancer for example) and I needed to talk about it. Was I supposed to keep quiet and struggle with it? Or tell my friend that I didn’t want to know instead?

If things were just as black and white as some posters are making it to be, it would be easy.
It rarely is the case.
Well bar people who just can’t keep things for themselves and just LOVE a gossip. Now that is wrong.

You can ask but don’t be surprised if she doesn’t