AIBU to not like ‘family secrets’?

[Secretkeeper50]

Growing up there was always lots of things we were not allowed to discuss outside of the family home.

Even as adults in our mid 30s there are still things that we get told that we are not to tell anyone (even our partners yeah right).

Latest one is that my brother (33) is unable to work currently due to bad depression. My mother told me this and has said “if you tell anyone I shall never forgive you.” 🤔

Anyone else have a parent like this?!

That's not her news to tell you that's why she wants it kept quiet. She's broken a confidence and doesn't want the backlash.

Be considerate of your brother before sharing that news

In that case I wouldn't go around discussing it, because it is not my information to dish out.

maybe because thats your brother’s private medical information?

I think saditaover has nailed it, certainly in this instance. Would have been better for your mum to have let your brother tell you himself, or at least confirmed with him that he wanted her to pass it on.

In answer to your question - this was my MIL to a tee. She then got upset when she was last to be told. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to expect family members to keep other family members medical details within the family.

Unless there’s a safe guarding issue, I don’t think you should be discussing other peoples medical issues.

In a wider context, I think people are allowed to want to keep things private and not have everyone know. But it depends on the situation and what the context is.

There’s a difference between family secrets which will probably eventually surface and cause upset ( excellent film, Secrets and Lies) and breaking a confidence. If a friend told you she was depressed and off sick but that it was confidential would you want to share that around too?

Ugh yes, we had a family feud growing up.. so from the moment I could talk I was told to keep secrets and lie. I refuse to now, i let them know I won't, and if they try to I bring it up tactfully in a group discussion 😂

Maybe that wasn’t the best example but in general I agree that there shouldn’t be secrets. With our DC we don’t tell them things if they aren’t to be repeated as I think secrets make children unsafe

My childhood was full of secrets. Non safeguarding issues but family information. I wasn't able to ever talk about anything and I cannot tell you the damage it did to me emotionally. Its an unbelievable burden and my mother really should have told her issues to a therapist instead of me. I never tell my kids secrets about anything ever.

It's your brother's private medical information it's entirely reasonable that he should have a say in how widely it is known

We never had this at all.

Just imagining my mum saying “if you tell anyone this I shall never be able to forgive you” makes me wonder why she’s telling you in the first place. Is it a test of your loyalty or something?

The example about my brother was probably not the best one as of course I wouldn’t share that but there’s hundreds of examples of things.

Can you give us a couple because I'm not really sure what else you mean?

No, we didn’t have family secrets.

Things like having to pretend my brother went to a different school to the one he did for years (which meant actively lying whenever asked anything about it), not being allowed to talk about my parents arguments with anyone, not telling the doctor about mental health issues as these were not to be ‘on record’ to name but a few. It was very much a ‘everything is fine, keep smiling’ to the outside world type thing.

I have trust issues and insecurities as we were taught not to trust anyone outside of the family or talk about things to anyone.

The school thing is weird.

The others I can understand a little more - not airing you dirty laundry in public etc.

Why weren’t you allowed to trust other people? What were your parents afraid of?

I have some weird family dynamics too OP.
I have a few standard answers now
to that sort of thing is

“oh no, I’d better give him a ring then. Thanks for letting me know. Byeeee” (also useful for those sharing what someone purportedly said about me)

“Sure you know I can’t keep a secret. You shouldn’t have told me”

And the smug “Dh and I don’t have secrets from each other”

I’m not actually this big a blabbermouth. I just do not want to participate in the games.

My mother is a narcissistic psycho at times!
Can never take a word she says on face value.

I'd tell your mother "well that's just like you then!" and walk out of room.
If they don't get called on it, they will continue to try and be controlling.

A member of my family tells everyone separately swearing them each to secrecy. The idea being that no one is aware that anyone else knows, and so doesn't discuss it, and she remains the gatekeeper of discussions she's not part of.
I tend to say now 'I don't know why you told me to keep it secret, you've told X yourself'.

Yes! We were told to constantly lie to ‘outsiders’ to ‘save face’. Even though the lies were about things that were just important that no one cared about. It also didn’t help that my mum would befriend very gossipy and snidy people who would nit pick if they suspected a lie and it would be very embarrassing if you got caught.

The worst was when she wanted us to lie about the cause of death of a family member and some relatives questioned us about it, it was mortifying.

What’s funny is despite being raised to lie, myself and siblings are very honest people!

The last time, my mum asked me to lie about my sibling’s whereabouts (so stupid!) I said no and she acted as if I was BU!

It's annoying when someone shares information and then tells you to keep it secret. I'd rather know conditions in advance so I can say, don't tell me then, if it's supposed to be secret.

Apart from that, honestly and gently, would anyone else be interested in a conversation about your family information?

There's a huge difference between keeping secrets and keeping a confidence.

So many secrets in my family, that have never been allowed to be mentioned.

OP why do you need to tell people who aren't related to you about your family's medical or other personal details and challenges? That, to me, is odd. If it's not about safeguarding, and you feel must get things off your chest, go to a therapist. Family loyalty and common decency about other people's private business is important, fortunately my family members agree. My partner's family members don't - they make assumptions and then gossip about both true things that they have been told and perceived-but-not-true things, which is why they get much less information from us about anything personal to do with us and my side of the family. It's their loss.