Keeping confidence or lying by omission

[GeorgeClarkefan]

Where do you draw the line in your marriage between keeping a confidence or lying by omission?

My husband has kept a secret for nearly five months.

To be fair it doesn’t really affect me but I am still upset.

I would not see this as fodder for gossip nor would I have told anyone else. I am not a drama lama.

You know that, your sister does not. But even if she does know that you wouldn't intentionally say anything, she'd be very aware that it would be easy to let something slip in front of her mum, by accident.

The fewer people that knew, the better, even if they could be trusted not to gossip.

but then there is the presumption of trust and keeping the secret how would you feel if the roles were reversed etc ?

but not everyone can take the chance and too many times people say oh etc then before you know it etc

the bottom line peoples own general behaviours' usually prove they cannot be trusted with secrets

Yanbu op. My dh would have shared this with me. Unless he can’t trust you that is.

Your wanting to know doesn’t trump her right to privacy. It really is as simple as that.

It depends what the deal is in your marriage. Dh and I know from experience we can trust eachother so have agreed to share everything. If a friend confided in me I would tell him/her what the arrangement is.

Is some of the issue also that your DH’s older daughter also knew before you did? Is that the reason you’re feeling like not a member of the family?

Whoa! I had friends who thought that it was ok to share confidences with their husbands. I no longer share anything with them. My dh was an administrator at a medium size hospital. He did not share a thing that went on there with me. Nor did I care 🤷🏻‍♀️ (I bet there were some doozies 😝). It’s never a good thing to break a confidence. Don’t ask.

Having had 2 miscarriages I can understand her pov. It isn't about you, so try not to make it so. Your husband was putting her first because it is her news and she had asked him to, maybe for reasons you also don't know about, such as previous failed pregnancies.

Woah. The fact that you trust your DH not to tell anyone else, is not the point!
I have shared things with friends that I absolutely would NOT want their husbands to know. Privacy is privacy, a confidence is a confidence, and it's as simple as that.

I've been told recently that I ought to open up more. People like you are the reason that I don't.

Telling friends your feelings or your problems makes you vulnerable. So the only people you tell are people that you trust. Why on earth would you make yourself vulnerable to your friend's husband who you might not know that well?
And why does your DH even want to know about your friend's emotional life or medical issues? And why do you feel entitled to know about his friends?

Indeed. I have a friend who has told me some personal things, she also considers my husband a friend. My view is that if she wanted him to know, she would tell him.
Maybe she has, I dont know. Because thankfully my husband shares my view and doesnt disclose other people's information to me.

If she chooses to tell me that she's told my husband, or tell him that she's told me, then it might come up in conversation I suppose.

Stupidly, I used to assume that if I shared something with someone and asked them to keep it to themselves, that meant they would keep it to themselves.

Okay, I voted YANBU but I have changed my mind on reading this because what you are saying is it you expected your DH to break the confidence that his sister placed in him.

Either you were expecting him to have told her that he wouldn’t tell anybody else, but then to break that promise and tell you. Or you are saying that his sister will never be able to tell him anything in confidence.

in my opinion, it would be absolutely unacceptable for your DH to tell his sister he wouldn’t tell anyone and then go and tell you. You must respect their relationship.

And, I also don’t think that he was lying by omission by keeping quiet. that is not what lying by omission is.

You and your DH have agreed to share everything and that's fine for you two but yours and his friends/family didnt make that agreement to share anything. Pillow talk about other people is not good, I learned this when I shared something with DH and it slipped out, almost lost my best friend. So no, I wouldn't tell anyone someone else's private business, and that includes my DH.

We had one instance recently where a close friend of dh asked to borrow an enormous sum of money from him. and asked him not to tell me. He lent it to him but did tell me which was the correct thing to do.

We didn't tell anyone about second pg till 20 week scan then another week as DH was away. Mainly as reponse to first pg wasn't great and we had other stuff going on.

We told no-one though - not some family members expecting them to keep sectres from other family members - literally no-one.

Unless there was some reason one family member had to be told - then frankly I take it as someone causing drama for no good reason - little secrets and who in and out - and be a little pissed everyone played along with it.

I get she has a right too privacy but this isn't that - if there was no reason to tell anyone but she chose to tell some and swear them to secrecy in a pick me over your spouse kind of way - it's just drama and it would affect how I repond to them in future. If there was a reason that's different and very unfortunate.

However can see DH was placed in a spot and probably had little choice but to stay quiet but I would point out that his sister causing unnessary trouble in his other family relations ships and he may want to think about this going forward before he listens to her confidences in future.

Her reproductive status is her news to share, as and when she feels the time is right. You are not entitled to that information, any more than you would be entitled to the same information about a complete stranger.

The sister is 43 and didn’t want her mother to know about her pregnancy due to the issues mentioned. The sister told your DH when she was just a month gone, so it’s not surprising he was asked to keep it to himself given the much higher risk of loss at her age.

Presumably his sister advised that he could tell his older DD last month because he sees his DD sporadically? Was it your DH who suggested to his DSis telling his DD and you are cross he didn’t suggest telling you as well? Is this the real reason you are miffed?

It’s really not your business, and good on your DH for not breaking his sisters confidence to tell you something she’d asked him to keep to himself.

I don't see why you're upset if it doesn't affect you. My DH doesn't know everything I know, I'm sure I don't know everything he does. We're not 'lying by omission' if it doesn't affect the other.

She hasn’t told lots of people except you. You knew pretty much as soon as her own DC did! So you are about the same level of family as they are!

It sounds reasonable to me.

Is there a reason why you’d be particularly affected? Do you have pregnancy/child related sensitivities?

We had a family member who told no one until about 8 months, due to the reaction of people to her first.

Your SIL's pregnancy doesn't affect your life in any way. Struggling to understand why not knowing would upset you. It's weird to frame her decision to keep her personal information under wraps as a litmus test of her relationship with you.

It was, but hopefully he told his friend that he couldn't lend him the money unless he agreed that you were told.

I get why this bothers you. But I’m struggling to put it into words.

whenever someone asks me to keep a secret, I tell them unless it’s something I can share with my husband, don’t tell me.

for me I think it’s because I expect others (either side of the family) to see us as one unit. And also not expect one to keep something from the other for the sake of a third party.

YABU. Unless you've had a 'geriatric pregnancy' and are regaled with all the awful things that might happen at that age, you won't understand why she wanted to keep things quiet, but it's her prerogative and your dh understood what his sister needed from him. THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU.