Dark family secret. Do I tell her?

[mojitosbythesea]

What do you do when you’ve been sworn to secrecy about something pretty horrific in the family, but it’s messing up your head? I feel like I might explode if I don’t talk to the only person who will understand exactly how I feel. My sister.

For lots of reasons, this has all recently resurfaced and I’m finding it a real struggle. How can I sit there and listen to all these ‘lovely’ stories about someone I now hate? Someone I wish I had no biological ties to. I am ashamed to have had them in my family. It kills me.

My therapist thinks I should tell her, as keeping it to myself is hindering my recovery (I suffer with depression and anxiety).

The thing is though, morally, is it ever ok to break a promise?… What will she gain from knowing what I know? What will I gain?

Is the person who swore you secrecy dead, or the person who it's about? If the latter, I would tell.

Also, how sure are you that the secret is correct? Have you proof of this person's misdemeanour, or is it one person's word against another?

Possibly your sister knows about it also, and has also,been sworn to secretcy.

OP, I'm not going to ease your mind, I'm afraid : what affect will the info have on your sister -- will she end up as upset etc as you are? When our perceptions about a close relative are undermined we then can start to doubt/question our relationship with them, whether we've been living a lie for years etc etc. Very upsetting. If you feel sharing the info will definitely be positive for you and your sister can take the news without being too upset then I wouldn't worry about breaking the confidence unless the person who told you is likely to suffer eg if they are an innocent party but your sister will blame them for keeping the secret etc.

Is the person who made you a secret keeper dead, too? Is somebody likely to be very hurt if you tell it now? Since you say there is no danger I'd try and look what bad or good things could come from telling.

If you sworn to secracy, you can't tell. That's how it works

Do you really believe that? This is the kind of crap that people say to kids to get them to keep horrible secrets. Of course you can swear to secrecy and still tell. Nine times out of ten, people have no idea of what crap they are about to hear when they "swear to secrecy"
and no idea what impact it will have on their mental health to keep the secret.

Let's think. Your brother swore you to secrecy and then told you he was HIV positive but had no intention of telling his wife and fully intended to continue having unprotected sex with her. What do you do? Do you seriously need to even think?

Or your mother swore you to secrecy. And then told you that your father had abused small children. You then continue nodding and smiling for the rest of your life when the family says "oh daddy/x/granddad was a true gem" and add yourself as another victim to your dad because your mental health is understandably buckling under the pressure of listening to lies and not challenging them.

TheNaze do you even care that this playground rule about "sworn to secrecy" is having a terrible effect on the OP??

Seriously OP. Tell the truth. Speak the truth. Stop with the secrets.

Op, were you a child when you were sworn to secrecy, or did it all emerge recently?

Are you and your sister very close? If it's a family issue then and affects you both equally then I think she has a right to know. Even if the perpetrator is now deceased, it's usually not good bottling up hurt like you're describing - I think it may help to share/offload. I can understand you feel you don't want to burden anybody else but sometimes the very worst thing you can do is to keep secrets. Good luck OP xx

Decades ago, things were hushed up in families and there'd be a sense of 'shame' mainly perpetuated out of fear of what would the neighbours think, or relative to social and behavioural standards of the day.
e.g. children born out of wedlock, children brought up by people who weren't their real parents, men conned into thinking they were a child's father when it was someone else, being gay, then there were times when loads of abusive behaviour was hushed-up and never alluded to outside Those Who Knew.

Today, that's no longer seen in the same way, times have changed and some things that were scandalous THEN are NOW considered ordinary. What would have been a massively Shameful Family Secret that would have caused the world to implode decades ago would probably not be viewed in the same way today.

Try and consider that when you're making this secret into such a big deal, it may be something mundane nowadays.

Well, a few years back DB told me a lot about my Dad that I would have rather not known, but that explained a great deal about the way my older siblings acted when I spoke about him. It knocked him squarely off his pedestal, but improved my relationship with my siblings hugely.

I now know it was horrible for my much older siblings to pretend everything had been lovely (for my benefit), when it wasn't and how hard it had been to see my dad being a completely different father with me than what they had known (think never raised a hand to me but used to go straight to his belt with them).

Not my fault, or theirs, but a cause of much misunderstanding and confusion and from the sound of it something much milder than what is upsetting you.

So, I think it is possible for a secret to be damaging, even when the subject of the secret is dead and if it is damaging, you should be absolved from keeping it IMO.

No advice really, but can you live with this forever? Will it affect your sister?

I just typed out a really long post, explaining everything, but then my screen froze and shut down

I'm so tired and upset. I will post it again tomorrow when I'm in a better place.

Thanks everyone. Appreciate all the replies so far.

In brief though, it's to do with my grandad. My mum told me. I wasn't a child. My mum is still alive. Grandad isn't.

There's a lot more, but as I said I don't have the energy to type it all out again tonight, but thought I should give those details.

I wonder why your mum has told you and not your sister? If you're struggling with it then maybe speak to your mum about it and see if it helps and if it doesn't then tell her that you need to speak to your sister about it.

You say your sister is the only one who will understand. Why will she understand?

Btw- sometimes when I'm writing posts I highlight it all (ctrl+a on a computer) and copy (ctrl+c) now and then as I go along, so that if for some reason the page crashes i can paste what I'd written and carry on from where I was :)

It depends op if the incident and secret is to do with your mother solely and not you and your sister then it's not your secret to tell. However if it does invole you and your sister she has as much right to know as you. I hope you get the answers your looking for

If you sworn to secracy, you can't tell. That's how it works

That's how it works if your an idiot, or work for the secret service / mafia. As a free thinking adult, if someone wanted to tell me something but swore me to "secrecy", I would point blank refuse. You can only make decisions once armed with the information. Imagine accepting secrecy and then someone tells you they have been violent, raped or murdered someone. Fuck that. If this information is causing you distress, tell someone.

When your mum told you to keep it a secret; did she actually mean from your sister too, or just that she didn't want it generally known?
I wonder why she'd have chosen you to place that burden on

I think it's utterly selfish to burden someone with a secret and ask them never to tell. Why is it ok for your mum to share the burden with you but then not ok for you to do the same?

I'm not a fan of 'secrets'. I would never swear anyone to absolute secrecy. Say it would be better to keep something quiet, yes, but people should have ownership of what's in their head and the freedom to discuss it if they need to.

Sometimes you are sworn to secrecy before you hear what it is and some things are too heavy to bear alone.
Sometimes you are sworn to secrecy immediately after you have heard something terribly shocking and then you're not thinkong straight when you agree.
Some things are too heavy to bear alone.

You know. Maybe your Mum was burdened with this, found it unbearable and has now burdened you.
No shame in you sharing with someone that you trust and love.

This depends massively on your sister. I appreciate that it may help you, but if it will damage your sister in the same way it is damaging you would it really be the right thing to do? I think that will depend on her mental health, other pressures and how close you are.

I also agree with Hecate about whether or not it is your information/story to pass on. DH knows something about me that hurts him. If he unburdened himself by telling anyone I'd divorce him tbh.

It's impossible and unreasonable for anyone to expect you to keep a secret that is not your own. So you made a promise - you were probably shocked and under duress. If they had wanted nobody to know they should have kept it to themselves, shouldn't they? Not made themselves feel better by trying to share the burden. Stuff that.

Did your mum not tell your sister as she was a lot younger than you?

I'd tell my mum that it was eating me up and that I would be telling my sister.

I'd review why I would want to tell my sister.
If she is directly negatively impacted by not knowing the secret then of course tell her.
However, I get the impression that you want to tell her so you have someone yo talk to about it. This would be wrong. You have a therapist to talk to, why do you think your sister would be any better