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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Do you tell your partner everything?

346 replies

Todayisanewday75 · 03/02/2018 08:56

I’m interested. Someone said on another thread that a lot of people have a darker side that no one knows about. I’ve realised lately that DP has sides to him that he doesn’t/won’t talk about and listening to friends talk about their relationships there seem to be so many secrets and lies.
But I’ve thought about it and while there are things I wouldn’t tell anyone else there isn’t anything I wouldn’t tell DP. Am I a bit simple or naive or are there really any completely open and honest relationships?

OP posts:
RedDogsBeg · 05/02/2018 21:22

Yeah right What that's not why you tell him you just like telling him everything you know about other people because well because.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 21:23

BackToThe90s But by the same token, I’d be annoyed if my DH was hiding sex toys and not wanting to share them, whether verbally (mentioning in passing) or physically, with me.

TheGiggleLoop · 05/02/2018 21:25

@WhatToDoAboutThis2017 would it bother you the other way around? If you had a personal problem that you wanted to confide in your friend about and they told their DH?

Would anything make you think twice about telling your DH something? Say your sister or mum or... someone you're really close to told you something really private?

Wouldn't it be better if you're upfront with your friends and tell them that you will be gossiping with your DH about their personal business? At least then they'd have the option of never telling you anything you didn't want your DH to know?

RedDogsBeg · 05/02/2018 21:25

If you are as good a friend as you claim to be What tell your friends that whatever they tell you you tell your dh because you like to and see what happens, or are you afraid they will no longer confide in you and you'll have nothing to share with your dh?

BackToThe90s · 05/02/2018 21:26

So you'd care more about your need to gossip then your dh's potential feeling uncomfortable because he now has to act like he knows nothing around that person. Shock

RedDogsBeg · 05/02/2018 21:47

Indeed Back if What is so sure she is doing nothing wrong and her friends wouldn't mind she'd put it to the test.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 21:51

TheGiggleLoop I don’t really share things with my friends, so it wouldn’t be an issue. If I ever need to talk about something, I talk to my DH or my Mum.

You might think it’s better. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve told me the information and the control they have over it now lies with me and anyone else they tell. Of course by telling me nobody but my DH will find out.

RedDogsBeg I just don’t care to tell them; it’s none of their business what happens to the information once they’ve told someone else. If they wanted to keep control, they shouldn’t tell anyone.

BackToThe90s Like I said before, we really don’t put that much thought into it. The majority of stuff he forgets and our friends lives really aren’t “exciting” enough to make him feel uncomfortable around others. It’s oretty innocuous stuff.

BackToThe90s · 05/02/2018 21:51

Well I get the wanting to tell your dp things, it just depends what things. If someone tells me something that's too personal I would say to them "as I allowed to tell dp?" If it was something really private I wouldn't even ask, it would go without question that it was for my ears only, unless they said "I don't mind if you tell dp." I quite like that i have discretion in me, I have many many flaws but that's not one of them.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 21:52

Indeed Back if What is so sure she is doing nothing wrong and her friends wouldn't mind she'd put it to the test.

I haven’t at any point said they wouldn’t mind. They might, who knows? But they’ll never know because they’ll never find out that I’ve told him stuff. So it’s irrelevant.

RedDogsBeg · 05/02/2018 21:59

I disagree it very much is their business what you do with that information and as I said before a truly good friend would be open and honest enough to alert someone that you consider anything they say to be fair game to be repeated to your husband.

By your standards would you be happy if your mum or dh shared what you told them with others, are you sure they don't, are you happy that the information you have told them is now theirs to do as they please with?

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 22:05

RedDogsBeg And it is absolutely your right to.

And since my DH, to the best of my knowledge, has never divulged any of my secrets in the entirety of our relationship (not least because nobody would be interested) nor has my mum, I don’t see it as an issue.

I wouldn’t tell anyone else due to the possibility of them telling someone they’re close with. I’m smart enough to not take that risk.

TheGiggleLoop · 05/02/2018 22:06

If they wanted to keep control, they shouldn’t tell anyone.

This makes me so sad, you'd rather your friends had nobody to confide in?

This sort of attitude is why I don't tell my mum anything, she tells her husband everything so I can't talk to her if I don't want him to know, then she gets all upset that I don't tell her anything and that we don't have a very good relationship.

Ok, hypothetically if you couldn't tell your DH something, for whatever reason, and you told your mum or a friend and they told their DH how would you feel?

TheGiggleLoop · 05/02/2018 22:08

since my DH, to the best of my knowledge, has never divulged any of my secrets in the entirety of our relationship (not least because nobody would be interested) nor has my mum, I don’t see it as an issue.

As far as you know. You said yourself that your friends don't know you tell your DH their business. You may just not know that mum or DH are doing it.

RedDogsBeg · 05/02/2018 22:12

So now your friends are not smart for confiding in you? You are not much of a friend are you?

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 22:14

TheGiggleLoop No; they have me to confide in, and they do, regularly. What they tell me does not become public or common knowledge.

I wouldn’t tell a friend anything I wouldn’t want them passing on. Of course nobody can ever know for sure who tells who what, but my DH doesn’t have interest in passing things and my mum doesn’t have anyone to tell except her partner, who I’d be more than happy to know as I’m just as close to them.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 22:17

So now your friends are not smart for confiding in you? You are not much of a friend are you?

I don’t think it’s smart to tell anyone your secrets and not think they won’t go anywhere, especially when someone is married. It’s rather naive, really.

You can think I’m a bad friend if you wish, I have no need or wish to justify myself to you.

BackToThe90s · 05/02/2018 22:19

What you sound very young to be honest. This is the sort of thing I expect to hear from teenagers. Surely grown women can exercise a little discretion when a friend confides in them. It all sounds very child like to me.

When my friend told me she had breast cancer or another friend telling me she was leaving her dh and getting a divorce or my sister confiding in me that her long term dp was a secret cross dresser, or my friend at work asking me to attend the termination clinic because she didn't want her family to know and didn't want to go alone, the last thing I was thinking about was going off to tell my dp. Real life grown up problems make you realise it's less about the thrill of gossiping and more about helping that person in a crisis because you care about them and their feelings.

TheGiggleLoop · 05/02/2018 22:20

But they don't really have you to confide in if they don't want that information getting back to your DH, is the point I'm trying to make.

If your friend said to you "I'm going through something really difficult/ traumatic and I need someone to talk to but this has to be between the two of us, you can't tell anybody" what would you do?

RedDogsBeg · 05/02/2018 22:20

Ah yes when someone is married which means they must betray all confidences to their husbands, because well married.

You are a bad friend you are deceiving your friends and don't have the guts or decency to tell them.

TheGiggleLoop · 05/02/2018 22:26

Real life grown up problems make you realise it's less about the thrill of gossiping and more about helping that person in a crisis because you care about them and their feelings.

Could not have said it better myself @BackToThe90s

MaisyPops · 05/02/2018 22:27

When my friend told me she had breast cancer or another friend telling me she was leaving her dh and getting a divorce or my sister confiding in me that her long term dp was a secret cross dresser, or my friend at work asking me to attend the termination clinic because she didn't want her family to know and didn't want to go alone, the last thing I was thinking about was going off to tell my dp. Real life grown up problems make you realise it's less about the thrill of gossiping and more about helping that person in a crisis because you care about them and their feelings
I agree.

because married is a crappy reason to betray confidences.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 22:28

BackToThe90s Yes, I think just under thirty is young. I think not being able to fully sexually express yourself with your partner is very young and the sort of thing teenagers do, but that’s by the by.

TheGiggleLoop If they specifically said they didn’t want anyone including my DH to know, I would think about it and probably not tell him.

RedDogsBeg Again, I don’t need justify myself to you. You are free to think as you wish.

BackToThe90s · 05/02/2018 22:28

And men are the biggest gossips! Don't be surprised if your dh isn't taking the piss out of your mates to his friends in the pub or wherever! Men around other men can be a different species sometimes Hmm

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 22:29

Also, as I’ve previously said, I don’t “run off” to tell DH nor is it the first thing I think about when someone tells me something. It just evolves naturally in conversation with DH.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 05/02/2018 22:31

BackToThe90s Some men might be, but my DH and his friends aren’t interested in that sort of thing; he is barely interested when I tell him nevermind passing it on to someone else.