Do You Tell Other's Secrets to Your Spouse?

[BlueEyedLady]

Ok, so I have a question and I really, really wish that a few of the regulars weren’t out for Lent right now, but anyway:

Do you tell your spouse things that other people (friends and relatives) in confidence? Or do you expect that they know that when confiding in you they are also confiding in your spouse? If your spouse asked you what so and so said would you tell them or explain that it’s personal and you can’t share? Would you be mad if you thought that someone was telling your secrets to their spouse?

I’m just asking out of curiosity. I have never had this issue come up in real life and I don’t foresee it being an issue. I just wondered what the thoughts on it were because it seems like an interesting question.

For us personally we tell each other everything. If a friend or family member tells one of us something the other knows it right away. I guess for lack of a better word it’s gossip, but we’ve pretty much always been that way. When I tell a married or otherwise very committed friend something I always assume it goes without saying that they will tell their partner, but that it will go no further.

 

[JackieMom]

I assume spousal privilege whenever I tell a friend something. And yes, I often tell my husband… stuff. One thing I would not share is personal female medical info a friend confided in me. My husband doesn’t want to hear about anyone’s ovarian cysts or yeast infections. I’m a nurse and I have a lot of girlfriends, so I hear a lot of this stuff!

 

[Kal2012]

For the most part, I assume that the important things are shared with the spouse as needed.

Marriage as a partnership and it’s helpful to talk w/your spouse if your friend dumps something on you and you have no idea how to help them handle the situation.

I don’t tell people what’s going on, if they specifically ask me not to.

Still, there’s a difference between a family member/friend and your spouse. My spouse gets priority over family/friends. If my spouse needs to know something, then I tell him.

I respect my family/friend’s privacy to the best of my ability, but I have to have a good relationship with my spouse for my marriage to work. That includes sharing secrets, if there’s a good reason to do so.

When I was having trouble with my marriage, it was helpful for one of my girlfriends to share intimate details about her marriage. I wouldn’t think of sharing their problems w/my husband, unless it’s in a generic way. “We aren’t the only people who have marriage problems. A friend told me when they were having problems they did this…”

Good question. I had to really think about it.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I have seen women immediately tell their spouse everything. I think that is just cruel gossip and not the behaviour of a friend. But I do think if there is a need to know basis ‘ie the reason Sally is sleeping on our couch is because her husband locked her out of the house’ well then it is OK. Discernment is required

 

[Allegra]

I think that spousal privilege ought to be assumed when telling secrets. I tell my spouse pretty much everything that he has any interest in knowing. However, if it was something that didn’t really effect him and that is embarrassing to the other person, I probably wouldn’t mention it and I wouldn’t want to make them both uncomfortable.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

So far it looks like mostly women have posted and they all seem to be in agreement, with minor variations. I wonder if there will be a gender divide if/when some of our favorite male posters show up.

 

[Allegra]

So far it looks like mostly women have posted and they all seem to be in agreement, with minor variations. I wonder if there will be a gender divide if/when some of our favorite male posters show up.

There’d better not be!

 

[maltmom]

Absolutely not. When a friend shares something with me in confidence, it’s just that…in confidence. My best friend has told me a number of times that I have the tightest lips of anyone she knows. Husbands don’t need to know everything. I wouldn’t want my friends telling their husband the things I tell them in confidence.

My word is my bond. If I say I won’t tell anyone, I will take what you’ve told me to my grave. The only exception would be if someone told me they were going to kill themselves. Off the top of my head, that would be the only exception.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

There’d better not be!

There might be. Or at the very least they might agree with the women but on different grounds. The two that I think would be the most interesting to hear from on this would be The Bucket and Chevalier. They both tend to bring in really intelligent, compassionate, male points of view.

 

[Kelfa28]

Unless someone told me specifically…“do not tell anyone” then I probably will tell my husband. Unless it’s something I know he wouldn’t care about.

There was a situation I found myself in when I was working. I took a patient to the hospital for a suicide attempt. I knew the patient and so did my mother. I wasn’t about to break patient privilege at all. But it really bothered me. So I told my husband that exactly what I just shared now. No names were dropped and he had no idea who this person was anyway.
But I needed to get it off my chest and just talk. That was what he was there for.

Like I said…unless someone says “do not share this” then my husband will probably get a version of the story.
He tells me virtually everything…as far as I know.

 

[jfmarm81]

I tell my wife pretty much everything told to me. There are probably a few things I wouldn’t tell- like an illness the person doesn’t want everyone to know yet. Otherwise- yea pretty much everything.

 

[triumphguy]

In English Law, when hearing cases on defamation (libel and slander) the judges presume that anything one spouse hears or learns the other spouse hears/learns too.

 

[Cathy_Crossbuck]

Oddly, no, I rarely tell my spouse other people’s secrets. I think that just because someone tells me their secret doesn’t mean that it is mine to share. It still belongs to the other person. I would only tell a secret if there was a compelling reason; or I might mention it when it is no longer a secret, as happens sometimes.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I tell my wife pretty much everything told to me. There are probably a few things I wouldn’t tell- like an illness the person doesn’t want everyone to know yet. Otherwise- yea pretty much everything.

I don’t think that’s wrong. Actually I don’t think that there really is a right or wrong answer to this, just so long as both partners are on the same page and that nothing damaging is being hidden.

But something like an illness is something that we would share. When his cousin was pregnant out of wedlock and didn’t want anyone to know, even though he was sworn to secrecy he told me right away. When one of my friends was going through some very serious relationship problems and confiding in me, I passed everything on to my fiance. When his brother said some unflattering things about me, he passed them on, and when his brother was having problems trying to decide whether to stay with or leave his long term girlfriend, I knew it all as it was playing out.

We would never use any information to hurt anyone, and neither of us would ever tell anything, and we certainly wouldn’t let on to the person that we knew, but we are chatterboxes and talk to each other about just about everything.

 

[JackieMom]

I don’t think that’s wrong. Actually I don’t think that there really is a right or wrong answer to this, just so long as both partners are on the same page and that nothing damaging is being hidden.

But something like an illness is something that we would share. When his cousin was pregnant out of wedlock and didn’t want anyone to know, even though he was sworn to secrecy he told me right away. When one of my friends was going through some very serious relationship problems and confiding in me, I passed everything on to my fiance. When his brother said some unflattering things about me, he passed them on, and when his brother was having problems trying to decide whether to stay with or leave his long term girlfriend, I knew it all as it was playing out.

We would never use any information to hurt anyone, and neither of us would ever tell anything, and we certainly wouldn’t let on to the person that we knew, but we are chatterboxes and talk to each other about just about everything.

Yeah that’s another thing I might not tell… If someone said something unflattering about my spouse I’d probably keep it to myself.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Yeah that’s another thing I might not tell… If someone said something unflattering about my spouse I’d probably keep it to myself.

Really? Why so?

 

[Kensho]

Women talk too much. And I say that as a woman.

NO, I absolutely do not share with my husband things that were told to me in confidence, with rare exceptions where he might actually need to know. Telling someone else’s secrets without very good reason is gossip, no matter who you’re telling them to – and “but he’s my husband!” is not a good reason. Why on earth does a man need to know all the dirty laundry in his wife’s friends’ lives?

But I assume most women can’t keep their traps shut, so when I confide in them – which is very seldom, BECAUSE in my experience most of them refuse to zip it – I assume that they will tell their husbands, so I don’t tell them anything I don’t want their husbands to know. Which more often than not means I have no other women to talk to about anything that is troubling me.

Discretion goes both ways, too. My husband also talks too much. There have been times when I have refused to listen when he tried to tell me something about a friend who I also know. Like, “Paul and his wife have been having problems – well, I guess it’s okay to tell you that --” and I cut him off and said, “No, it doesn’t sound like it’s okay to tell or something I need to know.”

There is no reason to talk about our friends nine out of ten times. How does it help? What are the real motives behind it? I’ll never forget my hurt when I first found out as a young girl that a married woman friend I looked up to had shared one of my stupid teenaged secrets with her husband, and I vowed I’d never do anything like that.

 

[PatriceA]

Really? Why so?

There have been times I haven’t told my husband something unflattering that someone said to me about him. One, I don’t want to hurt his feelings and two, why give more attention than really needed to someone else just being rude and inconsiderate.

That and not repeating female medical issues, those would be the only things I haven’t discussed with my husband. Now I don’t run to him with every little detail about every conversation I have with my friends, but if he asks I’m not going to keep anything from him either. I won’t keep secrets from my husband and I would hope my friends would never ask me to either.

 

[JackieMom]

Really? Why so?

I just don’t think much good comes from passing on insults or criticisms. His feelings would be hurt, his relationship with that person harmed, and honestly I don’t think critical comments are often conveyed accurately by third parties. If someone were to have the gallto insult my husband (or charitibly offer a critical observation), I’d suggest that person tell my husband himself.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I just don’t think much good comes from passing on insults or criticisms. His feelings would be hurt, his relationship with that person harmed, and honestly I don’t think critical comments are often conveyed accurately by third parties. If someone were to have the gallto insult my husband (or charitibly offer a critical observation), I’d suggest that person tell my husband himself.

The situation I’m talking about happened right before we got engaged. He told his brother that he was going to marry me, and his brother suddenly had a list of “concerns” about me and our relationship. Most of them were completely inaccurate and out of nowhere and really seemed to come down to “I don’t want to lose my brother!” I’m glad he told me because then I was able to reach out more, and when that didn’t work we were able to decide as a couple what role his brother would have in our lives (needless to say it’s a diminished one). If he hadn’t told me what was said I wouldn’t know how his brother felt, and I would be making a fool of myself by assuming that we were going to have a good, 2 way in-law relationship.