Do You Tell Other's Secrets to Your Spouse?

[BlueEyedLady]

Aah, the old ‘he’ll lie to others but never to me’.

A bit like the even older ‘he cheated with me on his first wife, but he’d never cheat on me with another woman …’

I’ve run enough family law cases to be able to say good luck with that.

Apples and oranges. One is betraying a spouse, the other is not.

I do a lot of things to and with other people that I wouldn’t do with my fiance, and vice-versa because the relationship is different. Just because I do ‘X’ with one person doesn’t mean that my relationship with another person is one where ‘X’ is appropriate.

Spouses have a different level of trust and openness than friends by their very nature. Not a reasonable comparison.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

A friendship is not a marriage. That’s the flaw in this argument.

I agree with the poster who was told by her priest that there is no such thing as gossip between spouses.

I fully believe that he has the right to know everything I know, and that I have a right to share anything I want or need to with him. No one should ask me to violate either of those rights.

I’m still not understanding what it is you think you gain from this arrangement. It may hurt your friendships because you can’t counsel your friends in the same way you would if you took their privacy seriously. Meanwhile, there is no apparent benefit to be had from telling your spouse stuff that they have no right nor reason to know and stuff that can only be potentially embarrassing to a good friend.

 

[Debora123]

Well, let’s say you have a friend and you gossip with that friend all the time. Saying, “that’s just the type of relationship we have,” doesn’t exactly get you off the hook. Saying that doesn’t even really mean anything. It is your choice to have that kind of relationship. You are perfectly free to choose not to spread potentially embarrassing secrets about others. So obviously, you are gaining something out of it. It’s doing something for you to share information which you have no business sharing. What is it doing for you?

As BYL said, there’s a huge difference between a relationship between friends, and a relationship between spouses.

I don’t consider telling my husband something in private anywhere near the same as “spreading secrets.”

As I said, it isn’t doing anything for me. It is the type of relationship we have… we talk… many married couples do, just read the first couple pages of this thread.

 

[Debora123]

A friendship is not a marriage. That’s the flaw in this argument.

I agree with the poster who was told by her priest that there is no such thing as gossip between spouses.

I fully believe that he has the right to know everything I know, and that I have a right to share anything I want or need to with him. No one should ask me to violate either of those rights.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

As I said, it isn’t doing anything for me. It is the type of relationship we have… we talk… many married couples do, just read the first couple pages of this thread.

Would it do anything for a friend, to know that they are able to trust you? Yes, right?

If so, why choose 0 benefit for your husband over +1 benefit for friends?

 

[Debora123]

Aah, the old ‘he’ll lie to others but never to me’.

A bit like the even older ‘he cheated with me on his first wife, but he’d never cheat on me with another woman …’

I’ve run enough family law cases to be able to say good luck with that.

Wow, are you kidding me?

 

[Debora123]

Apples and oranges. One is betraying a spouse, the other is not.

I do a lot of things to and with other people that I wouldn’t do with my fiance, and vice-versa because the relationship is different. Just because I do ‘X’ with one person doesn’t mean that my relationship with another person is one where ‘X’ is appropriate.

Spouses have a different level of trust and openness than friends by their very nature. Not a reasonable comparison.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

As BYL said, there’s a huge difference between a relationship between friends, and a relationship between spouses.

I don’t consider telling my husband something in private anywhere near the same as “spreading secrets.”
.

You don’t? So how often do your female friends confide in your husband? It’s the same thing, right?

 

[BlueEyedLady]

As BYL said, there’s a huge difference between a relationship between friends, and a relationship between spouses.

I don’t consider telling my husband something in private anywhere near the same as “spreading secrets.”

As I said, it isn’t doing anything for me. It is the type of relationship we have… we talk… many married couples do, just read the first couple pages of this thread.

Exactly. It isn’t about “gaining” anything or “spreading secrets”. But we spend a lot of time together and so we talk about anything and everything, and that’s my favorite part of being with him. Outside of what he’s getting for his birthday or Xmas I don’t want to put restrictions on what I can say to him if it pops into my head.

 

[Debora123]

Would it do anything for a friend, to know that they are able to trust you? Yes, right?

If so, why choose 0 benefit for your husband over +1 benefit for friends?

As I’ve repeated several times now, I have never met anyone who has even insinuated that I shouldn’t tell my spouse something. My friends all know that my husband and I are very open about everything, and vice versa. If there’s something someone doesn’t want my spouse to know, they shouldn’t tell me.

 

[Debora123]

You don’t?

No, I do not consider telling my husband something on the same level as “spreading secrets.” Want me to repeat that one more time?

So how often do your female friends confide in your husband? It’s the same thing, right?

No, it’s not the same. There’s no reason in the world for them to go and talk to my husband about anything. If they want to talk to me, they talk to me. And they know that anything they tell me may be related to my husband as well. That doesn’t mean it’s the same as them going and having a conversation with him about it instead of with me.

Anyhow, what’s with the rhetorical questions? I feel like I’m 6 years old and being lectured by an annoying teacher I had in 1st grade.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

As I’ve repeated several times now, I have never met anyone who has even insinuated that I shouldn’t tell my spouse something. My friends all know that my husband and I are very open about everything, and vice versa. If there’s something someone doesn’t want my spouse to know, they shouldn’t tell me.

To make my position clear: you can do whatever it is that you want to do. I’m pursuing you on this not to change your mind but because I simply cannot understand why you do this, and I was hoping that you could explain it in such a way that makes sense to me. So then I could go, “oh, OK, now I see why,” but so far that’s just not working. Very well, perhaps it will never make sense to me.

The way I’m looking at it is this: my wife and I are extremely open. Well I’m more open than she is due to the way we were raised. But I have so much going on inside my brain (not necessarily in my life, but in my brain, big difference ) that I never need to resort to sensitive secrets as a subject. I think, however, that I would rather not say anything at all as opposed to divulge which one of my friends is having a drinking problem. Even if he never knows that my wife knows, I would still feel like that’s unfair to him. Furthermore, since my wife gains nothing out of my violation of his trust, then talking about it would make it all the more bizarre and, in my view, potentially sinful. It is the sin of detraction. So that’s where I’m at on this.

By saying that you prefer the “no benefit” of telling your husband sensitive secrets over keeping them secret, that, to me, is like saying your friend’s privacy and reputation is worthless.

No, it’s not the same. There’s no reason in the world for them to go and talk to my husband about anything.

Why not? The two of you are one person, yeah? So it will get back to you, anyway.

Yeah, see the problem? Your friends are not sharing with him, because he is not you. His friends are not sharing with you, because you are not him.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

To make my position clear: you can do whatever it is that you want to do. I’m pursuing you on this not to change your mind but because I simply cannot understand why you do this, and I was hoping that you could explain it in such a way that makes sense to me. So then I could go, “oh, OK, now I see why,” but so far that’s just not working. Very well, perhaps it will never make sense to me.

The way I’m looking at it is this: my wife and I are extremely open. Well I’m more open than she is due to the way we were raised. But I have so much going on inside my brain (not necessarily in my life, but in my brain, big difference ) that I never need to resort to sensitive secrets as a subject. I think, however, that I would rather not say anything at all as opposed to divulge which one of my friends is having a drinking problem. Even if he never knows that my wife knows, I would still feel like that’s unfair to him. Furthermore, since my wife gains nothing out of my violation of his trust, then talking about it would make it all the more bizarre and, in my view, potentially sinful. It is the sin of detraction. So that’s where I’m at on this.

Um…I don’t think it’s “resorting” to “spreading secrets” because of a lack of anything else to say. But I tell him things that I care about. That’s why bra size would never come up but a drinking problem would. I care about these things so I share them with him. Simple as that.

 

[Debora123]

To make my position clear: you can do whatever it is that you want to do. I’m pursuing you on this not to change your mind but because I simply cannot understand why you do this, and I was hoping that you could explain it in such a way that makes sense to me. So then I could go, “oh, OK, now I see why,” but so far that’s just not working. Very well, perhaps it will never make sense to me.

The way I’m looking at it is this: my wife and I are extremely open. Well I’m more open than she is due to the way we were raised. But I have so much going on inside my brain (not necessarily in my life, but in my brain, big difference ) that I never need to resort to sensitive secrets as a subject. I think, however, that I would rather not say anything at all as opposed to divulge which one of my friends is having a drinking problem. Even if he never knows that my wife knows, I would still feel like that’s unfair to him. Furthermore, since my wife gains nothing out of my violation of his trust, then talking about it would make it all the more bizarre and, in my view, potentially sinful. It is the sin of detraction. So that’s where I’m at on this.

And that’s perfectly fine. No one here is saying that it’s wrong to not tell your spouse everything. Marriages are different and people are different. So if that’s how you and your wife see things, that’s perfectly ok and no one can tell you otherwise.

 

[LilyM]

It’s not so much that my husband has a right to know everything, but that I have a right to tell him if I so choose. And so it follows that I don’t think anyone has a right to tell me that I cannot tell my husband something.

The two rights (his right to know and yours to tell) go hand in glove. The one cannot exist without the other also existing. Now the way I see it, either:

a) He has a right to know everything. In which case you must tell him everything, including bra size, number of times you pooped etc, because if you don’t then you are denying him information that he has a right to know. Clearly you don’t believe this.

b) He does NOT have the right to know everything. In which case you have the right to not tell him certain things.

So why is it that you get to decide that he has no right to know certain things but other people cannot?

Who decides what he has the right to know and what he doesn’t have the right to know, and on what grounds?

Would you keep from him professional secrets if you were a doctor?

If you would, why would a patient’s confidential disclosure of their alcoholism be confidential and secret even from your husband, but your friends disclosure of exactly the same thing fair game?

And why does the fact that YOU chose to get married somehow negate entirely the rights of your friends to decide for themselves who gets told what about them, or that some things should be told to you but not him?

 

[Catholic_Wife]

What happens if the friendship sours, the friend could reveal secrets and confidences as well. Anybody we let in to our lives could have the potential to hurt us if things went badly in the relationship. Anytime you trust someone in confidence, there is a potential they can hurt you if things turn out badly, does that mean we should never tell anything to anybody no matter how much we trust them at the time?

All I’m saying is, what about discretion? Should we not be discrete in what we tell others - including our spouses. I’m not saying we should lie to our spouses, but we don’t have to share with them everything that others tell us - especially if it’s told to us in confidence or is something that is potentially embarrasing or damaging to that person.

If I get a divorce? Really? Um, I’m pretty sure Catholics are not supposed to think like that…

As BlueEyedLady has said, part of being able to share things with your spouse, is the trust that they won’t repeat it.

Just because we don’t believe we will get divorced, doesn’t mean it cannot become a reality. How many threads on this forum are about people in troubled marriages??? Like I said, things happen…

Then again, I have never told my husband something that someone else has told me in confidence and asked him to lie about it… (nor will I ever ask him to lie so I can save face)

Isn’t altering your behavior in case you get a divorce evidence that could be used to get an annulment? Kind of like bringing up or getting a pre-nup?

I guess choosing to be discrete in what you share with your spouse could be used as grounds for an annulment.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

And that’s perfectly fine. No one here is saying that it’s wrong to not tell your spouse everything. Marriages are different and people are different. So if that’s how you and your wife see things, that’s perfectly ok and no one can tell you otherwise.

Like I said on page one, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong to this as long as both partners are on the same page.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

And that’s perfectly fine. No one here is saying that it’s wrong to not tell your spouse everything. Marriages are different and people are different. So if that’s how you and your wife see things, that’s perfectly ok and no one can tell you otherwise.

And from my perspective, the way you are doing it is OK too. Just so long as your friends KNOW in advance that you will not keep their secrets. I believe you said that they know this, so it’s fine.

It’s less than optimal IMO but it’s your right.

Now if someone (not you) were promising to keep a secret and the person was under the impression that it was just between you and them, and then you shared it with your husband anyway, that would be sinful because you would have lied. But I do not think you are doing this.

BlueEyedLady:

Like I said on page one, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong to this as long as both partners are on the same page.

You are leaving out a HUGE part of this equation: the secret sharer must be OK with this arrangement as well.

 

[Debora123]

Why not? The two of you are one person, yeah? So it will get back to you, anyway.

Yeah, see the problem? Your friends are not sharing with him, because he is not you. His friends are not sharing with you, because you are not him.

Because they are my friends, not his.

No, I don’t see a problem at all.

And whoa, you totally edited your post on me.

 

[Debora123]

Um…I don’t think it’s “resorting” to “spreading secrets” because of a lack of anything else to say. But I tell him things that I care about. That’s why bra size would never come up but a drinking problem would. I care about these things so I share them with him. Simple as that.