Do You Tell Other's Secrets to Your Spouse?

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Kensho said:
It would only be rude or disrespectful if it were demanded in a rude way. Asking someone to keep a secret is not divisive unless the secret affects the spouse. Actually, the truly divisive behavior that I have personally seen many times is women speaking disrespectfully about their spouses to their friends and giving intimate details about their husbands that are not appropriate to share. I remember my mother telling me “don’t tell daddy” – now that was divisive.
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I absolutely HATE it when women talk “trash” about their spouse, HATE IT.
 
Kensho said:
It would only be rude or disrespectful if it were demanded in a rude way. Asking someone to keep a secret is not divisive unless the secret affects the spouse. Actually, the truly divisive behavior that I have personally seen many times is women speaking disrespectfully about their spouses to their friends and giving intimate details about their husbands that are not appropriate to share. I remember my mother telling me “don’t tell daddy” – now that was divisive.
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Yep, that’s definitely divisive and a big problem.
 
Debora123 said:
Spousal priveledges are a societal construct? :confused:

Mmm, no I’ll have to disagree with you there as well. Spousal privileges are a divine reality of marriage.
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I’ll call BS on that. In the Eastern Churches (including Eastern Catholicism), married men are ordained to the priesthood. With the conversion of married pastors coming from the Protestant churches (and I believe some from Holy Orthodoxy), the Latin Church also has married priests. Are you saying, then, that everything a priest hears is fair game for the wifey, since they’re “now one”? Marriage does not mean becoming assimilated into The Borg, knowing all, thinking all, feeling all as one 🙂

BTW, “spousal privilege” is a legal term, protecting communication between spouses in a marriage & preventing one from “incriminating” the other through testimony in a court of law. (For the lawyers among us, I know this is a highly simplified description). England/Wales no longer consider spousal communications privileged, though there are some protections that were later added by law. There’s nothing divine about it.

I don’t dispute your resolve to share everything, provided there’s disclosure to 3rd parties that you won’t keep the confidence entrusted to you. This would be something worth discussing with one’s confessor…
 
Another situation in which one is obligated to keep mum: I attend Al-Anon meetings. What is said in that room is supposed to stay in that room. This is absolutely essential to recovery. There are people who desperately need the help those meetings afford but will not go because they don’t even want people to see them going to a meeting, much less hear what they need to say, so a lot of people suffer terrible emotional and spiritual pain and real damage for years because they fear others’ lack of discretion.
 
Being married does not mean one can act contrary to a secret --be it a natural secret or promised or entrusted secret. Tis a sin.

(There are occasions of urgent necessity for public or private good where a secret can be told – like one tells the police that Sam is going to break into a house and steal something…or Jack is going to commit suicide etc --but simply being married is not one of them–unless again one asks etc to make it known to the spouse)
 
Kensho said:
The reason why I thought you were saying it’s okay to share friends’ secrets with other close friends is that you said when you told a friend a secret, you assumed she would share it with her spouse or even someone else she was close to.

If you share a secret with a friend and she shares it with another friend to whom she is close, and that friend shares it with her spouse and another close friend … it could just go on and on. Might as well not have a secret. Maybe there’s something to be said for not having secrets, but if there are going to be secrets, they need to be kept.

I cannot imagine telling anyone on this earth everything I think, feel, and know. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hear it all. I definitely don’t want to know everything other people think, feel, and know. This is an individual difference and that’s okay – but I can’t even comprehend talking to someone that much!
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I think I understand. What I meant to say was that, whenever I tell anything personal about myself to anyone else, I assume they’re going to share it with their spouse, and I don’t even think I can absolutely count on them not telling very close friends or family members. I didn’t mean to imply that telling just about anyone is perfectly fine, just that I am personally prepared for that possibility whenever I decide to share anything personal.
BlueEyedLady said:
I do think that it is very rude, disrespectful, and just poor form to ask someone who is married to not tell their spouse something. That strikes me as divisive, and I think that true friends support unity in their friends’ marriages, not intentionally cause one partner to carry something that they can’t share with their spouse.
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I personally feel the same way. I don’t think everyone needs to subscribe to this way of thinking, nor that this is a moral absolute, but I experience this as such. I don’t need to be burdened with anything I’m not allowed to share with my spouse and I like to be given that choice. Given the choice, I refuse to hear anything my husband is not allowed to know.

There was one time a friend of mine who knows I share everything with my husband told me a “secret” and - only after saying it - added that I was not supposed to tell anyone, *including *my husband.

It’s a silly piece of gossip involving a local celebrity that I probably wouldn’t have even thought of sharing with my husband. I’ve even forgotten what exactly happened. But I still remember it every once in a while as “the thing I have to keep from my husband” and it bugs me. I wish I’d been given the choice *before *this was shared with me. I’d have opted out.
Kensho said:
the truly divisive behavior that I have personally seen many times is women speaking disrespectfully about their spouses to their friends and giving intimate details about their husbands that are not appropriate to share. I remember my mother telling me “don’t tell daddy” – now that was divisive.
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I absolutely agree these things are very rude and divisive.

To go back to something BlueEyedLady said earlier, I guess it’s a matter of who your friends are. My husband and I have been together since we were 18. Those friends that are close enough to me to want to say something private to me are also the same people who know and respect and trust my husband. I simply can’t even imagine the situation where someone would think I was a person they want to confide in and at the same time not trust my husband with this.
 
Let me make sure I understand: Do you, Litcrit, and you, BlueEyedLady, think it is rude if someone says, “I really want to tell you something but it’s very personal. If I tell you, can you keep it a secret even from your husband?”

Because I don’t see how that could possibly be seen as rude since the person is giving you a choice.

I am still trying to understand how it could be appropriate to share intimate information about a member of the opposite sex with your wife or husband. I can think of a woman needing to explain to her close women friends that she is having problems related to sex or to the functioning of her female parts, and being mortified and embarrassed at the thought of men being told, even men she likes and respects. I don’t see why that is hard to understand. Actually, I don’t know many men who would appreciate being told something like that – they’d be embarrassed.
 
Bookcat said:
Secrets are secrets.

Not something for ones spouse.

One can though ask – do you mind my wife knows of this?

catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=36360
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I agree with you. If someone tells you to keep something a secret, don’t say you will if you do not intend to keep that promise. It has been my experience that most secrets would not even be of interest to one’s spouse. If it is about the children, that is another matter. But even then, the children, both young and older, should be told that you do not keep secrets from Dad. It is a sticky situation.
 
mary_bobo said:
I agree with you. If someone tells you to keep something a secret, don’t say you will if you do not intend to keep that promise. It has been my experience that most secrets would not even be of interest to one’s spouse. If it is about the children, that is another matter. But even then, the children, both young and older, should be told that you do not keep secrets from Dad. It is a sticky situation.
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That would go not just for promised secrets or even entrusted secrets but also for natural secrets.

As to parents of young children – it would seem to me at the moment that there would not be secrets between spouses generally in regards to their small children – I doubt it is like little Johnny can likely say “Mom that is a natural secret so you will sin if you tell Dad” …😉 (sorry kids)
 
Bookcat said:
Being married does not mean one can act contrary to a secret --be it a natural secret or promised or entrusted secret. Tis a sin.

(There are occasions of urgent necessity for public or private good where a secret can be told – like one tells the police that Sam is going to break into a house and steal something…or Jack is going to commit suicide etc --but simply being married is not one of them–unless again one asks etc to make it known to the spouse)
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Aside from promised or entrusted secrets there are natural secrets.

Examples of “natural secrets”

catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=35065
 
This is getting a little ridiculous.

Either you and your spouse are the type to share everything you hear from other people, or you are not.

There’s nothing wrong with either of them. There is no right or wrong in this case. Let’s not pretend there is some sort of Church teaching on this too. :rolleyes:

And as for the people who seem to be getting all huff and puff about what strangers on the internet say they tell their spouses… well… I’m not sure what to say to you.
 
Kensho said:
Let me make sure I understand: Do you, Litcrit, and you, BlueEyedLady, think it is rude if someone says, “I really want to tell you something but it’s very personal. If I tell you, can you keep it a secret even from your husband?”

Because I don’t see how that could possibly be seen as rude since the person is giving you a choice.
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If I am given the choice and if it is asked as an exception, rather than a rule, for particular reasons, and in a polite way, like the example you offered, then no, it’s not rude.

If someone, however, chooses to tell me something, and then orders me not to tell my husband, then I see this as rude - it has happened once to me with something that involved me and tangentially involved my husband and I did not appreciate it and I said I could not keep it from my husband, sorry.
Kensho said:
I am still trying to understand how it could be appropriate to share intimate information about a member of the opposite sex with your wife or husband. I can think of a woman needing to explain to her close women friends that she is having problems related to sex or to the functioning of her female parts, and being mortified and embarrassed at the thought of men being told, even men she likes and respects. I don’t see why that is hard to understand. Actually, I don’t know many men who would appreciate being told something like that – they’d be embarrassed.
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See, I wasn’t even imagining a member of the opposite sex confiding in me - most of my close friends are male and wouldn’t even be sharing stuff like this with me. If a female friend had a gynecological issue she’d want to discuss with me, I really don’t think that I’d feel the need to share this with my husband or that he’d be interested.

A female friend did actually visit us both a while ago and told us about her cervical cancer scare and surgery. My husband was, of course, discreetly gentle and supportive, and completely unabashed, as he always is with my friends. He’s just that type of guy.
 
Kensho said:
My loose-lipped friend was a boisterous, sporty extrovert, very bouncy and friendly and fun. My sister and I – both of us sensitive, keep-your-cards-close-to-your-chest introverted nerds – were mortified by her colorful sense of humor now and again. I really don’t think she meant anything by it, she just told her husband everything and it never occurred to her that a 12-year-old girl might not even have a concept of how women talk to their husbands.

But thank you for seeing why this was a significant incident for that 12-year-old girl. My ideas about men, women, and marriage were forming consciously at that time, and because I lacked a healthy example of all that at home, this small betrayal damaged me more than it would have otherwise.
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I think this is my whole point. Sure she probably meant nothing by it nor by her colourful comments. But… it does indicate a self-centered person unwilling to think or others which although not intentional cruel, is still not a healthy person to be around
 
Wampa said:
Code: 
If a male friend confided in me about a problem with pornography (just as an example), I would help them and it wouldn't change my view of them.  I would *never* tell my wife, because she would struggle mightily to keep that from changing her friendship with them.  All sharing that secret does is make my wife's life harder, with no good done at all.
.
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As much as I agree with NOT telling your wife, I disagree with your reasoning. The other reason to keep your friends secret is he is obviously hurt, needs help and wants to change. He needs to talk. How can he talk if he knows women will find out about this embarrassing problem.

The only time spouses SHOULD tell each other something is when it affects them. How is some guy trying to get over a porn addiction going to affect his buddies marriage???
 
BlueEyedLady said:
I would tell him if a 12 year old had a crush, but once again, he wouldn’t let on that he knew. .
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The mere fact he would not let on he knew goes to show deep down he knows it is none of his business. With all due respect, I really wonder what kind of marriage needs to share 12 year old’s crushes???
 
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