We all know the joke: “I promise, I won’t tell anyone.” (...except my significant other / sister / etc).
They don’t count :)
I relate to this joke. I also recognize that, mathematically, a husband or sister does count as someone.
But I’ve definitely come home from dinner with my girlfriends ready to give a significant other a detailed update on people he barely knew (whether he wanted one or not).
“Okay, so remember the guy she was seeing?” He didn’t. We’d spend seven minutes establishing which man, which friend and which restaurant before I could even give my update.
A little shared gossip is one of the fun perks of being in a relationship. The weird coworker who spends so much time in the bathroom that you’re wondering whether he has a second job in there. The embarrassing date your friend would happily reenact for both of you if she were over for dinner. The person who said something so absurd that keeping it to yourself feels like depriving your household of quality entertainment.
Are we supposed to spend every night chatting about our goals, current affairs and TV shows? Especially when some of the shit we know is better than anything they can cook up in the writer’s room? Sometimes we need to discuss why someone’s girlfriend hasn’t deleted their Bumble and Raya accounts for “networking reasons.”
Also, my girls, can we acknowledge how little information we get in return? Between men and women, the exchange of information is never even close to equal. In my experience, I could give any man I’ve ever been in a relationship with an entire thesis on why my friend should quit her job, complete with every antagonist and supporting character in her workplace drama.
Meanwhile, he could spend a whole afternoon with a friend who just called off his engagement and come home without a single drop of that piping hot tea to serve me. And not because of some code of honor. Because it “didn’t come up.” It’s one of life’s most unimaginable offenses.
Anyway, back to the information we actually do have. The problem is... “except my boyfriend” gets complicated when we start treating it as an automatic exception to someone else’s privacy. Because even though your partner might feel like an extension of you, your friend didn’t show up to lunch with only you and expecting to confide in both of you.
The clearest line is an explicit request. If a friend says, “Please don’t tell anyone,” that, to me, includes not telling my significant other or family members. They shouldn’t need to list every person specifically in order to make the instruction effective.
But what about without that disclaimer? That’s where it gets muddy and sparks the great debate.
I think certain things still deserve privacy and discretion, even when no one explicitly asks for it. A friend’s health concern. Financial issues. A personal situation they’re still trying to make sense of in therapy and by venting to you. Forgetting to provide the terms and conditions doesn’t automatically give us permission to share. (I realize this logic probably wouldn’t hold up in court. There’s a reason products come with disclaimers that spell out everything that should really go without saying—including that the hot coffee you just ordered is pretty fucking hot and shouldn’t be poured all over yourself. Apparently, we have to cover every possibility.)
“You didn’t tell me not to tell anyone” makes you sound like a five-year-old who had no business being trusted with your friend’s most vulnerable thoughts about her impending divorce.
Sometimes I ask myself: Would my friend have told this story if we were all sitting together? If so, sharing is caring, and bringing your husband up to speed seems pretty harmless. But if finding out your partner or family knows would make your friend dread coming over, that’s probably your answer.
Now, I can already hear the responses, so let’s think this through out loud, because I recognize that not everyone puts these relationships in the same category. Should the boundaries change depending on whether we’re telling a family member, a girlfriend or boyfriend, or a spouse? Does a marriage license come with some sort of security clearance for other people’s most sensitive information?
I think the reality is that those boundaries naturally shift, even if it isn’t always fair. Being married to someone is like sharing an ecosystem, and I can see how difficult it can be to keep certain things to yourself, especially if you’re stressed or concerned about a friend. But I still think we owe our friends an effort to honor those boundaries, even when sharing would feel natural.
In a recent article from The Cut titled “Why Are You Telling Your Boyfriend About My Sex Life?,” Lisa Zheutlin actually explores this with psychotherapist Blake Blankenbecler, who distinguishes between keeping secrets from a partner and respecting a friend’s privacy. Which is an important distinction. “No secrets between us” doesn’t need to include a detailed breakdown of a third person’s foreplay preferences.
Your relationship with the person your friend might be telling matters, too.
Personally, I’m less concerned about harmless tidbits of information reaching a significant other I’ve never met. A man somewhere out there knowing about my embarrassing date feels abstract (especially since I’ve shared those stories here for everyone to enjoy). But my friend’s husband knowing something truly and deeply personal about me before I’ve decided I’m comfortable sharing it? The one I see while hanging out at their house or on double dates? Now I’m wondering what else he knows while he asks how work is going.
I guess the best of both worlds comes with finding the right balance. Like most things in life, this falls somewhere in the many shades of gray between black and white.
I want to be able to talk openly in a relationship, including about the people in my life. I also want my friends to trust that telling me something doesn’t automatically mean telling two people at once.
Those two things can coexist if I pause long enough to consider what story I’m about to share and whose story it is to tell.
So yes, the significant other counts, both mathematically and in deciding how far someone else’s story should travel. And unfortunately, when it comes to bringing home gossip of their own, they may still contribute absolutely nothing because asking a follow-up question was too much to ask...
—Your friend
