We have to keep birthday secrets and holiday secrets.
If you’re getting engaged, you may want to keep that secret. You can choose to keep a vacation destination a secret—although that makes it hard to pack. You may have other good reasons to keep secrets.
But I’m talking about secrets of the heart.
When do you share them, when do you hide them?
What’s the repercussion of letting them out, of keeping them in?
I tell my siblings about every single thing under the sun. I’m not sure why they like me after some of the doozies that come out, but I let’m rip.
I do not, keep your hat on, tell my husband everything.
There’s a great line in a Raymond Chandler book where he says, “…the kind of wind that has housewives eyeing their husbands necks and checking the sharpness of their knives…”
I mean, seriously, living with someone 24/7, (both working from home) who doesn’t get the urge, occasionally, to kill the other, yell: “I need space,” or otherwise throw a fit because of too much closeness?
Oh, you’re saying that’s just me?
Clears throat and continues…
When I was not at all in kid-liking-mode and spent time at Seester’s house while the tykes were, well, little tykes, I asked why wasn’t she correcting xx and yy bad behavior. She wisely answered, they’re little kids, you have to pick your battles, you can’t correct everything they do.
So I feel it is with spouses.
If I told Alex everything he does that makes me crazy (sigh, when he is home the kitchen is never free of water—everywhere), one of us would have to go. Conversely, if he let everything I do bother him, yikes. I mean, I have projects going on non-stop and everywhere.
Hence, secret-keeping.
Are these big secrets or little secrets?
Do I know the effect keeping either size secret has long-term on a marriage? Nope, still new at this 2.5 years in.
And don’t get me wrong, keeping secrets is not the same thing as holding your tongue. We’re obligated, as spouses, to speak what’s on our minds—to tell the truth about what’s important to us, even when it causes momentary discomfort.
But, for instance, I think spouses should have separate email accounts—we should be able to write to our friends without our spouses reading it. Doesn’t mean I don’t tell Alex about things I said/are said to me. But we shade our words differently when someone else is reading. I rage on in a journal completely differently from how I blog about the same topic.
I certainly want his friends to be able to email him things they may not want me to know. They could rant about work, their spouse, kids, cars, whatever—without any concern that I will read it and judge or tell on them.
It’s the same way I think that just because a couple is close doesn’t mean that if I tell my girlfriend a secret, it’s okay for her to tell her husband. That can be seen as a betrayal of trust. It’s hard to keep secrets sometimes, but worth trying hard to keep them to stay true to the person who told them to you.
Different conversations
We talk differently to our own gender than we do to the opposite sex—even if the closest of friends. Aren’t there multiple case studies where a classroom full of girls is bold and wise beyond their teenage years…until you introduce a boy or two or three? Then all bets are off and our nature of behaving differently around the opposite sex comes out. The why of that is more psychology than I have studied, but there it is. Men and women are different, we don’t understand each other as well as our same gender does. Telling every secret gives you more opportunities for mis-understanding because some things cannot be fully articulated.
Siblings get me. They’ve had years to do so. We are in tune. We rarely misunderstand the intonation of a sarcastic, but witty statement and get affronted. Instead we poke fun and laugh and say both, “you are wrong,” and “you are right,” at the appropriate times when asking guidance and advice.
There’s a great book about long-term relationships, “Ever Lasting Love,” where two young men seeking what makes a marriage last, interview couples married at least forty years. Many of them take the attitude that divorce was never an option, murder considered, but love always prevailed.
I’ll bet if I interviewed those couples about secret-keeping, they’d tell me they had collected quite a few.
Do you?
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Read: Strong Women
Keeping secret is important but I at times think which secrets we must keep from husband.
If it is directly related to both of us, I try telling it in a way that the situation will get better.
If it is not directly related to both of us then it is better to keep it.
It is a reality that we can not mention everything but we have to be careful while keeping or hiding it… this is what I believe.
Thank you for a great share.
Rose, working on 24 years with Ann. She has a lot of secrets she remembers and keeps. I have none that I remember. I love her and she wants to murder me. Thinking keeping secrets is the key to a good marriage…and having a sharp knife handy probably doesn’t hurt either.
Rose, we will be married 49 years this year and of course I keep secrets – not bad ones, I just don’t tell him everything. I do like the line – that divorce was never an option, murder considered, but love always prevailed. As for opening each others email ( he hates computers so never uses one) that isn’t something that comes up but it is similar to opening each others mail – unthinkable.
I don’t know if I’d phrase it “keeping secrets” per se. Maybe just not saying outloud everything that comes to our minds. Lol. Or having some privacy with email and friendships not because we have “secrets” to keep, but because we trust each other and having outside interests keeps the relationship fresh and exciting. 🙂
A good viewpoint, Susan. It is sometimes simply being wise enough to be quiet when the loud person inside wants out!
I was married…once a long time ago at the age of 18 and divorced at the age of 28. My X husband had a lot of secrets. The sad thing is there came a point in his healing that he was told it would be better for him to be honest with me. This was someone I thought was the love of my life. When he spilled his bucket of trash on me I was even more devastated. There are some things that are just better left untold. A cleanse of the soul is one thing but, when it requires making another feel dirty I question the point of exposing the secrets.
I am not one who has many secrets however, the ones I do have for the most part now warm my soul. Like when I look at the new love of my life for the past 24 years and catch him looking at me with one of those grins and I roll my eyes at him from across the room “like whatever” but, what Im really thinking is “yup you still are cute”. I think our biggest secret is just how hard it can be when we have had those moments of question and then in our hearts and minds we sort it out before it ever whispers a breath from our lips. Those are the secrets worth keeping. The ones that go from love, to maybe not and then back again. No one ever needs to know we stopped loving them for a momment as long as we find our way back again…
Wonderfully said, Heather, wonderfully said.
Yes, I believe in secrets!
During my first marriage, we told each other everything. We married at 19.
This time, I knew more about life and I keep some and I’m sure he does too. We don’t share a computer and we don’t share email accounts.
Wisdom, wisdom, Beth–there are big benefits to aging!
Absolutely, Rose. I definitely think that spouses should have their own email accounts and the right and opportunity to speak freely with friends and colleagues. If we give that up, we lose some of our individuality.
Yes, and being an individual is critical to any successful relationship–spousal or otherwise. Freedom to be who we are in very critical!
Great article on a subject I have thought about from time to time. I, like you, believe there are thoughts to be held and thoughts to be shared and betrayal never an option. Everyone likes to be surprised by something new found out about the other, even after decades.
You’re right, Tim…I did not write about betrayal–but you are spot on that keeping secrets should never be about betraying the other person. And surprises–oh, aren’t they the most wonderful thing?
It is hard to imagine that there is a couple who have never kept a secret from each other. And if there is…I wonder if they are still together.
Nice to hear you say that, Ken. I think we humans have to keep some things just our own. It doesn’t mean we are hiding bad things, just that there are inner things that we simply don’t have to share.
Absolutely! Who was it that said “familiarity breeds contempt? That can be true, after all. And I think we’ want to leave room for the occasional surprise…the kind that delights! “You mean after all these years I never knew that about you?” Love it!
True that, Jacquie! When I got divorced a bazillion years ago and was cleaning out my ex’s desk, I found juggling blocks. I often thought: I wonder if he hadn’t kept these hidden, if he had shared this with me…would it have made a difference? (Note, I don’t think so because he was a jerk, but you get the idea!)
I do think it is important to keep secrets shared well… a secret. It proves a commitment of trust in a relationship. And after 35 years of marriage I still try to pick my battles trying not to let the little things make me nuts. We are very complex humans, aren’t we? No one ever truly knows what goes on in another’s mind….
You are so right, Seester. I’d feel bad for Alex if he knew everything that zings through my mind from one minute to the next–he’d spend a lot of time dizzy. Since I know and love your husband well, I totally understand the picking the battles and only getting nuts with the humorous things our spouses do!