Do I really have to tell my partner all my secrets?
Honesty is a valued trait in any romantic relationship, but that doesn’t mean we have to discuss everything with our partner.
Do they need to know details about your sex life with your ex or that you cheated on a childhood math exam? There is an important difference between privacy and secrecy.
Some people believe will argue "privacy" is just a cover that allows people to keep secrets, but that’s not true. Those who struggle with privacy are often individuals who are feeling insecure or have been hurt by secret-keeping in the past. There is an important distinction and a reason why keeping ssome things private is not just needed, but helpful – unlike secrets.
Simply, secrecy is the act of hiding information and results in broken trust. Privacy, on the other hand, is about having our own experiences in life that we choose not to share.
Here are some examples:
- Privacy: Mulling over leaving your job in your head
- Secrecy: Leaving a job or being fired without telling your partner
- Privacy: Thinking about the great sex you had with an ex and choosing not to act on it
- Secrecy: Having an affair
- Privacy: Reflecting on how your relationship is making you feel
- Secrecy: Holding onto the fact you’re unhappy in the relationship
- Privacy: Not telling your partner details about your previous partner
- Secrecy: Not telling your partner you are still in love with your ex
- Privacy: Thinking about smoking
- Secrecy: Smoking without telling your partner (even though you promised you’d quit)
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Privacy can be a good thing for your relationship
It’s OK not to share what you talked about in therapy or what your friend disclosed. It’s OK to close the door and have private conversations with your parents. It’s OK to have a weekend getaway with your friends. Privacy is a boundary that allows you to experience your autonomy within a relationship (like not doing every activity together, having your own thoughts and feelings, or having hobbies outside the relationship). Privacy ensures we preserve our sense of self, carve out time and do things in order to build our own self-understanding and keep growing as a person. It prevents us from getting lost within a relationship.
Privacy also keeps the spark alive in relationships by allowing space for mystery. Yes, your bowel movement is not a secret, but perhaps your partner doesn’t need to know about it! Privacy also allows space for boundaries and the distance necessary to allow individuals to be themselves.
How to tell if you're being secretive
Privacy changes into secrecy when the intention alters. For example, it’s also OK to set boundaries around your partner using your phone without permission. What would make the phone boundary turn into secrecy is if you were hiding the fact that you opened a Tinder account or a “rainy” day bank account in your name that your partner didn’t know about.
It’s easy to spot secrets because they are often driven by two things: fear or shame. We are often scared we will be judged, abandoned, or that our behavior will have to change once our secret is revealed. Secrets are often kept as a way to control the relationship or as a means of self-preservation.
It’s easy for secrets to snowball, making it more and more difficult to be honest. Secret-keepers keep a distance to keep their secret safe, but this distance simultaneously limits the intimacy of the relationship and can hurt the other person. Secrets make a person feel like they can’t fully show themselves because if they do, they won’t be loved. The truth is, if we don’t truly show ourselves, we limit the degree to which we can feel love anyway.
More: Are you in a codependent relationship? How to tell.
Should I tell my partner...?
Here are two general guidelines to help you figure out if you should disclose something to your partner:
- If it will help your partner have a better understanding of who you are and assist in nurturing a deeper connection with them – share it!
- If you're hiding information from your partner that would make them feel upset, angry, or betrayed, it’s probably a secret you need to share. If this information would change your partner’s willingness to be in the relationship, it’s time to be honest.
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Sara Kuburic is a therapist who specializes in identity, relationships and moral trauma. Every week she shares her advice with our readers. Find her on Instagram @millennial.therapist. She can be reached at SKuburic@gannett.com.