Am I expecting too much?

OP, how did you find out incidentally? Did your wife tell you in the end?

There could have been a reason why you weren't told. But I think a private conversation between friends is a private conversation. There are things my friends tell me and I would never tell my husband. My best friend use to say, now don't say anything not even to [husband's name] and I always, always followed this.

Anyway, like you say, all relationships are different and if you're both on the same page, that's fair enough. Did she explain why she didn't tell you? Does she see it as an issue?

leggo wrote: »

I dunno...I just find all of this an odd, slightly unhealthy attitude towards intimacy. A lot of people hate the idea of having to keep stuff from their partners, a lot of people appreciate having a confidante that they can share all of their thoughts and experiences with. They’re all reasonable, healthy attitudes towards a relationship, and the person you’re married to is the most important relationship you’ll have (aside from children you rear, but on a peer level). They’re your priority, not your random, demanding friend who’ll drop you over what you described as unimportant goss.

And I find it odd and unhealthy to think someone in an intimate relationship thinks they’ve a right to divulge something told to them in confidence by a close friend. Let them share their thoughts and experiences all they want, but it is strange to me that they think they’ve a right to share someone else’s.

And nice work painting me as a ‘random demanding friend’. FWIW, in the example I gave, I was friends with the woman in question for decades. As it happens, I was in her life for longer than her husband. But now that I’ve said that, I expect you’ll interpret that as me being weirdly possessive of her!

And I didn’t describe it as “unimportant goss”. Who’s gaslighting now, eh? I described it as light-hearted but deeply personal. You were talking about all confidences as if they were major burdens which people need to offload and even seek counselling, and I was merely pointing out that the info in my case was light-hearted. Important, personal and private, but not some huge burden. It was my friend who perceived it as gossip and that’s why she told her husband.

leggo wrote: »

Nobody is saying YOU have to disclose everything to a partner, you’re gaslighting with that point because you’re not even in the relationship in the example you gave: all that’s being said to you is you have no right to make those demands of a relationship that doesn’t involve you.

I find it weirdly intense tbh that you not only want, but demand to the point of ending the friendship, that friends put you on the same level of trust/intimacy as their partners and should compromise if they want to have open, honest communication with their partner for you. You might downplay it as “Oh no I just don’t want my super secret, interesting goss shared” but, whether you realise it or not, that’s what you’re doing here by demanding this off others. If someone was going to unload stuff on me under the expectation that I never breathe a word of it to another living soul, even my partner, I’d just opt out of wanting them to tell me stuff. I’m a normal person who never agreed to this, and I may wish to process whatever you tell me by discussing it with someone I trust. Fair enough I won’t interfere by running off and telling other people involved or affected, but if I want to do so by talking to my partner in bed, that doesn’t make me an awful person deserving of being dropped as you seem to suppose it makes your friend. Again, talk to a counsellor if you want to unload stuff on others and be guaranteed confidentiality. And even then counsellors also receive counselling to cope with the stuff that they hear because talking about this stuff is a natural way of dealing with it! YOU’RE even talking about it to your friend, but you don’t give them the same courtesy to do so!

Now I may CHOOSE not to tell a partner certain stuff, but that should be my choice to make the same way it’s yours in your own relationship. I shouldn’t feel pressured into making that choice by one overly-demanding friend who’s over-stepping their boundaries with their expectations of what I should/shouldn’t share within my relationship.

Again with the loaded language. Unloading. Processing. Coping. Do you realise that not everything that someone wants kept private is a big burden? Heck, if I won the lotto I’d keep it private!

And I view my friend as having massively over-stepped the boundaries of our friendship by telling her husband something I’d asked her to keep to herself. You’re making it sound like this is a continuous thing that people do, in reality I don’t think people are telling their friends huge amounts of things they want kept quiet on a very frequent basis, but surely it’s not unreasonable, over-bearing or demanding to think a good friend can keep something to themselves? I’d love to know what friendship means to some posters here, because their perception of it seems to be vastly different from mine.

And the accusation that I’m gaslighting because nobody is expecting me to divulge everything- I presume you’re referring to one of my posts in which i said how I’d react if someone expected me to do that- note the IF in my posts. I didn’t say anyone was actually demanding it of me.

eviltwin wrote: »

I think the person sharing the information has every right to ask for it to stay confidential and there are certain sensitive disclosures where discretion is expected.

Obviously there are circumstances where that’s not possible but I don’t consider this to be one of them. I certainly don’t think telling an unrelated third party such as the OP is in anyway appropriate.

If the friend had disclosed a terminal illness, sexual assault or lotto win would the OP have made this thread? Unlikely.

Yeah so I think you’re getting mixing up between two separate conversations. This discussion is relating to someone saying that they ditched a friend because they told a partner something (although that’s not believed to have been in confidence since they later said the friend turned around immediately and said it to their partner so obviously their friend thought it was okay). All of it is unrelated to the OP, this isn’t a thread about someone being upset their friend told their partner a secret and that’s why I initially posted a quick rebut that has turned into a debate, hence me saying we’re derailing.

But I’ve given my thoughts on how it fits into the OP’s scenario if you’d like to go back. I’ve never said the girlfriend has to tell the OP about this. This is why I hate gaslighting arguments that just confuse everyone and take things off course.

leggo wrote: »

And what does all this have to do with the OP? This isn’t a thread about a friend who’s upset someone told their partner something?

People on this thread have given multiple examples of where they shared information with a friend in confidence and that confidence was broken, and how they felt about it. It does have relevance to the OP, because it gives the OP a different perspective to the 'my wife is keeping secrets from me' type view. All you're doing is deflecting from some very obvious things that are being pointed out about keeping other people's information private.

The OP has already admitted that he wouldn't be interested if the friend who cheated had a row with her husband, so he's looking for gossip or he doesn't trust his wife.

Quick question leggo, as you said that you expect your partner to share everything with you and vice versa even when it's not your information to share. What did you do when you were single and a friend told you something in confidence? You use very dramatic language such as 'unburdening' and not all information is so heavy that it suggests that the person hearing it will be having sleepless nights over it. Did you keep your friends' confidences when you were single, and then when you got married say 'tough luck, if you're telling one of us, you're actually telling two'?

leggo wrote: »

Your account here doesn’t make sense and you’re constantly adding info after the fact, every time you tell the story it changes a bit. First she told him some super personal info (because the point you were making was that it was such an invasion of privacy worthy of ending a friendship), then it wasn’t a big deal and was just some ‘goss’ that she told him in a cavalier way (because the point you were making then was how thoughtless she was). Now, after I asked you how you knew the tone she told him in, you’re saying that you told her to keep it to herself and she agreed but then told him in front of you? If she told him in front of you, she thought it was okay to do so. Or are you saying now that she did so in a deliberate attempt to sabotage your friendship?

And what does all this have to do with the OP? This isn’t a thread about a friend who’s upset someone told their partner something? It feels like you just want to give out about this friend and are shoehorning it into this thread.

No I havent been changing my story. Yes, it was personal private info. She told it to him in a cavalier way because she thought it was good gossip. I never said it wasn’t a big deal, but I did say it wasn’t a burden she had to shoulder like you were making it out to be. And yes, I did ask her to keep it quiet. And yes she did tell him in front of me- not ‘immediately’ as you said, some time later. And she did so because she thought I’d be ok enough with it as she didn’t see the big deal in sharing with her husband. But he’s her husband, not mine, and I didn’t want him to know and she knew this, but chose to disregard it for the sake of a bit of a laugh. Hence she’s no longer my friend.

And lastly, it’s relevant to the op because it’s giving him food for thought about how different people value trust in friendships. And I’m answering points as they arise in response to what I’ve said.

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

I'd even go further and say that her husband should know your private stuff. Because if your wife tells her friend something, then her friend should share that with her husband, because that's what couples should do?

Excellent point.

notsoyoungwan wrote: »

No I havent been changing my story. Yes, it was personal private info. She told it to him in a cavalier way because she thought it was good gossip. I never said it wasn’t a big deal, but I did say it wasn’t a burden she had to shoulder like you were making it out to be. And yes, I did ask her to keep it quiet. And yes she did tell him in front of me- not ‘immediately’ as you said, some time later. And she did so because she thought I’d be ok enough with it as she didn’t see the big deal in sharing with her husband. But he’s her husband, not mine, and I didn’t want him to know and she knew this, but chose to disregard it for the sake of a bit of a laugh. Hence she’s no longer my friend.

And lastly, it’s relevant to the op because it’s giving him food for thought about how different people value trust in friendships. And I’m answering points as they arise in response to what I’ve said.

Sorry, not buying it. Like I believe some version of this happened but this is one of those where you’re adding new info to conveniently explain away every hole in the story. It’s a HUGE break of trust worth ending a friendship over but then it’s not something they should worry about, she absolutely knew not to tell him yet she also thought it was perfectly okay to tell him when you were there. You’re not going to admit that you’re exaggerating here and I obviously can’t prove it beyond pointing out your contradictions, so let’s just agree to disagree and let the OP have their thread back. Whatever the case I’d say it’s probably for the best your friendship is over and I’d say neither of you regret that, a lesson learned for you for the future maybe that yes, some people do like to share everything with their partners. That doesn’t make them a bad person IMO.

I disagree with the OP’s assertion that they HAVE to share everything, but they’ve also since added that it was actually the cheating part that bothered them and this aspect of the conversation should’ve probably been done at that because that’s what matters in this discussion.