“I Feel Deeply Ashamed”: 40 Secrets People Would Rather Take To The Grave Than Confess To Partners

There is a world of difference between privacy and secrecy. According to the Center for Modern Relationships, privacy is your right to have your thoughts, feelings, and experiences that you shouldn’t feel compelled to share with others. “It includes having boundaries around how and when you are accessible, and allows you to have alone time. Privacy is a healthy form or practicing individuality.”

Common examples of healthy privacy include things like having passwords on your phone and computer, personal conversations with your family and friends, separate bank accounts, keeping silent about embarrassing experiences from your past, and having some private time for yourself, separate from your relationship.

On the flip side, secrecy is very much intentional. At its core, it involves hiding or withholding information from your significant other because you believe revealing the information could have big consequences. “Secrecy is a toxic relationship behavior that can cause serious harm to the health of your relationship.”

Some examples of secrecy look like this:

1. Lying about your finances, debt, or spending habits;
2. Making big financial decisions without your partner;
3. Lying about your job or career path;
4. Hiding the truth of your relationships with friends, colleagues, and ex-partners;
5. Hiding addictions;
6. Flirting with other people (unless this is something you’ve agreed to do with your partner);
7. Hiding parts of your health history that might impact your partner.

Divorce.com explains that people keep secrets from each other out of shame, avoidance, fear of criticism, a lack of trust, as well as a fear of hurting their significant other.

Secrecy can lead to resentment, increase stress and anxiety, create cycles of mistrust, and generally signal that your relationship is in trouble. Keeping secrets can hurt you as well as your partner.

However, some small secrets might be fine to keep, so long as you generally have a foundation of honesty in your relationship.

For instance, you can keep short-term secrets about a date night or surprise party that you’re organizing, or that you’ve broken your partner’s favorite item until you replace it. On top of that, there might be situations where you need a bit of time to process the information before you discuss it.

Broadly speaking, how open and honest are you with your significant others, dear Pandas? Do you keep a lot of secrets from them, whether large or small? If you feel like sharing, what is the biggest thing that you’ve kept secret from your partners? Feel free to open up in the comments at the very bottom of this post.