Secrets are powerful. You might feel energized while keeping news of an upcoming proposal or promotion under wraps. But if you’re holding on to a heavy secret about yourself — a distressing diagnosis, a violation of someone’s trust, a legal issue — it can lead to rumination, loneliness, and worry. Revealing your secret to someone else can provide relief as well as build intimacy and trust between you and the person you share it with.
But what if you find yourself in possession of a secret that isn’t yours to reveal? A friend confides in you about a terminal diagnosis and asks you to keep it to yourself. Or you accidentally discover that a friend is having an affair or your sister is keeping financial indiscretions from her partner. In such instances, carrying the secret can become a strain on your well-being, leading you to weigh your discomfort against the damage it might do if you were to share it.
Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, a master certified life coach and president of Phoenix-based Covisioning, has some simple but powerful suggestions for handling such a dilemma.
Stress Source
You feel you’ve been put in a difficult position. You may appreciate the fact that your friend trusts you with their secret, but you may also feel they’ve burdened you with a no-win proposition. Holding the secret makes you anxious; sharing it may damage a relationship you value. It’s possible that divulging the information may have negative ramifications for others’ lives; alternatively, if the secret comes out later, those affected might be upset with you for not telling them the information sooner. All this can generate major stress, Reynolds notes.
You can’t stop ruminating on the secret. It can be hard to stop thinking about the information you’ve learned — along with its potential consequences.
You also may not understand the reasons behind the request to keep silent, and you might find yourself ruminating on that. “The ‘shoulds’ can be a big burden here and hold us back,” says Reynolds. “I’m basically being told that I shouldn’t tell anybody the secret — but why shouldn’t I? What’s the real purpose of my silence?”
If you decide to share the secret, whom should you choose? Should it be someone acquainted with the person who told you the secret — someone who will understand the significance of the situation — or an unbiased third party?
You may wonder whether sharing the secret is gossiping. Reynolds points out that there’s a fine line between divulging a secret to relieve stress and doing so to create a closer relationship with the person who’ll receive the information. If you feel the other person doesn’t value you enough, you might think that sharing the secret will increase their view of your worth; it could have the opposite effect if they feel you are betraying someone else’s confidence.
You don’t know how you’ll feel after sharing the secret. “You might ask yourself, Am I telling the secret because I just have to tell somebody to feel better?” says Reynolds. But you should also consider whether sharing the information will actually lead to relief and, if so, how true and lasting that relief will be.
On the other hand, sharing the secret could lead you to feel guilt over betraying someone’s trust.
You’re not sure how to process your feelings about keeping the secret. If you decide not to tell anyone, how will you work through the rumination or anxiety that may arise?
Success Strategies
If someone asks you to keep a secret, pause before you agree. Most of Reynolds’s recommendations for navigating someone’s request for secrecy involve taking preparatory measures — ideally, before you hear what the secret is. Although you may wish to prove your friendship by agreeing right away, it’s wise to first clarify a few issues, including the following:
- Let them know that keeping the secret might be hard for you. “The secret holder obviously feels a strong need to tell someone,” Reynolds notes. “So it’s OK to remind them that you, too, might feel that need.”
- Ask the secret sharer to specify who should not learn the information. If the person asks you not to divulge the secret, “you can ask them to clarify — do they mean everybody on the planet?” Reynolds says. “Could I tell people in my family [or] somebody not associated with the sharer?” If the sharer leaves you with no options at all, that knowledge can inform whether you decide to receive the information.
- Ask the secret sharer to be specific about timing. Another question to ask is how long they want you to keep their secret. The timeline — a week, six months, indefinitely — may reduce or increase the burden.
- Ask the secret sharer to be specific about consequences. It can be helpful to understand the effects of divulging the secret — both for whom it concerns and for your relationship with the secret keeper. If someone’s marriage or reputation could be on the line, you might decide that the burden is too heavy to bear. But if the secret is less stirring (related to discontent at work, for example), you may feel equipped to take it on board.
In addition, you’ll want to know how your relationship with your friend might change if you disclose the secret, Reynolds advises. “It’s perfectly OK to ask the sharer outright, ‘What would happen? How would you feel? What would be the consequences for our relationship if I did share your secret, [either] accidentally or because it was too stressful for me to keep it?’”
Be honest. If, after learning more, you feel that accepting the request is too much of a strain, say so, and don’t be hard on yourself if the other person expresses disappointment or frustration at your hesitancy, Reynolds notes.
Decide what you need in order to feel better about keeping the secret. If you’ve agreed to keep the secret, or if you’ve learned information on your own and are finding it difficult not to share, ask yourself what would help reduce the stress, Reynolds suggests. Maybe it’s sharing the secret — ideally with an uninvolved party — but maybe it’s about dealing with your feelings in other ways. “Journaling, for example, can really help you put all your thoughts out on the table instead of leaving them swirling in your head.”
Interrogate your own desire to tell. When you find it hard to keep a secret, it can be helpful to ask yourself why, Reynolds advises.
“We often will tell people a secret simply because we want to show them, ‘Hey, I know something you don’t.’ That’s gossiping. Are you tempted to reveal the secret because you want attention? The idea is to be really honest about why you feel the need to tell.”
Get help from a professional. A coach or therapist can be an excellent person to consult, she says. That’s especially true if you’ve discovered someone’s problematic secret on your own and don’t know how to deal with it — or if a secret involves real danger or harm.
Many professionals are mandatory reporters and can help you report suspected or known instances of abuse, neglect, or violations of the law. For other secrets, a professional could help you clarify your motives and your options — and help you process the feelings that holding a secret can create.
Renewal
For more inspiration and strategies to overcome life’s challenges, please visit our Renewal department.
This article originally appeared as “Just Between Us” in the May/June 2025 issue of Experience Life.
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