What Happens When You Keep Secrets?

I’ve got a secret. And so do you. It’s no secret that we all have thoughts and memories we choose not to share. Some secrets are mundane and cause us little concern. But others weigh heavily on our minds and become an onerous burden.

What happens to us when we choose to keep secrets? Columbia University psychologist Michael Slepian explored this question in an article published recently in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Keeping Secrets to Prevent Harm to Others

According to Slepian, secrecy isn’t just about holding your tongue when interacting with the person you’re trying to keep the secret from. Instead, secrets take up space and time in our minds, grabbing our attention and keeping us from focusing on other things to look after. To understand why keeping secrets is sometimes burdensome and other times not at all, Slepian claims that we first need to understand what it means to keep something secret.

To illustrate, Slepian uses the example of sexual partners. You introduce your sexual partner to others as your spouse or your significant other, and everyone assumes that the two of you are having sex. There’s no secret there.

But in most social situations, it would be completely inappropriate to reveal anything about your sex life, such as frequency, favorite positions, and so on. This kind of secret-keeping is beneficial. That's because concealing this personal information is generally considered appropriate and disclosure could cause embarrassment for all involved.

Slepian argues context is an important factor in determining whether secrecy will be harmful to the secret keeper, or not. For example, I’m privy to a lot of confidential information as part of my job as department chair. But I don’t lie awake at night worrying about this because withholding this information from others is part of the job.

Indeed, revealing this information would be harmful not only to me but also to the person the information was about. Thus, when the secret is kept to protect the relevant person from harm, the secret keeper generally feels little burden in maintaining confidentiality.

Keeping Secrets to Prevent Harm to Ourselves

However, there are also cases where we tell ourselves that we are keeping the secret to protect someone else when we are doing it to protect ourselves. For instance, there’s been some discussion recently in social media about a phenomenon known as “stealth shopping.” One partner makes a major purchase and then tries to hide it from their significant other.

While you may tell yourself that you’re keeping a secret to avoid upsetting your partner; in reality, it’s because you want to avoid a confrontation with them. Keeping this kind of secret is going to weigh heavily on your mind. And what’s more, even if your partner doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, they’ll get a sense that something is wrong.

The guilt you feel at keeping this secret will reveal itself in other ways and taint the relationship you’re trying to preserve. In this case, it’s far better to be open and honest with your partner about what you’ve done. There may very well be a heated confrontation, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it allows partners to be forthright with each other.

People falsely believe that confrontations don’t happen in healthy relationships. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The important point is that confrontations can help strengthen the relationship if the focus of the conversation remains on the behavior at hand rather than devolving into personal attacks.

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Of course, your partner will be angry that you made a major purchase without consulting them. You already know that, and you need to let them say it. But you also need to think carefully about why you did what you did. Maybe the purchase was legitimate, or maybe you’re shopping to compensate for unmet needs elsewhere.

An honest confrontation, in which each of you expresses your thoughts and feelings, can help both of you understand the motivations for your behaviors and the value you place on the relationship. You might even decide that a “stealth” purchase wasn’t what you wanted and that you need to return it. In this way, revealing the secret can not only relieve you of the burden of hiding something from your partner, but it can also make your relationship stronger.

When to Reveal a Secret, and When to Conceal It

Most of us would agree that stealth shopping is a kind of infidelity, in that you have done something behind your partner’s back that you know they won’t be happy about. However, it’s still not as egregious as sexual infidelity. In this case, the question of harm in secret keeping becomes especially complex.

The harm from keeping a secret about sexual infidelity is threefold. First, the perpetrator will experience the burden of guilt as they keep the infidelity secret from their partner. Second, their partner will feel the pain of betrayal if the infidelity is revealed.

And third, whether the secret is kept or revealed, the relationship itself will suffer. If the perpetrator keeps the secret, feelings of guilt will bleed into the relationship, and the other partner will sense that something is wrong. And if they reveal the secret, their partner may well decide to abandon the relationship altogether. But even if they decide to stay, the relationship is harmed, perhaps irrevocably.

If you’re burdened by a secret infidelity, it’s best to work out your feelings and the relationship dynamics with a trusted counselor or confidant before revealing it to your partner. On the one hand, if your motive for revealing the secret is to relieve yourself of the burden of guilt, you are being selfish. On the other hand, if you sincerely want to improve the relationship, revealing the secret, despite the harm your partner will experience in the short run, may be worthwhile.

When we keep secrets, we may be burdened by feelings of guilt for what we are hiding. But at the same time, we may be protecting others from harm by keeping these secrets hidden. When deciding whether to keep or reveal a secret, you may need the help of a trusted confidant or counselor to decide on the right course of action.