I've Got a Secret: Should I Tell?

Do you have to tell your current lover about that tryst 10 years ago? Should you open up about your occasional drinking binges? Should you mention that you once stole from your boss? In this series of 4 posts, I am going to explain why sometimes your relationships, career, and reputation are better off if you don't tell everything you know.

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Most of us have been there...telling ourselves that we're going to open up completely to our new lover. We promise ourselves, "This time I'm not going to keep any secrets from him (or her)!"

But is this really such a good idea? After all, research has shown that as romantic partners get to know each other, they become more judgmental about the disclosures they make [1]. For instance, your wildly sexy second-date confession about the lesbian tryst or fling with the married bartender can get thrown back in your face as your relationship gets more serious. Perhaps more important, research suggests that becoming too familiar or too predictable to our lovers may make them desire a more exotic and mysterious replacement [2]!

Yet people today often believe that complete openness and honesty is the key to a good relationship. People also believe that keeping a secret will harm them. However, in a recent study I conducted with Jonathan Yip, we asked college students if they were keeping any major secret [3]. Just over 60% of them said they were. Then we followed their mental and physical health over 10 weeks. It turns out that keeping a major secret did not predict worse health at all!

You could argue that even though keeping a secret may not harm you, it's still an important part of developing intimacy. That is certainly true. But many times people go too far. What can we do to preserve honesty in our relationships without giving away too much? What do you think should we do about our secrets? Please comment before I put in my 2 cents with the next 3 posts.

See my related posts @

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight/201009/your-secret-four-steps-sensible-revealing

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight/201009/what-can-you-do-instead-outright-telling-your-secret

References

1. Derlega, V. J., Metts, S., Petronio, S., & Margulis, S. T. (1993). Self-disclosure. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

2. Tunariu, A. D., & Reavey, P. (2003). Men in love: Living with sexual boredom. Sexual & Relationship Therapy, 18, 63-94.

3. Kelly, A. E., & Yip, J. J. (2006). Is keeping a secret or being a secretive person linked to psychological symptoms? Journal of Personality, 74, 1349-1369.