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Adapted for an online discussion.
Dear Carolyn: The other day my girlfriend and I were having dinner with some friends, a couple. I was deeply shocked when our friends asked me for an update on an important career decision I was making. I hadn’t told them anything about it, even though my girlfriend and I talked about it every day for weeks.
I didn’t answer them and laughed about it, but it caused serious relationship tension. My friend doesn’t understand why it was a big deal that she told her friend – the other couple’s wife – about my work situation. She didn’t know it was supposed to be private. I now believe that matters discussed between us are considered confidential unless we agree otherwise.
We got to the point where she said, exasperated, that the next time she casually confides in her wife, she’ll ask her not to repeat it to me, which of course is completely irrelevant and the opposite of what I want . Am I being unreasonable here?
Private: To think that affirmation of your reasonableness by me or anyone here will make any difference is unreasonable.
Are you entitled to privacy? Yes. Do you have the right to ask others to respect your confidentiality, whether on specific matters or in general? More the former than the latter, but still yes to both. However, these do not determine what others do. These are simply statements of principle.
In this situation, your girlfriend obviously didn’t know that you felt this way about your important decision. This seems pretty normal to me in both directions: you just assumed that people don’t share these things because that’s your view, and she just assumed that people share these things because that’s her view. They are both valid views; You both made the rookie mistake of thinking that if you think it, then it must apply to everyone. (Oh, you have something in common…)
Now that you both know it doesn’t work that way, you both have the opportunity to decide how to handle each other’s information. You can decide to apply your standards to your business and theirs to theirs—that is, you both respect each other’s natures, keep your news private, and babble freely about theirs. Or each of you can choose to go your own way and let the other handle it. That means she keeps babbling, you keep guarding, and you both keep getting annoyed with each other. Or various other permutations.
Once you’ve both decided where you want to draw your own boundaries, you’ll see if you can function within them as a non-unhappy couple. If so, yay. If not, then you either break up, argue about this issue over and over again until the end of time, or decide that the other person’s company is worth changing your point of view.
Since she won’t budge and you haven’t broken up and want me to tell you that you’re right, it seems like the two of you have chosen the path of “carrying out this recurring argument until the end of time.” Which you’re welcome to do, although I hope you save others from hearing this and definitely don’t have children. However, you might be happier if you accept that neither of you will budge and move forward with open discussion about Plan B, whatever that may be.