Even though it's incredibly important to have an open and honest relationship with a romantic partner, there are some things you may not want your significant other to know. So when Reddit user u/released-lobster asked, "What secret is OK/acceptable to keep from a partner in a marriage?" thousands of people had a lot of thoughts. Here's some of what they said:
1. "I witnessed my son walking for the first time about a month before she saw him walk. She was struggling with postpartum depression and was upset she wasn’t the mom she wanted to be. I’m taking that one to the grave."
2. "One day, I woke up with a blocked ear, so I took a shower and let the warm water run into my ear. A small spider came out, and my ear instantly unblocked. If I told my partner this, she'd literally never sleep again."
3. "An emergency gift stash for when the partner has a bad day. My emergency stash for my wife is mostly chocolate."
4. "I worked very hard with my kids to ensure that their first word was 'Mama.' When she wasn’t around, I was going, 'Ma-ma-ma-ma' to the kids. Being a mom is everything to her, and I wanted her to have that cherished moment of being the first word they said. I will never tell her that."
5. "If someone talks shit about them (your family, friends), you don’t need to tell them. You can stand up for them and leave it at that; I don’t need to hear every thought my mother-in-law had about our wedding."
6. "On the day I got married, my dad pulled me aside and gave me this advice: 'You don’t have to tell her everything.' I was flummoxed — did my dad have a secret family in Florida that he was visiting on those long business trips? No, 30 years later, I realized he didn’t mean 'Keep secrets.' He meant, 'Don’t always tell her that the dinner tastes burned, don’t always tell her when someone says something mean about her, and don’t always tell her that the children's clothes look dumb.' Of course, it would have helped a lot if he had actually said that, but perhaps he wanted me to learn the hard way. This morning, my wife asked me, 'Now, be serious: Does this dress look nice or does it look like I’m trying too hard to look like a teenager?' I honestly thought she looked great, and I told her."
7. "Spoilers for a show you have watched before but are rewatching with them."
8. "That you would, in fact, not love them if they were a worm."
"My partner said he would build me a ‘worm sanctuary’ and allow me to live in a tank at his home so I wouldn't die on the streets. I found that very sweet. I told him he could date other people, and thanks for not letting me die."
9. "Where you keep the emergency candy."
10. "My husband has no idea how often I eat a cheeseburger on the way home from work. That's the only acceptable secret to keep."
"My mother-in-law was an appallingly awful cook who grew up in the Depression and refused to throw away food, no matter how bad it was.
"After they died, I was going through decades' worth of old paperwork. I discovered that my father-in-law would stop at Burger King every single day for a survival meal during his daily walks."
11. "That you prematurely threw out leftovers — and if my husband is reading this, no, you didn't."
12. "The size and nature of your bowel movements. Please, if you are my husband reading this: Honey, please, no."
"Please ask my boyfriend not to send pictures, even if it looks like a heart."
"But romance."
13. "I’ve been playing Mario Kart 200cc by myself for a few years now. I’m really good. My husband beats me all the time, but it’s usually because I let him. It’s my deathbed secret."
14. "We're not married, but I rarely tell my boyfriend that he's already told me a story/explained something about one of his interests to me before. It's so cute to see him get excited about it, and a lot of the time, I'll pick up on details I didn't get the previous times and learn something new."
15. "That the reason the dog has horrible farts wasn't because 'dogs just do that sometimes,' it's because I needed to get rid of leftover black beans and he was there."
Do you believe there's a secret you should never tell your partner? Tell us what it is and why in the comments below.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.