What's the difference between privacy and secrecy in a marriage?

[Furious]

The need for personal space is a far cry from the need of privacy. Personal space is different for everyone. It can be a hobby, a quiet room, a few hours or a day of releasing external stress in a way that regains ones balance to get on with life and the many demands that are a reality of life.

 

Privacy, is a luxury, in a healthy way, it's about collecting your thoughts, collecting your inner balance, a time to exhale.

 

Privacy, has no correlation to secrecy. If your personal space and privacy is a secret than me thinks it's a red flag.

[lollipopspot]

While I understand some married folks desire for privacy, I think secrecy is always damaging in the long term. When someone - one of our kids for instance - wants to tell me something but says "don't tell Mom", I always reply "then don't tell me". In my mind, we're one and the same in that regard.

 

I think I'd prefer to be more flexible on that. It seems to me that having one's child be able to confide something in confidence might be more important than the principle that nothing can be kept private. In fact I'd rather have my partner keep the confidentiality towards the child, if it means the child is able to confide to them and get help. Kids have their own relationships with their parents and may find it easier to talk about something difficult with one rather than the other, and gender may be part of that too.

[denise_xo]

The need for personal space is a far cry from the need of privacy. Personal space is different for everyone. It can be a hobby, a quiet room, a few hours or a day of releasing external stress in a way that regains ones balance to get on with life and the many demands that are a reality of life.

 

Privacy, is a luxury, in a healthy way, it's about collecting your thoughts, collecting your inner balance, a time to exhale.

 

Privacy, has no correlation to secrecy. If your personal space and privacy is a secret than me thinks it's a red flag.

 

I really like this way of distinguishing between the three aspects. Makes a lot of sense.

[crederer]

I don't really think there is a need for privacy in marriage. I mean......you have to give them their space and whatnot, can't be going nuts about stuff but I find that while in the relationships the point where one partner has decided a violation of privacy has occured is when they were caught doing something they shouldn't have been. Then you get the ol' "WELL IT"S YOUR FAULT FOR SNOOPING!"