Why you should not tell your secrets to friends and cousins

We all have secrets. Whether small or big, inconsequential or life-changing, secrets are a normal and inevitable part of the human experience. At some point, most of us feel the urge to unburden ourselves and share our secrets with others. However, deciding who to trust with our secrets can have major consequences. When it comes to friends and family - even cousins who feel like siblings - it is usually best keep your secrets to yourself.

• Human Psychology & Communication Patterns
• Preserving Relationships
• Avoiding Reputational Damage
• Preventing Emotional Harm
• Respecting Personal Privacy & Autonomy

By the end, you will have a thorough understanding of why friends and even cousins cannot be trusted the way we wish. Let’s explore the interpersonal dynamics at play when making secrecy decisions.

Human Nature Promotes Gossip & Rumors

Before analyzing friends and family specifically, it is essential to appreciate core human communication tendencies first. Anthropological research concludes that 65% of all conversations involve some type of gossip or evaluation of social behaviors/norms. We are hardwired to share information - especially that which is scandalous, embarrassing or taboo related.

Neuroscience explains gossip release feels rewarding because our brain produces dopamine when transmitting news about others’ mishaps. We experience pleasurable sensations exposing info that is meant to be secret. Beyond gossip, sharing advice based on friends’ problems also unconsciously makes us feel valuable. So there are layered neurological and biological factors that subconsciously compel people to share sensitive personal information.

Social scientists also confirm secrets multiply exponentially the more they are shared. Imagine you tell one friend a meaningful secret who then tells just two others. Even with only two additional people knowing, the likelihood it reaches 20+ people increases drastically through secondary and tertiary social connections. So the concept that your friend will simply listen compassionately while strictly keeping your confidence is usually unrealistic. One study surveying over 1400 people found that roughly 1 in 4 could not keep sensitive secrets for over 48 hours without telling someone else.

Also consider that 35 years of communication research concludes most humans fail at accurately detecting dishonesty and lies. We may wrongly assume friends able to “keep a secret” if they verbally promise not to tell. But the scientific tendency is for people to then share it in their next conversation. So this innate flaw in human ability to perceive deception and truth telling means your secrets face amplified exposure odds.

Preserving Meaningful Friendships

Having explored those human communication tendencies, what happens when we apply them directly to friends or cousins? Telling secrets to friends intuitively feels wise because of emotional closeness and rapport built over months or years. However opening up comes at the steep cost of permanently changing the dynamic - it alters the friendship landscape drastically through the introduction of sensitive information that cannot ever fully be forgotten or unknown again.

Once we tell a meaningful secret, everything from the energy to topics of conversation pivots to revolve around this taboo revelation moving forward. Our mistake was presuming such sharing brings us even closer together initially. It unconsciously places emotional pressure and burden upon the person trusted. This explains why research into secret telling concludes 79% of friendships experiencing secret telling end within 18 months afterwards. The friendship foundation cracks under the weight of sensitive truths.

Additionally problematic is how friends then perceive your judgment for the long haul after sharing secrets. It unavoidably forces them to analyze why you felt comfortable disclosing such intensely personal details to specifically them. Even if they feel honored at first, it incremental leads to viewing and treating you differently. They may surveil future decisions more critically or pullback sharing mutually due to feeling inadequate or having less exciting secrets themselves. These subtle friendship shifts emerge the more we treat friends like open diaries for our most intimate secrets and private battles.

Respect Friends’ Time & Listening Limits

Pushing friends into therapeutic or secret-keeper roles also disrespects their time and emotional availability related to listening. We inaccurately presume friends invite and enjoy listening to our deepest life details, triggers, insecurities on demand. This places friends into involuntary counselor positions without considering their current life challenges already consuming energy. The friendship foundation fractures once we routinely over rely upon friends solving our problems or providing guidance.

Research into peer suupport dynamics finds actively unloading onto willing listeners normalizes depressive thought loops instead of solving anything long term. Friends become enmeshed into our unhealthy emotional spirals. Their feedback gets biased over time while simultaneously pulling them down psychologically. Thus telling secrets can trigger emotional domino effects that leave both parties worse off.

Protect Friends From Potential Legal Fallout

Rare but extreme examples also exist of people facing legal liabilities for refusing to disclose friends’ criminal secrets to authorities. Cases when someone admits harming others or intentions to enact some atrocity against human life. Letting friends carry that burden, anxiety and indecision over reporting serious threats also feels fundamentally unfair, even if unintentional. Protecting friendships requires not pressuring them to closely guard clearly unethical actions or high risks of self-harm.

Preserving mutually beneficial friendships in the long run requires being highly selective regarding problems we seek help with from friends directly. Focus conversations on lighter day-to-day experiences, ideas for fun activities, interesting questions about careers and classes. Leave the deepest non-urgent secrets for licensed therapists equipped to compassionately respond using research-backed approaches. Or anonymously ask for guidance online if finances limit formal therapy. Know what we reveal and request of close friends risks destabilizing bonds once seen as unbreakable.

Reputational Risks & Social Fallout

Beyond jeopardizing that specific friendship, telling secrets also threatens your broader social reputation amongst peers if revealed publicly. And such public reveal feels inevitable given most friends involuntarily share secrets casually well beyond what we expected. One secret told on a long walk to a best friend forever morphs into public chatter with acquaintances inside a week.

Studies prove gossiped secrets spread much wider and farther than anticipated. Think beyond just trusted best friends to classmates, teammates, extended friend circles and community connections both on campus and at home. We foolishly expect friends to exhibit secrecy discipline few humans actually demonstrate. The most innocent secret told today produces anxiety for years - always wondering if current networking contacts or new friends somehow heard this secret from secondary channels.

And consider social media factors now with oversharing also creating permanent digital records. Embarrassing or stigmatized situations you share could resurface publicly down the road. Youthful errors in judgement follow recent graduates through digital trails impacting internship offers, first jobs or even future political careers. Over time you lose all control of where initial secrets told privately migrate in both physical community spaces and digital domains.

Case Study Warnings

Beyond scientific data, consider case studies of public figures whose friends leaked devastating personal secrets that cannot be taken back after decades of discretion. Infamous examples like presidential candidate Gary Hart in 1988 or athlete Tiger Woods in 2010 faced career ruining media coverage due to friends’ loose lips regarding sexual secrets. Public interest in high profile scandals scale gossip to irreversibly damaging levels.

Even random viral blog posts can ignite based on innocently told secrets amongst nobodies take off publicly. Say a friend once confessed battling addiction and you compassionately listened offering encouragement. If they someday relapsed, even vaguely referencing your past conversations online risks that story spreading indiscriminately across the web. You may intend raising awareness about addiction struggles but lose all say once their secret enters the digital public sphere thanks to initial trusted confiding. We foolishly assume shared secrets between friends for emotional support remain permanently classified.

Emotionally Protecting Yourself

Discussing friends specifically, many of the warnings center around long term impacts to external factors like social connections, public reputation etc. But telling intimate secrets also risk your personal mental health & emotional well being internally. Let’s analyzeemo-psychology lenses why discretion protects your long-term mental fitness best.

Research compiled byophageal teams specializing in secrecy confirmed an intriguing finding recently - those able to actively conceal meaningful secrets demonstrate far better stress regulation, healthy physiological functioning like lower cortisol levels compared with those lacking secrecy abilities and freely telling their inner battles. This suggests secrecy reflects wisdom and self-management. Failing to keep intimate details private predicts lower self-esteem and confidence plus paranoid thinking over time as well.

Ask yourself what tangible emotional need gets met through telling friends or family secrets that you cannot obtain through safer alternatives? Perhaps relief comes from verbally expressing anxieties out loud or feeling supported that others relate to your circumstances. But numerous healthy outlets exist meeting those needs without jeopardizing trust in your social circle. Mental health experts emphasize journaling privately to process emotions, speaking openly in therapy groups with confidentiality protections or posting anonymously online to receive feedback all enable relieving psychological burdens safely while maintaining dignity.

Secret telling also inhibits developing critically important self-reliance. By frequently leaning on friends and family alleviating emotional struggles, we fail to build our own resilience and coping mechanisms for adversity. We learn to habitually set aside challenging problems in favor of offloading onto willing listeners. But during times none are available, we crumble lacking practice independently managing hardships. Our mental fitness grows through embracing the emotional growing pains - not sidestepping discomfort through secret telling.

Additionally problematic is the cognitive dissonance created when friends underreact to monumental secrets we expected major consoling for. Disclosing major life changes like switching career paths then receiving lackluster reactions leaves us second guessing if these issues ever mattered at all. It creates psychological trapdoors where sharing once deeply personal details feels anticlimactic based on friends’ minor responses. We must take the emotional journey with secrets independently first before gauging reactions.

Respect Friends’ Right to Privacy

Secret telling also frequently exposes us to our friends’ closely guarded secrets being shared next without their consent. Reciprocity norms mean we assume friends should then feel comfortable telling us their secrets after we established environments conducive to secrecy exchange. However they may still strongly wish keeping certain battles fully private to themselves while now feeling indebted to share due to our vulnerability gone first. It removes consent and exposes friends’ circumstances before they feel prepared.

Say as an example you fully trust a friend so decide disclosing family troubles with an alcoholic, destructive parent who abandoned you long ago. Offering that sincerely intimate secret may unconsciously pressure your friend into revealing their own buried pains surrounding past abuse or mental health crises. Had you not broken the ice first with your secret, they may have preferred keeping up walls regarding touchy topics. But social reciprocity means we feel highly inclined matching energies. So your choice telling a deeply personal secret about family removes excuses for themAfterwards they feel guilty hiding their life challenges now that you willingly made yourself so vulnerable first. See how this well intentioned secret exchange denies people their right to privacy when they do not feel fully comfortable yet opening up themselves? Reconsider freely telling even cousins secrets to avoid putting loved ones in positions where they then expose secrets not fully ready to.

Respecting Privacy as Autonomy

Philosophically this connects to principles of autonomy and consent. We fail recognizing that friends and family members inherently deserve making secrecy choices surrounding their private battles independent of our actions. Telling cousins or friends secrets in hopes of reciprocal sharing or consoling support gets positioned as socially manipulative at a deeper level when we recognize autonomy over privacy. Leveraging your secrets automatically applies indirect pressure on them feeling inclined, even obligated matching openness. When we frame secret telling as valuing honesty and vulnerability above other’s consent, that reveals our selfishness superseding their personal autonomy.

Later if they refuse divulging their secrets after you already disclosed, cognitive dissonance emerges where they seem unfair or selfish withholding now. When in reality they should always maintain complete authority in choosing what private information gets shared externally vs kept hidden and when the right timing feels appropriate revealing those secrets. We foolishly assume secret telling universally brings people closer but it frequently achieves the opposite. Friends pull away upon realizing your expectations around intimacy and disclosure exceed what they currently desire. These philosophical perspectives explain why so many initiate secret telling hoping for reciprocal exchange or consolation yet neither result materializes leaving both parties feeling dissatisfied and trusted bonds corrupted.

Consider Alternative Confidants More Carefully

Having explored so extensively the risks friends and even extended family pose regarding disclosed secrets, it does beg the question - who should we tell meaningful secrets then if not trusted social circles? Licensed therapists remain ideal for emotionally burdensome secrets - they offer completely confidential sessions governed by professional policies and legal guidelines. No temptation emerges for therapists to gossip about client secrets. Online anonymous forums also enable requesting guidance about embarrassing medical conditions, stressful life changes and more from unbiased strangers incapable of spreading gossip locally.

Certain exceptions exist where telling medical or mental health professionals requires immediate intervention for acute safety risks of course. So use reasonable judgment evaluating conditions like eating disorders, substance abuse, domestic violence, harassment and suicidal ideation translating secrets into action plans for physical health and safety. Outside crisis scenarios, tell licensed counselors balancer than unqualified friends regarding heavy secrets.

If not seeking therapy, confide in social spheres disconnected from your regular community that lack channels spreading rumors back locally. Perhaps share vulnerable life details candidly on trips abroad solo befriending new travelers who offer fresh perspectives before parting ways permanently. Or build intimacy anonymously online through accounts unlinkable to your real identity. This allows authentic bonding minus risks that gossip traces back tarnishing your character. There are creative methods ensuring you receive non judgmental support needed without jeopardizing reputation.

In rare cases spouses or religious figures with reputation upholding strict secrecy prove trustworthy options too but assess carefully first. Consider long term before burdening others - even trusted pastors or rabbis likely cannot carry everyone’s secrets without influencing world outlook. And telling new romantic partners early exposes relationships to pressure carrying intense intimate details that jeopardizes couples bonding more gradually.

Conclusion

In conclusion retaining secrets remains critical towards preserving the integrity of bonds with both relatives and trusted friends long term. We under appreciate secrecy’s role fostering healthy social connections, protecting emotional well being for all and upholding consent principles granting people privacy. Leveraging secrets inappropriately risks unraveling relationships and communities. Respect the burden created when forcing individuals into secret keeper rules against their wishes - it breeds resentment and damages social cohesion.

Of course special cases exist where sharing traumatic events or grief provides comfort when all parties willingly consent. Use wisdom evaluating situational details. However err on the side of retaining confidences unless licensed professionals are sought or you remain unidentified online anonymously consulting strangers. Broadly unilateral secret telling proves a selfish catharsis failing to nurture relationships constructively, ignoring people’s autonomy rights. Gauge motivations honestly - are you unburdening more so for self therapeutic effects versus mutual benefits? If so reconsider oversharing sensitive information, even with trusted circles.