A
female
age
36-40,
*ls022
writes:Hello everyone, I need help working out what to do for the best here.Basically, on New Years Eve one of my boyfriends female friends got very drunk told me that she had an affair several years ago with my boyfriends oldest brother. He was with his current partner (who I'm good friends with) at the time but she has never found out about it.My boyfriends friend told me she had just turned 18 and he was 27 at the time (7 years ago) and he won her over with flattery and gifts and promised to leave his partner. She got upset when she was telling me and said she really regrets it but was young and she bought all of his lies thinking he genuinely liked her and was going to leave his partner.I sat with her for a while to calm her down and eventually put her to bed in one of the rooms to sleep it off. A whe later my boyfriend arrived at the party (his cover band had been playing a gig earlier) and I spend the rest of the night with him.Before my boyfriend arrived, I decided that since it was such a long time ago I wouldn't say anything to him but I'm finding it really difficult to keep the secret. I usually tell my boyfriend everything and I hate that I have this secret. I'm also worried it will be obvious when I next see his brother because my emotions always show on my face (I'd make a terrible liar!). At the same time I really don't want to tell him because he looks up to his brother a lot and I think this news would upset him a lot which makes me think I'm doing the right thing?What do you think? Am I wrong for keeping this quiet? Or am I right for not getting involved? I don't think his friend remembers telling me at all because I've seen her since then and she's acted totally normal. She did ask me to keep it secret when she was drunk though.Oh and FWIW, I do believe it's true as this particular brother has always given me a creepy vibe and I caught him in a lie once before too (he said he'd been with my boyfriend one night when I had been with him). I didn't say anything then either because I'd not long been going out with my boyfriend.
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female
reader, jls022 +, writes (4 January 2014):
jls022 is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks everyone, I just wanted to make sure other people agreed that I was doing the right thing in keeping it quiet so you've made me feel a lot better about my decision. One thing I'd like to point out (not that it really matters but I just wanted to clarify anyway), is that she asked me to keep it a secret but I told her I didn't know if I was comfortable with that. So I made my position clear at the time, although I will respect her wishes in this case. Thanks again.
A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (4 January 2014):
 That's a no brainer to me : she asked you to keep it secret, and you promised to keep it secret , so , whether she was drunk or sober, that's what you are honour bound to do : keep it secret.
You may be used to tell absolutely everything to your bf and never hold anything from him, and that's a nice thing, BUT: that's not your secret, that's HER secret. It's not yours to share with anybody without her permission, not even with your bf.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (4 January 2014): OP this doesn't affect you or your boyfriend directly and it was a long time ago. 7 years is a long time, which means it's really dead and buried.
In all that time she's probably gotten wasted and blabbed about it before so there's every chance people know about it.
In fairness your boyfriend will mention it his brother, who then may well start giving this girl a lot of shit about it.
Don't let her drunken confession become a huge mistake for her when he confided in you that it was such a huge mistake for her.
The question you need to ask yourself is does she deserve that kind of drama for something that happened so long ago? And is that drama worth some strange need you have to tell?
OP your boyfriend knows his brother better than anyone, and brothers tell each other shit like that, so he knows what he's like. Don't punish this girl for confiding in you. I mean seriously you don't mention why your boyfriend needs to know. What useful purpose it would serve for him.
If it's a loyalty thing and you have no secrets from him, remember this is not your secret, it's someone else's, you're not keeping anything from him that he needs to know at all. So you have no reason to feel bad.
OP I tell my wife "everything" except other people's secrets that have no effect on her and I've been sworn to not tell anyone. She too has secrets others have told her that she keeps from me. To me it's a matter of honour, I know she has my best interests at heart so she'd never keep a secret from me that I needed to know. I also know she can keep my secrets because she can keep others from me. I mean a few years back one of her friends drunkenly confided in me that she'd gone to England to have an abortion. My wife already knew a long time before that but kept it a secret because her loyalty, honour and respect don't just extend to me, OP, but to others too.
OP you agreed to keep it secret, if your word means anything then you will do that.
The way I see it you wouldn't have agreed to keep it a secret in the first place if you knew you couldn't. Never go back on your word OP, it's all we have at the end of the day. I'd be very wary of the woman I was with if she couldn't keep a secret or went back on her word. The only exception to that is when I need to know and even then I'd want my partner to be up front and not say they'll keep it a secret in the first place.
Don't worry about it, OP, it was a long time ago, it won't do anything to your boyfriend's relationship with his brother because he most likely already knows but decided you didn't need to know that. Let it go, just pretend you didn't hear anything and leave it at that. I mean shit OP, you surely have plenty of things in your past you regret, would you really want a mistake you made 7 years ago to be dragged back and made an issue of?
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A
male
reader, olderthandirt  +, writes (4 January 2014):
 Unless you were an actual eye witness then you're just a part of a gossip chain so shut up and break the chain.
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