Keeping secrets. Should you share and protect others or keep mum?

Here’s a few made up scenarios which will hopefully enable you to relate to the examples. The dilemmas.

1.) He doesn’t want to have any more kids. He told her they can’t have kids until they’re financially stable but that’s not the real reason. Do I tell her? It’s not fair for her to live according to an empty promise. Is it? Why do I need to repeat it? Will it help anyone? Will it cause more problems? Will I just alienate myself in the end?

2.) My sister told my hubby that she got married because she promised our dad she’d marry someone within a year of him passing away. She didn’t have many options so she married the ‘best option.’ Now I wonder whether she’s happy. Why did she tell him and not me. Do I do anything? Why did he tell me and then gag me? What am I supposed to do? She told him in confidence, he told me in secrecy. I am bound. Stuck! What was the point of any of this ‘sharing’?

3.) He’s told his cousin that although he’s promised his wife he’s given up smoking, he smokes whenever he can. His cousin’s told his wife and she’s told me. She wouldn’t have married him if she knew he was lying to her on a constant basis. Do I tell her? Will it serve anyone?

4.) She’s told her sister that she doesn’t want to live with her brother and sister in law. Her sister’s told my hubby and he’s told me. Now what? She’s going into something that she really doesn’t want to do. I must help her.

Over the recent months I’ve learned that sharing these types of secrets and opinions rarely serves anyone.

• You may be playing into the hands of someone who’s manipulating a few people through you.
• You may burn bridges in a way that makes them beyond repair.
• The source of your information may have misheard, misunderstood or got so caught up in their own feelings about it, they’ve remembered it wrongly. Repeating information which isn’t accurate is dangerous in itself.
• If approached and asked will you reveal your source and ‘dob them in’?
• You can be a good listener if that serves and then ‘throw it away’ so you don’t get caught up or dragged in to it.

What do you think? Is it possible? Am I on the wrong track?