All of us have things in our lives that we aren’t proud of. Many of us have made mistakes along the way and either have grown from those mistakes or are still battling those challenges. These parts of our lives might cause us to feel ashamed or afraid to be vulnerable about our secrets. You might even feel like it’s really nobody’s business and would prefer to keep your secret hidden.
Secrets can come in all shapes and sizes. You might be hiding the fact that you are failing classes, a drug or alcohol addiction, pornography addiction, lied about your credentials to get a job or scholarship, financial difficulties that you keep hidden from your family, an infidelity or a stupid mistake that you made in your past.
Hiding secrets can have an impact on your personal life, especially when you feel like you must keep your secrets hidden from loved ones. Everyone has secrets but hiding those secrets from everyone isn’t usually good for you. Below are some ways that keeping secrets can be bad for you.
1. Keeping secrets can create unnecessary stress. A secret isn’t something that you forget about. Usually secrets are something that we spend far too much time thinking about. You might be working hard to make sure your story matches what you told another. Or you might be keeping track of the inaccurate details so that you don’t get caught. Keeping a secret might also make you feel like a liar or ashamed about yourself and many aspects of your life.
Even when you aren’t actively hiding the secret, you still spend time thinking about the secret. Instead of moving on from the secret, it’s a source of shame or embarrassment that you hold close to your heart and mind.
2. Sharing secrets allows you to be more vulnerable and strengthen your relationships. Not everybody needs to know your secrets. If you are struggling with a drug addiction, you probably don’t need to share that with colleagues or non-close friends, but you probably want to share that with your immediate family, partner, close friendships or a therapist.
Vulnerability allows you to share the real you with others. It can also strengthen the relationships you have with others because they can often help you with the challenges you are dealing with and help support you in the best way they can. You also prevent yourself from hurting a meaningful relationship.
I know someone who lost someone they greatly loved because they kept their alcohol addiction a secret. Once his ex-partner found out about the secret of his addition, she was shocked that he had lied to her for over a year and the relationship ended. There is always a risk that keeping a secret could damage your relationships.
When you choose to be vulnerable and share your secrets, you give your relationships a chance to become stronger. The people who care about you will help offer you insight and give support when dealing with problems. Delaying the inevitable by keeping secrets will not help your relationships. You risk losing the trust of your loved ones and losing wonderful relationships due to hiding secrets.
In the past, I dated someone who withheld many secrets from me. I slowly uncovered these secrets throughout our relationship which made me feel like the entire relationship was based on a lie. At that point, the relationship was doomed because of the amount of secrets that were hidden from me and I found it difficult to trust this person anymore.
However, in a healthy and loving relationship, a secret was shared with me early on and my partner chose to share this with me voluntarily. There was no lying or snooping for information. I didn’t judge my partner for their secrets and instead chose to seek understanding for what had happened in the past. The relationship was stronger as a result and I felt like I could completely trust my partner because he chose to willingly divulge a secret to me.
If you are still unsure of the power of vulnerability, start by speaking anonymously in an online forum or in an anonymous group. Focus on revealing your secrets a little bit at a time, and see how beneficial it can be to share your secrets with others. Find a place or person where you feel safe and comfortable when sharing your secrets.
3. You will feel better. Sharing a secret takes a huge weight off your shoulders. Divulging a secret to loved ones can make you feel better about yourself. Nobody enjoys being dishonest and keeping secrets. There may be secrets that you consider small and are okay with hiding, but if you feel negative about hiding your secrets, then that is a big indicator that you would feel happier if you were open about your secrets.
When you open up about a secret, you will stop feeling this pressure to hide details about what happened from yourself and your loved ones. You can also focus on moving past the secret either by seeking therapy, finding solutions to your problem or finding the strength to forgive yourself for the mistakes you made. Releasing these secrets will allow you to focus on your own happiness and moving past this secret that you have been holding onto.
4. Your secrets keep you stuck in the past. Being focused on the present allows you to move forward and forgive yourself. Holding onto secrets only keeps you stuck. Instead of seeing how you can move forward and make a wiser decision, you spend too much mental energy trying to cover up your tracks or make sure information never gets out.
Secrets preoccupy our minds. Even though you may feel like you rarely think about this secret, keeping the secret may be hurting you more than you think. You might end up thinking about the secret too much. Or maybe you had every intention of telling a loved one about the secret, but as time goes by, it feels more difficult to share the secret and something that seemed not so bad at the time, seems even worse because it has been hidden for too long.
Situations like this can often happen with what seems like small lies. For instance, maybe you started dating someone you really like but found out that you had dated one of her friends in the past. You meant to tell her but were worried about what she might think, even though you know it’s a small detail that wouldn’t impact your relationship overall. Yet, as months pass, the secret becomes a bigger deal because it was hidden for so long.
The same can happen for larger secrets. An infidelity that occurred one time might be best shared immediately once it occurred. However, keeping an infidelity a secret for months or years can make the secret more hurtful because this wasn’t shared upfront. A loved one could feel not only betrayed because of the infidelity but also because that information was kept from them for a long time.
Harbouring a secret could hurt you far more than sharing a secret. There are secrets that are harmless, but be careful of hiding secrets that you know should be shared. Secrets create barriers with your loved ones and can prevent you from truly becoming close to the people who mean the most to you. Not being open about your secrets can prevent you from growing and moving forward.
Everyone has secrets, and revealing your secrets allows you to be vulnerable with your loved ones. By revealing your secrets, you might even encourage your loved ones to share their own secrets. Don’t feel bad about having secrets. As humans, we all have secrets but it’s important to not let a secret prevent you from being happy or get in the way of a meaningful relationship.