I'm with Flea. If I am asked not to tell my partner, I won't, but a fact told to me is usually a fact told to us. J is much more private--not only would he not tell me secrets entrusted by others, he won't tell me fairly ordinary things without express permission to share. "How was lunch with John? How did that job interview he told us about go?" "He mentioned it to me, but I don't know if I can tell you."

I'm such a yakker -- this is why I like having non-overlapping sets of friends, so I can tell you people secrets of my grad school friends (or whoever), because you don't actually care, when I just have to let it out!

I assume that anything I say to half a couple is fair game for the other half to know. And that even if I request secrecy, I better be prepared for the possibility of the secret not being kept. Even if it's not an intentional violation of the confidence (and spousal relationships do trump any loyalty I can expect to receive, except maybe from my parents), there's just too much opportunity to stumble and accidentally reveal something to a person if most of your daily conversation is with them.

People DH works with know not to share ANYTHING with him. He sucks at secrets.

I'm not very good with them either, so I try to avoid finding them out if I can.

Except when it comes to presents.

I made my former boss keep a secret from his partner for about eight weeks, when I was waiting for the final offer from my new employer to come in. Which was a problem, because I worked with his partner every day.

He (my former boss) was happy when I finally gave notice because he could finally talk to his partner about it.

Thinking about it, there's actually a fair amount that I *don't* tell Aimee.

But that's because I forget to tell her.

"Did my sister call yesterday?"

"Oh. Uh. Yeah, I guess she did."

This is all too true.

I just got an email to my Yahoo account addressed to my husband--with the correct usage of his name--telling him he'd been accepted into the Madison Who's Who. I'm trying to figure out what I've sent from my address in his name that would have been sold to someone.

I don't expect Hubby to tell me everything he hears, but he generally does unless asked not to. Generally it's because he wants my ideas on how to deal with something that involves someone we both know.

Oh yeah, my default assumption for telling people things is that couples are single entities for this purpose under almost all circumstances, except for surprises.