Should you tell your partner everything?

“I didn’t even know what an ick was until it got popular on the Internet, but my ick is definitely a guy asking me if I’ve eaten and what I’ve eaten. Like I cannot. I just want to throw up and run away screaming,” my friend Mira reports, as we discuss whether partners may in fact be better off not sharing every last damn detail of their lives.

I’m laughing, telling Mira I can’t even count the number of times I’ve recounted my meals for partners over my 35 years.

“Don’t you think it comes out of a place of care though? Maybe they just genuinely want to know that you’ve eaten…”

“I just think it’s lazy. If you care so much, ask me something interesting, something fascinating, something that will make me think or reveal something about me that was previously a mystery to you. Not whether my boiled eggs at breakfast were good. After a while the good morning/have you eaten/good night messages are just kinda lazy, dude.”

I’m laughing so hard now I can’t form a rebuttal. Mira is nothing if not … honest.

Having someone wish me a good morning and ask me what I’ve eaten doesn’t make me want to run away screaming, and I do find it kind of sweet most of the time, but I do like where she’s going with this train of thought.

Do partners really have to know each other’s every thought? Must we give each other a run down of every waking moment, every meal? Might we in fact actually benefit from becoming better editors of what we do and do not share? Not in the sort of sneaky manipulative ways a liar might edit what they share, but rather in the ways that a magazine editor may handle curation.

For many people, pretty high up on the list of stuff you’re better off not bogging down your partner with, are references to your ex. That can be hurtful, but also kind of annoying after a point. If you’ve just started dating someone, there really isn’t any reason to bring up your ex, other than in a conversation where you are both sharing that you were previously in relationships. Making comments about your ex’s favourite food, athlete, or tv show are absolutely unnecessary. No one cares. And if you do, perhaps prudent to think about whether you should be in a new relationship.

If you’re deeper into a relationship, then it can sometimes be useful to divulge things about your ex. If you had a negative experience, for example, and are still holding on to some of those feelings, it can be useful to share that with a partner as a way to explain your behaviour or approach to certain things. All the people we have close relationships with over the duration of our lives have an impact on how we see the world, regardless of whether they are still a part of our lives or not.

A really good measure for how to figure out what you should share and shouldn’t, whether it’s about your day or about your ex is to try not to brain fart everything onto your partner.

Look, I know there is an argument here to be made for a romantic relationship being a safe space for you to share freely, honestly, and in an unfiltered way with your partner. And I mostly agree. There is something incredibly special and warm about feeling like you can say anything in front of a person and know they won’t judge you. And in a world filled with therapy speak and boundaries, we’ve ended up constantly trying to censor ourselves in a bid to hold on to relationships. So I’m absolutely not saying we should get rid of those safe spaces.

But I am thinking we can sometimes edit a little. In the same way that it is nice to tidy up your house when your partner comes over, it can be nice to tidy up your thoughts before sharing them if possible.

I think this comes back to the point Mira was making about not being lazy and asking interesting questions. In the same way that there is a certain care in asking (or answering) what you’ve eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner, there is a different kind of care in filtering out what might hurt or exhaust your partner with no actual benefit to either of you. (eg: “Oh you like these socks? My ex liked these socks too!” = editable brain fart.)

Another example: if you’ve both had a long day at work, putting out fires and being stressed out, maybe you filter out venting/complaining/talking about work and replace that with something that might make you both feel a burst of joy. Do something that will take you both out of that mindset and transport you somewhere better. You don’t have to be disingenuous when a partner asks how your day was, but you also don’t have to share every last detail of the tedium till they’re feeling it too. In doing so, we can establish a mutual effort to try to ensure the time we get together with a partner is uplifting instead of weighing each other down with unedited existential angst. I want to do this better myself too.

On the other hand, there’s also some over-editing many of us already do on certain topics, that we may perhaps benefit from reexamining.

When you’re with someone and you’re getting into the conversation about past relationships, women tend to seriously downplay their sexual experiences. Whether we’re more conditioned to constantly spare the feelings of others or whether it’s a personal choice, so many women I know are not entirely honest about their sexual histories. Of course this could be an act of kindness, but I see it seep into other categories, morphing instead into a way of making ourselves small. We hesitate to say that something irritates us, stay silent when someone makes an inappropriate remark, and figure it will be much simpler if we just keep letting him think that whatever it is he’s doing with his tongue down there is working for us even when it isn’t.

I think this sort of editing needs to happen less. :)

Articulating what we want in bed works in the benefit of everyone involved. Guiding your partner to show them what you want is also an act of kindness.

Sifting through the many things you could share with your partner about your day and choosing the thing most uplifting for the moment is also an act of kindness.

This emotional and mental labour is something both partners should do. Even if your relationship is a safe space where you can share freely, slipping into a space where you take each other for granted is always tricky. It’s difficult to know where the line between genuine sharing and trauma dumping is, especially in a world where we are slowly forgetting what it really means to be a supportive friend. Between drawing boundaries and protecting our peace we’ve forgotten what care looks like.

It is caring to read the room before you regurgitate everything that’s on your mind onto a person that might not be in the right space to respond in a meaningful way. It is caring to go to a therapist or at the very least, buy a journal to unleash all that is going on in your head instead of just offloading it all on your partner.

There are certain things we could also simply share with other people. It’s healthy to have a varied set of friends, hobbies, and outlets to share, vent, analyse and deconstruct your life with. Your partner isn’t going to be able to (and shouldn’t have to) hold ALL the wonderful (and not so wonderful) things you may have to process or get out of your system.

All I’m saying is, I do think it’s the kinder thing to do to get into the habit of mentally proofreading your thoughts. Do the work of figuring out what’s truly for your therapist, friends, family, or journal instead of going straight to verbal diarrhoea on your partner. All your relationships will be better for it.

Shop Leezu's