2 ‘Secrets’ You’re Allowed To Keep From Your Partner, By A Psychologist

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Relationships, by and large, are built upon a foundation of choices. Each day, you and your partner must choose between two dichotomies: whether or not to be patient, to be kind, to be attentive, to listen, to be supportive. These daily decisions, as small as they might seem to you, will have consequences of some kind or another on your relationship. Some will be good; some won’t be.

Perhaps one of the most important choices partners make each day is the one between speaking up or saying nothing at all. To say what’s on your mind, or to keep it to yourself. Generally speaking, openness and transparency is almost always the right choice. And in a truly healthy relationship, partners make space for this honesty, even when it’s somewhat uncomfortable. They’re open about their frustrations and fears because, after all, honesty is the best policy.

However, every rule comes with an exception of some kind, and this too is the case for honesty. Of course, nine times out of ten, it’s a good rule of thumb to be honest about your mistakes and your feelings. This is especially the case if the information in question directly relates to your partner, to the well-being of your relationship or, simply, if it’s something that your partner deserves to know. But in that tenth case — the exception — your honesty might just backfire.

Here are two cases in a relationship where honesty isn’t necessarily the best policy, and why, for once, it’s okay to keep secrets.

1. Past Romantic Or Sexual Experiences With Other People

Since the advent of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, we’ve seen a staggering shift in attitudes surrounding sex. Socially, we know now that contraception, pornography, homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex and masturbation are no longer topics that are inherently taboo. And behaviorally, we know now that sex isn’t necessarily something that we’re only allowed to have with one person, nor that it’s something we can only have once we’re married.

The CDC estimates, based on the National Survey of Family Growth, that the median number of sexual partners a man will have in his lifetime is 6.3. For women, that median is 4.3. Both of these statistics point to the fact that, in today’s day and age, it’s neither surprising nor salacious for a person to have more than one sexual partner throughout their life; it’s now the norm.

In light of this, it’s safe to assume that, in many modern, adult relationships, partners aren’t always each other’s “firsts.” However, this isn’t a fact that you need to frequently remind your partner about.

The “honesty is the best policy” rule might lead you to believe that you must be open and up front about your history: your exes, your prior flings, wild nights from your youth, your so-called “body count.” But, for most partners, your past sexual or romantic escapades are probably the last thing they’d want to hear you talk about.

Finding these kinds of details off-putting doesn’t make someone insecure. In fact, research from Social Media + Society notes that this is a totally normal response, known as “retroactive jealousy.” As the study explains, this refers to feelings of jealousy individuals experience regarding their partner’s past sexual or romantic encounters, before their current relationship had begun.

An important distinction to make, however, is that individuals can experience retroactive jealousy even if the ex-partner or ex-fling in question isn’t currently actively interfering with the relationship, or has never interfered with the relationship at all. The research suggests that the mere knowledge of their existence, and the partner’s prior history with them, is enough for partners to:

Feel less close to their partner
Feel as though the relationship is less special
Trigger comparisons to their past lovers
Evoke feelings of jealousy

Although some partners might try to play it “cool,” or act as though this kind of information doesn’t bother them, it’d be unreasonable to set this as an expectation.

The reality is that, if you’re currently in a long-term, committed romantic relationship, there’s no real reason for you to still be reminiscing about your past sexual encounters. Regardless of whether or not the conversational topic at hand warrants it, keeping quiet is both the most logical and most loving choice to make.

At best, honesty in this regard will only result in awkwardness and insecurity; at worst, it’ll lead to an argument that could’ve easily been avoided, and that you’re also likely to lose. Unless your partner specifically asks you for details (which very few sane people would ever do unprompted), your sexual history is a secret you can — and should — definitely keep to yourself.

2. Attractions To Other People That You Don’t Plan On Acting On

Even if you’re in a long-term, committed, exclusive relationship, you might be surprised to learn that being attracted to others is a highly possible, if not probable, reality. Because unfortunately, entering a relationship doesn’t immediately render us immune to natural human responses. It’s totally normal for you to still register other attractive people, who aren’t your partner, as attractive.

A majority of people will, to varying degrees, have the odd, fleeting moment of admiration or curiosity toward someone outside their relationship. Perhaps you’ve blushed around a coworker with a great sense of humor; maybe you’ve felt a bit more than flattered after getting hit on by a stranger at the bar. Regardless of how it comes to be, the existence of outside attraction doesn’t automatically imply that you’re unfaithful or disloyal. Obviously, what matters most is whether or not you act upon it.

A 2025 study published in Personal Relationships makes this abundantly clear. The researchers followed 567 individuals who were in monogamous relationships, who’d reported feeling romantic or sexual attraction toward someone outside of that relationship — that is, people who had a “crush.” The researchers examined how these crushes affected the participants’ relationship quality over the course of a year.

Interestingly, most of the participants’ crushes didn’t cause any kind of measurable harm to their relationships. Even when the crush persisted or changed in intensity, their satisfaction, closeness and commitment to their partners generally remained steadfast. What mattered far more, the study found, was the baseline quality of the relationship itself. In other words, for couples who already had high levels of satisfaction and communication, crushes were blips on the radar; these fleeting attractions came and went without any negative consequences.

For couples who were already unhappy, however, even the smallest of crushes tended to correlate with a downward trajectory in their romantic and sexual satisfaction. From this, we can infer that attraction, in and of itself, is almost never the problem. Acting on it, or fixating on it in ways that are clearly inappropriate, is the more obvious culprit to blame.

In this sense, for a vast majority of couples, confessing to having a passing crush will do little more than plant seeds of doubt or insecurity for the other. Admitting that you’re drawn to someone else won’t even relieve your own discomfort about it; you’ll likely just transfer it to your partner, who now has to grapple with unnecessary anxiety and mistrust.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that honesty in this situation is inherently wrong; it just simply isn’t helpful at all. Unless you think your crush is posing a legitimate risk to your relationship, the kindest and most pragmatic choice is often to just keep it private. Recognize the crush, and understand it for what it is: that is, a natural and momentary spark, rather than a signal of something wrong in your relationship.

As the research suggests, if you’re a sweet enough partner to think you should confess to a tiny crush, you’re probably better off just letting it pass — quietly, and in secret.

Is keeping secrets the norm in your relationship? Take this science-backed test to find out if you can be your most authentic self around your partner: Authenticity in Relationships Scale

Forbes