I found out my boyfriend had shared something private because one of his friends brought it up while we were all hanging out. Casually. There was no warning that I was about to hear my own family situation mentioned by someone I’d never chosen to tell.
A few weeks earlier, I’d told my boyfriend what I was going through. I specifically asked him to keep it to himself. I wasn’t ready for other people to know, and outside my family, he was the only person I’d told. So when his friend mentioned it last weekend, I knew where it had come from.
Being caught off guard was its own uncomfortable part of it. I hadn’t prepared to discuss this with his friends. I hadn’t even decided whether I wanted them to know. Yet there it was, already part of the conversation.
When we got home, I asked why his friend knew. My boyfriend said he’d needed someone to talk to and hadn’t thought mentioning it was that big of a deal. I could understand needing support. Hearing that he didn’t think it was a big deal was harder, especially after I’d made a point of asking for privacy.
I tried to explain the difference. I wasn’t saying he could never talk about anything affecting him. I was saying I’d trusted him with something personal and had been clear that I wasn’t comfortable sharing it further.
He apologized. Then he said I was making him feel like he couldn’t talk to his friends about anything anymore. That left me feeling as though I had to defend a much bigger restriction than the one I’d actually asked for.
We’ve barely talked since. Part of me feels guilty because I know people need somewhere to vent, including him. Another part keeps coming back to the fact that I asked him before he told anyone. He didn’t have to guess how I felt about it.
Now I’m still upset, and his apology hasn’t settled things between us. Am I overreacting, or is he still missing what I was trying to tell him?
