Keeping Your Relationship a Secret?
Pros and Cons of Doing So
Gone were the days when people would never know what you did in your 20’s or even 10 years ago. But now, in the age of social media and people sharing every detail of their lives online, it seems like keeping your relationship secret is one of the smartest things to do. Because people seem to feel entitled about being in everybody’s business and they see it as some sort of a live drama show.
But if you’re thinking about keeping your relationship going strong for years to come, it might be best if you kept things quiet and even go as far as keeping them confidential to make sure that you and your partner are as close as possible and not having a public thing when things get tough.
But before you go ahead with that, there are some pros and cons to this that you gotta be mindful of.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to what’s more important to you. If you think the pros outweigh the cons in this article, then go ahead and keep your relationship a secret.
Let’s jump into it.
Pro: You Can Get Closer and Consolidate Your Relationship
Everyone has opinions about your relationships when you post it on social media. And believe me, some of those opinions, you won’t agree with. Not just that, your exes will want to chime in on the lows you might be going through in your current relationship.
And even if you don’t post about your relationships on social media, we all know that we will have family members on both sides that will want to share their opinions whether you like it or not. It’s all just chatter that you gotta get through to make a decision, and decide what’s best for the two of you.
And if you don’t share any details about your relationship with anyone, then you’ll have the chance to sit down and talk it through with your partner and decide for yourselves how both of you feel and you can build things from there.
But if there’s chatter from all the people around you, it makes the whole thing complicated. The way I look at it, your relationship should be yours. Others shouldn’t be able to influence anything about that relationship. Let’s be honest, we all want to be his secret obsession. Because that’s the most exciting part – being someone he wants to keep a secret and will go to great lengths to make sure that things are that way.
Con: It Might Start to Weigh Your Relationship Down
It all depends on what the reasons are for keeping your relationship a secret.
Is it because you want to make sure that others aren’t able to influence your relationship? Or is it because he is looking for someone better? Or even worse, both of you or one of you is married or is in a long-term relationship?
You have to factor those things in when you think about it. Because at some point, you would want to enter his world but he is keeping the whole relationship a secret, so you can’t go to certain places, never see who he hangs out with, etc.
This could start taking a toll on your self-esteem and you might start thinking about things you’d never want to think about. Things like whether he really loves you as much as you love him. Or maybe he isn’t proud of being in a relationship with you. If he was, why wouldn’t he want to show you off to the world?
It might sound like a small superficial thing, but trust me, it will start to take its toll and you’ll have tension build up just because of this.
Pro: When You’re Going Through Hard Times, No One Will Know
I think this needs to be said – don’t believe everything you see on Instagram.
Sure, there are some great looking couples that look like everyday they’re having the time of their lives.But don’t take all those things on face value. Everything you see there has gone through filters, editing and image processing. It’s a refined version of that person that’s specifically created to appeal to a large audience.
Every relationship has ups and downs. No one likes to post about the hard times they are going through. Everyone wants to look like they are perfect and that they were born perfect.
And if you keep your relationship a secret, no one will know that you’re going through tough times. And you won’t have to post passive aggressive posts on your Instagram story so you can hurt your boyfriend.
The best part about it is that people won’t slide into your DMs with their unsolicited advice. You can decide how you’d like to get through with these tough times and how you’d like to strengthen you bond with your boyfriend once both of you do get through this.
Con: No One Will Know How Great Your Relationship Is
It’s a double-edged sword.
If you’re going through downs, you’ll be glad that you kept your relationship a secret. Because then only the two of you will be going through it and both of you will have complete control over how things go in your relationship. On the other hand, if you’re ready to take the next step and get engaged or even get married, you might want to share about it on your Facebook or Instagram.
But then the problem comes – when you share about your engagement or marriage, your relationship is no longer a secret.
If you are naturally introverted like me, you wouldn’t care about sharing those things as much. Because the people closest to you would already have the invite to your engagement ceremony and you’ll still have a great time.
But here’s another scenario you need to consider – you’re hanging out with your girls and everyone of them is bragging about how great their relationship is. And all you can do is nod and grin because you chose to keep yours a secret.
Would you resent your choices in that scenario? Or would you be happy you chose to keep it a secret because you know that 6 months down the line, those same friends of yours will be crying their eyes out because how their boyfriend decided to breakup with them?
At the end of the day, it all depends on why you would like to keep your relationship a secret. Because keeping secrets by themselves isn’t a bad thing. But you need to be sure that the reasons behind you keeping a secret isn’t bad.