Saturday Stories - Secrets

Years ago I used to do a series called Sunday Stories and I've decided to bring that back. As I do Thoughts of the Week on Sundays, it'll be Saturday Stories. 

Now that I'm old and wise (haha) I'll be talking about things that I've learned.

If you have a story that you'd like to tell, please email me and I'll post it for you. You can post anonymously or with links to your social media accounts, your choice.

Todays story is something that I learned years ago. My ex taught me this. He taught me a lot of valuable lessons.

So here it is.

Not all secrets are yours to keep. 

I'll give you some background here. We were together for four years and split up when I discovered that he'd been taking drugs, dealing drugs and other disgusting things that I might talk about later. 

At first I was ashamed and embarrassed that he'd deceived me so thoroughly. I didn't tell anyone what had happened or why we'd split up as I felt like I had to keep his secrets. 

After a while I realised that they weren't my secrets to keep and that he was the one who should be ashamed. So instead of hiding what had happened, I told people. If someone asked, I told them what had happened and why we'd split up. 

Once I started talking about it I felt a lot better, like a burden had been lifted. I hadn't done anything wrong and had nothing to hide.
He wasn't overly impressed and asked why I was telling people. I told him that it wasn't up to me to keep his secrets and if he was ashamed then he should have made better choices.

If he wanted to keep his actions secret that was up to him, but I didn't have to keep his secrets. 

Not all secrets are yours to keep. The actions of others don't reflect on you, if someone has done the wrong thing by you it's their shame not yours.