I do largely agree with that - if there's anything that you think to yourself, this absolutely CANNOT EVER be known, the safest thing to do is stuff it right to the back of your own head and not even think about it :joker:.

Look at that twin brother who was pissed up and drove and he killed a cyclist. He called his twin and the 2 of them buried the body deep in a Scottish estate they both worked for.

He would be walking about free if he had not told his fiance...

I guess it probably doesn’t hurt to mention things people have told you in confidence discreetly and indirectly (so you’re not going to be dropping their name or any other cues). I could live with that if I was the one doing the confiding.

No but who’s ever been told something in confidence but then forgot it was confidential and then accidentally talked when you shouldn’t have?

I usually forget by morning time.

Anyone telling me something in confidence that they asked not to be repeated to anyone else.
Then that would be like a locked box in my brain.
I'd never mention it to anyone at all.

you are adding too much of the url Alf, you only need wtc4f7Ez7FA in this case

I like the way you think. I wouldn’t be telling my wife things that someone else who’s nothing to do with her (I’m not married but you catch my drift) told me in strict confidence. Maybe it would be different if I’d been married for 15 years but from where I’m sitting I don’t think betraying someone’s trust like that is a good idea, even if it goes no further. If you don’t need to know, you don’t need to know.

Have you heard the saying
A drunk person speaks a sober person’s mind

Sometimes when people are drunk they talk and say things they wouldn’t when sober, hence talking about someone

Also information comes out when a person is angry

Information definitely does come out when angry and that’s something we could probably all do with working on. When a friend asks you something in earnest, it’s better to at least try and be honest (as tempting as it is to just lie through your teeth when the truth isn’t something they want to hear) rather than waiting for the moment for an angry argument to erupt before they tell you what they really think.

Alcohol’s (as for that) one hell of a drug. It makes people say all sorts.

Or you could just talk to Samaritans. They don’t rush back home to tell their husbands or wives the calls they’ve been answering. Strict confidentiality does exist out there outside the licensed so-and-so’s office. It’s good to be reminded of that in a world where people use marriage as an excuse to gossip about people’s private business that was told to them in confidence. They didn’t marry your spouse as well.

People who work at things like Samaritans and crisis lines do talk to their partners (or even their therapists) about things that they've been told or have happened during their work I'm afraid Redway. They can't say anything identifying or any names but if you're in a role where you're having other people's trauma conveyed to you all day, not talking about it at all to anyone would be a VERY bad idea.

Also worth remembering that even in a professional context there is no thing as 100% strict individual confidentiality; people on a crisis line will be talking to (and taking advice from) colleagues and supervisors constantly.

Plus safeguarding trumps confidentiality e.g. if you "in confidence" disclose a viable intent to kill yourself, or harm others, a professional confidant will absolutely break confidentiality, and in fact, are obligated to do so.

Volunteers who don’t have sense of discretion do that, yeah. For others, there’s no way that they would go home and tell their spouses or boyfriends anything. That’s what the Samaritans in-house support for volunteers is there for. You seem to have a logical foundation for wanting boundaries to be subtly pushed in conversation but not everyone operates on that premise, and thank God they don’t.

The only times Samaritans breaks confidentiality when safeguarding’s concerned is when there’s a minor or an adult deemed particularly vulnerable in a certain fundamental way is involved. They have a self-determination policy over at Samaritans, which means that you can choose to subject a volunteer to your last conversation on Earth being with them and commit suicide on the other end. So long as you’re deemed as having the intellectual capacity to make that decision, they can’t stop you, and even if they think you’re vulnerable in that regard, there’s nothing they can do without you providing them identifying information because they really don’t have access to any of that information at all otherwise. They don’t know where you’re calling from in t’UK or Ireland, they don’t know your number, they don’t know anything about you whatsoever other than what you tell them. It wouldn’t work otherwise. So you get down that high horse about safeguarding right-this minute. Maybe that’s how it is at other organisations (undoubtedly) but not Samaritans.

I know strict confidentiality is something you struggle to get your head around but it does exist. You shouldn’t put people off ringing Samaritans because you expect them to all be just like you and breaking confidentiality because “there are no secrets in an ideal marriage”. You leave your Samaritans work at Samaritans. No offence but good Samaritans are not people like you. Always trying to find loopholes in confidentiality and a reason to tell your wife things that other people told you in confidence. You’re extensively trained at Samaritans not to be like that. And if that mentality can’t budge or you’re naturally the sort of person who worse-yet likes to gossip, being a Samaritan is obviously not for you.

I can't keep anything you tell me secret if it involves yourself or others breaking the law or being endangered :nono:

Technically getting drunk in a pub is against the law. You have a choice. You absolutely have a choice, lad.

I fully appreciate your point of view on this Redway and I think we do fundamentally disagree, my only counter is that it's unlike sharing information with just any other person, the information is as closely guarded as if it was just one and is functionally no different. I also don't think you entirely know what is or isn't shared. I'm only telling you here because it's a brutally honest and anonymous space. In the real world, no one (no one at all) has any idea what me and my wife do or don't share with each other in the most absolute of strict confidence and I imagine that's the same for most similar relationships. Just offering some insight into that.

I can also see that you have a huge amount of respect for and belief in the work that Samaritans do and I can appreciate that maybe there's some skin in the game there either personally or professionally so I'm not going to slam that too hard -- but I would caution to remember that they are people, not angels-on-earth, and not all reports on Samaritans contact are positive. Don't get me wrong they aren't as bad as the situation with some of the official MH Crisis lines, but they're not infallible in their treatment of or communication with callers, and it would be slightly remiss to suggest otherwise.

I'd also point out that I'm talking about 20-year-plus relationships here not a boyfriend or girlfriend met in a club last November. There is a HUGE difference that, respectfully, people who haven't spent a very large chunk of their life with someone will not fully appreciate.

Some Samaritans are crap. That goes without saying. But one thing they all are is trained very extensively on confidentiality and that’s a constant regardless of the extent and intimacy of their relationships. People like you unfortunately likely do exist within the franchise but not everyone goes home to tell their husbands/wives everything, even if they’ve been married for 60 years and are both Samaritans. Like I said, some people really are capable of leaving their work in-house. In that position the only person I’d ever talk to about an individual call is another Samaritan and only with good reason. I’m not the only one, either. That’s how the service is supposed to operate. You’re not supposed to go home and tell your partner just-because you’ve known them for 20 years, and in honesty I wouldn’t expect the intimate details within a close friendship communicated to a partner on such a basis either. In the grand scheme of things 20 years is small-fry compared to how long some Samaritans volunteers have been with their partners for and I still have every confidence that they don’t bring anything home out of respect for the policy, extensive training and callers. Husband and wife (or whoever and whoever, in today’s world) have better things to discuss than the intimate details divulged by Samaritans callers. I find your attitude appalling, tbh.

You’re still a relatively young man. Don’t go forgetting that just now. Like I say, 20 years is small fry compared to many long-term partnerships. Relationship-wise (I’m not talking about exact details or requirements), a lot of people have been there a trillion times but they still don’t budge on information that’s best left in the office and just has absolutely nothing to do with their other halves period. Maybe it’s not always, granted, but you can’t assume everyone to be just like you. I think you need to go and have a think about certain things.

I like to think I'm good at keeping confidences. I don't share secrets that are not mine to share. That said, I don't like gossipy secrets about a third person. I try to make it clear that if I'm told a secret about someone else, I'll tell everyone, and also say where I heard it from.

I don't need to have a think Redway we simply disagree - I'm perfectly accepting of your stance, although I'm not 100% on your reasoning for being so sure (you're taking a lot on faith in believing that you'd be aware of it if people were talking to spouses about these things? How could you possibly know what they do or do talk about in strict confidence between them at home? The whole point is that you wouldn't, and that no one outside of them would.)

I'm not talking about divulging names, addresses and identifiable personal detail here I'm talking about sharing the things that each other have encountered throughout that day and having someone who can be trusted - above and beyond anyone else in the world - to talk those things through with. The idea that "a co-worker in the same organisation" is more appropriate for that is baffling, to me. The caller didn't consent to the information being shared around coworkers either, or with therapists, etc.

If your stance is that people should be willing to take on huge amounts of other people's trauma and talk with and support them in divulging potentially distressing things and then feel duty bound to talk to absolutely no one about it then I likewise find your attitude not only appalling but flat out dangerous. There is no way to do that healthily, none, and as I said there's no logical basis for the idea that it's fine to share with another worker in the same organisation or a professional counsellor/therapist, but not with a life partner. Do husbands and wives have "better things" to discuss? If one of them has been psychologically or emotionally affected by something divulged to them in the course of their work - NO they do not.

Having worked for a couple of companies that dealt with information that ranged from restricted through confidential, secret, top secret and higher. Each level has a very clear definition and confidential is very much at the lower end of the scale. Confidential information actually has a pretty wide distribution

Once you’ve been trained at Samaritans or conversant with it at least you’ll understand. You don’t have to carry the burden alone by any means but you’re just not supposed to go home with it under any circumstances whatsoever. People are confiding in you about stuff they can’t even tell their closest friends and family, a complete stranger, and you’re then going home to tell another complete stranger who the caller really didn’t consent to knowing about their personal business just because you have an unwritten policy that “if you tell me something, you’re essentially telling my wife/long-term girlfriend as well, ’cause we don’t keep secrets”. Samaritans provide plenty of in-house support for dealing with distressing calls, whether you know that or not, and people on average, I imagine, will be more consensual to other Samaritans-allied people having access to certain information about them than some random stranger because when you’re doing your job right there’s just absolutely no way you take it home with you, and that’s a policy Samaritans have had since jump. T’opportunity to offload is there. You’d just rather go home to your wife and gossip about it, albeit with good intentions, than talk to another Samaritan. That’s the head and tail of it. I don’t know why you’re like that but that’s you.

Like I say, thank heavens above you ain’t a Samaritan. You haven’t got the right attitude. But it’s okay. People like you get weeded out of vetting process pretty quickly. Always quick with excuses and justifications for breaking confidentiality. Whatever people tell me in confidence stays with me and I can take that to the grave. I can tell you that with certainty if you ain’t tryna hear me speak for others. In the position of a Samaritan after particularly difficult calls, I’d actually use the support available and debrief within Samaritans, not break one of their core policies and take it home to someone just because I’ve been banging them for 20 years. As an isolated couple you might get away with it but in the wrong hands that could’ve had John Lennon or Michael Jackson doing town-crier bits on Beaumont Street, Liverpool 8 with a foghorn in the ’80s with bedtime inspo serving as the catalyst for new songs and moonlight walk moves. That’s how talk spreads in less trustworthy hands, even if you and your wife as an individual couple are sound.

And oi. Listen to these: https://youtu.be/P2NnVfB3fzY?si=RlKFXcw3z-HD3YP5 | https://youtu.be/fPcVucXIIYc?si=KWWmJvd2ARxnJYCJ

You're deifying and idealising Redway; Samaritans is a voluntary sector organisation with no formal qualification requirements, and whilst some working for Samaritans are no doubt extremely good people and extremely good at what they do, you're attributing a pedestal-like flawlessness to other Samaritans that's frankly unrealistic and that I know to be factually simply incorrect; some people have a terrible experience with Samaritans. Like I said before, largely better (in terms of morals) than NHS crisis lines (which is shocking in itself to be able to say) but ultimately the idea that it's staffed entirely by irreproachable angels is just silly, and can actually be dangerous?

I also didn't suggest a blanket policy that everyone should talk to their spouses as a rule of thumb.

In the end we're all making a trust-based judgement call, and the bare-bones fact is, something I share with my wife (again, not people's personal details, not breaking GDPR etc. or any conduct rules), both because of how well I know her as a person and the trust within a relationship like that, goes no further, and I trust it 100x more than I trust any coworker, anywhere, in any organisation with that information. Like I said if you take away the impeccable deifying of Samaritans workers (which is a fantasy) you are also ultimately putting it down entirely to trust. You aren't telling anyone external - and you're trusting them not to tell anyone external. You do not and can not know that they won't. It's a trust... a belief. It's not a fact. It can only ever be so. We can't ever fully know another person. But honestly Redway - I'm pretty sure I can confide in my partner of 20 years, who is also a highly intelligent professional, with more trust than I'd give to Betty my random coworker at Samaritans just because Betty's watched a few informal training videos and seems like a nice lady. You don't know them. No vetting process is without flaws. There's an unreasonable reverence for Samaritans here, and I'm sure you have your reasons for that, too. But also perhaps something to ponder.

Samaritans are under no legal obligation to maintain confidentiality. That is a simple fact. On that basis, it's pretty much like sending a postcard. People may read it, or they may not