Reddit user avaarini asked the community, "What's a secret you'll never tell your partner but would anonymously confess online?"
Folks didn't hold anything back, and revealed some pretty deep truths they keep hidden from their significant others.
So, here are some things people refuse to confess to their spouses (but will to you, our dear readers):
Note: Some submissions include topics of suicide and family abuse. Please proceed with caution.
Note: Secrets and confessions have been pulled from our BuzzFeed Community users.
1. "Most of my anxieties and insecurities. I learned long ago that the only thing stopping her from 'spiraling' is that she thinks I have a handle on everything. If she panics and I panic with her, she'll go right past panic into full-on 'hysteria.'"
"On the rare occasion I share my feelings, particularly something I'm not happy about in our relationship, I instantly regret it. I don't know how much is ingrained in her personality, but she can't handle it.
I'm a pretty stoic guy in general, so 99% of the time, I'm fine with 'suck it up' as my strategy for adversity. But sometimes, I get a glimpse into someone else's relationship where there is more emotional openness, and I realize what I'm missing.
After decades, I'm resigned to the fact that it just is what it is."
2. "I have an addiction to porn. I'm working on it, but I'm deeply ashamed. I couldn't even bring myself to tell my therapist. It probably has to do with my Catholic upbringing, but I just can't bring myself to say the words. It has nothing to do with my partner — I've been watching porn since I was 12 years old (I'm 25 years old now). I have been struggling with the addiction for a while now. I’m getting better, day by day, but I wish I could have my teammate for this. This is something I will conquer on my own and never tell a soul. Hopefully, I can get porn out of my life completely someday."
3. "When I was married, I had suicidal ideations frequently. When I was in the bathroom for more than 10 minutes, I was crying my eyes out, trying to hold myself together. Crying in front of her got me an earful of grief about not being 'a real man.' So, I did my crying in the bathroom."
"Also, when I was a stay-at-home dad, we had a two-year-old and a newborn. I was struggling with keeping up with housework, cooking, and all that. She didn't understand why it was so difficult.
One day, she told me, 'If I had hired you for this job, I would have fired you by now.' A couple of years later, when the kids were older, we switched, and she stayed home. She eventually apologized for what she said to me. I said it was okay, but I never forgave her for that."
4. "I think she sucks at parenting. Her temper is short, and she doesn't have patience for mistakes that little kids commonly make. For example, my kiddo was sick and had the runs for the second time ever in his life, and pooped his pants. I helped him clean up the mess, get in the shower, get all cleaned up, clean his underwear, and get everything down to the washing machine. I told him how this happens when we're sick, we can't always trust a fart, and not to worry about it. Then my partner found out, and her immediate response was anger and annoyance, as if he did it on purpose to make her life harder, and she remained annoyed even after she found out that it'd all already been taken care of. I'm glad he came to me first because her response probably would have made him cry, and he was already feeling embarrassed about it."
"She's good at some other aspects of parenting — it's not like it's all bad. And I'm definitely not trying to say I'm perfect at it myself, but it seems strange to me that she's surprised the kids always want to spend time with me instead of her when they're given the option."
5. "How much I compare their actions to my father's. If I see something too similar, it raises a red flag for me. I can feel myself emotionally withdraw from a man when something they do or say reminds me of the way my dad used to make me feel growing up. I'm married to a great man who is the opposite of my dad. I'm grateful every day that our future children won't have to feel as small as I did growing up."
6. "That she's wasting her potential. Don't get me wrong, if she realized it, she'd be way busier and would eventually be an executive or something. So I'm not mad at ALL. It's just a chore trying to get her to realize just how good she is at a lot of things, and the only thing holding her back is her low opinion of herself. She has gotten a LOT better the last few years, though."
7. "He has a friend that we hang out with on a very regular basis. We've known him and his family for a long time. The thing that he does not know and I will never tell him is that I've known this friend for a lot longer than him. I was the reason our friend's last marriage ended. This was before we had even met, but it was a pretty dark, selfish time for me, and I was a 'home wrecker.'"
8. "His mom's strong attachment to him comes off as incestuous. Sometimes I wonder if, because of the abuse and lack of emotional intimacy with her husband, she tried to fill it with inappropriate pseudo-romantic emotional intimacy with her son. And he's too oblivious to realize she's not the traditionally caring but overbearing parent with occasional boundary issues that he thinks she is. This feels weirder, and I feel so deeply uncomfortable being in the middle of this. If she could date him, I feel like she would."
9. "It frustrates me that she's uninterested in literally anything that isn't within the realm of her personal interests. Otherwise, she clarifies that she's not interested in what interests me. Sometimes I do talk about my interests because I can't keep everything to myself forever, but it feels like a child bothering their parents, talking about how cool their toys are."
"I feel this. Her eyes just start to glaze over, and I can see she's mentally checking out. I end the conversation and go do a chore or something. She doesn't ask questions or find gifts that align with my interests. However, and I'm probably a little bitter, I'm expected to be engaged with her interests and pay attention to the little things, or else she will not feel like I'm bonding with her. It's a little maddening."
10. "We're in a very large age gap relationship, and the only issue I have with it is that he most likely won't live long enough for us to retire together. I love him so much, but chances are he won't be here for my 40th birthday, and that hurts so much. I'll never tell him this because there's nothing he can do about it, and it's unfortunately my burden to bear."
11. "I will never tell him how much his mother says negative things about him or all the stuff I do to help manage his parents. They need so much care and attention, and I know he can’t handle it all, and I know they don’t appreciate what he does for them (or what I do for that matter). But I do it happily and tell him they appreciate everything he does because he’s so good to them and so kind and generous. I never want him to know they aren’t as good to him as they should be — it would crush him, and he doesn’t deserve that pain. The thing is, I know he would do the same for me and never mention it. Sometimes, just because you know something doesn’t mean the other person needs to hear it. My opinion of them is that they are abusive, ungrateful people whom he should happily do nothing for, but I also know he will never regret being kind or a good son, even if they don’t see it. So, I tell him to do what he can, and they’ll figure the rest out, and then I help with the rest."
12. "No matter how much he tells me he loves me, I'm beautiful, I'm the best thing since bacon, he's not going anywhere, and he buys me flowers and chocolate, I am absolutely terrified of losing him. Because at some point, he'll get sick of me, or he'll meet someone prettier, more clever, or more into the same things he is. I know it will happen eventually, and I know I will completely fall apart when it happens. But until then, he's not going to know. I'm just enjoying it while it lasts."
13. "I encourage my partner of five years to visualize someone else during sex because I know I’m so much less than he deserves. I refuse to let him go down on me because I’m positive it’s less pleasant than it’s been with his previous partners. He is so loving and reassuring to me, but my body is honestly so horrific and I respect him so much, I would even let him have sex with others if it meant he didn’t have to slum it with me."
14. "I can't tell her how I feel about everything that involves her parents because, in her eyes, her parents feel more like family to her than me. I also can't tell her how much of a hypocrite she is. I confronted her a few times with the approach that we could solve our problems, but she turned it around and used it against me. Our son is six months old — I don't want him to grow up without a father."
15. "At least for me, the period-related mood swings are less about irrationally disproportionate emotional responses and more about a weakening of the filter that usually holds back an emotional response. The things that piss me off when I'm on my period still piss me off when I'm not on my period — I just normally try not to express them."
16. "When she says she feels like I'm not listening, it's because I'm not. I told her how to solve a certain problem in five minutes with no downsides last week, and I've heard about it enough times that I don't have to listen. I know the next six sentences she's going to say word for word, right down to the hand gestures and facial expression."
"I'm very abundantly aware that sometimes she just wants to be heard. What I'm saying is how many times do I have to hear the exact same thing that could easily be solved in five minutes before I'm allowed to suggest something if it bothers her so much?"
17. "We are in a great stable relationship, and I love our life together, but I think about and miss sex with my ex often. He was obsessed with every inch of my body, like he would kiss my armpits and call them sexy, and we tried a lot of new things together. I don’t miss him, but feeling that desire is something I miss deeply. My current partner is much more 'vanilla,' and when I ask if he has anything he's thought about trying, he’s just happy to be there. There’s never that 'I need to have you right now' moment, but there are a lot of 'I love this life with you' moments daily."
18. "We treat men with kid gloves. We try to keep men happy and fed, we turn down advances in whatever way will make men feel the best about themselves, and we work extremely hard to keep men from turning angry. We fear men’s anger because we know all too well that it can (and often) does end in death for us. So, we end up coddling all men for our own protection."
19. "If I buy a piece of jewelry, new shoes, a new purse, or anything for myself, I fib about the cost. If it's a $250 purse, I'll lie and say I 'splurged' and spent $100 on the handbag. It's just easier this way, and he has no clue about the cost of anything I buy for myself."
20. "I have lunch with an old guy friend of mine. My boyfriend doesn’t know that he works on the same campus as me or that we have lunch. We don’t hook up or flirt, but my boyfriend didn’t like him from the first time they met. I know he would make it into such an issue and wouldn’t believe it was just lunch, so I don’t tell him."
21. "We've both been sleeping in separate rooms for the past few months since we've both been sick with the flu. It's some of the best sleep I've had since she started snoring super loud many years ago. Once we recover, I don't know if I want to sleep together again."
22. "I love him so very much, but I'm tired. I'm tired of his short fuse, and I'm tired when he's angry. It's 'all my fault,' but after he calms down, it's all apologies and self-loathing. I'm tired of my value being dependent on how good I look to his family (it's not always, and it has gotten better, but sometimes it still feels that way). He also makes me feel bad about what I 'put back towards society,' when I do enough. But it never feels like enough — getting unfairly let go from my last job took a toll on me. I'm tired of not feeling supported when I need him, like when I faced the possibility of having cancer and felt so alone. I'm tired of having to keep being on his ass to pick up things or keep up on the shared chores. I'm tired of going through burnout and breakdown after breakdown to see anything get done, just for it to cycle through again in one to three months."
"I'm tired of not being able to communicate in a way that works for him, and if I say something the 'wrong way,' even in the calmest of conversations, it sets him off.
But I don't know what works for him. He won't help me figure it out, and every approach I try hasn't worked yet."
23. "Sometimes I suggest watching porn while we have sex because I feel bad that they have to have sex with me. This way, they can pretend they're having sex with someone else."
24. "I love him with all of my heart, but I'm scared about moving in with his parents in a couple of weeks. We have been together almost four years, but I just don't want to move out of my home and lose everything if we split up. His parents are amazing people, and I love them so much. He is a wonderful man. I've just been in my home for six years. I could never tell him because I know he works hard to get the place ready for us to move in, and I don't want to see him sad. He's honestly so sweet."
25. And finally, "How sad our sexual situation makes me. She knows I’m not satisfied with it, but I don’t think she realizes how much it depresses me. I’m reluctant to tell her because I don’t see any good outcome from doing so. There seems to be no point in saying that I keep coming to bed hopeful night after night, only to feel miserable when she turns off the light and says, 'Goodnight' and drifts off to sleep. We had a talk about it 10 years ago, and the upshot was that she had no interest in having sex more often than we were. Our frequency has dropped more since then."
"I've accepted that that’s how it is because I don’t want to pressure her to have sex when she doesn’t want to. Nothing good could result from that. So, I never initiate (and talking about it would be one more form of unwelcome pressure). I continue not to share my feelings with her."
"I left my marriage because of this. Lack of intimacy brings about so much emotional damage. You don’t feel loved, and you envision yourself with other people because of it. I'm currently with my new girlfriend, and her libido is sky-high compared to mine. We just had a son, so it’s slowed down a bit, but I’m not complaining."
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.