Too Much Information/ 27 November, 2006

Should you reveal all to your partner?
Gayatri Jayaraman
[27 Nov, 2006 l 2127 hrs ISTlTIMES NEWS NETWORK]


We're in a generation of Too Much Information (TMI), where private is public and the furtive past is revealed all too easily.

We're in a generation of Too Much Information (TMI), where private is public and the furtive past is revealed all too easily. It is rumoured that Shweta Singh grounded her relationship early on by revealing to her partner, Rahul Mahajan, details of her past that played kabab-mein-haddi to their marital bliss. Can any alpha male, safely experienced in the ways of the world, truly stomach details of his partner's grisly past?

We asked a popular agony uncle, who tells us he was once faced with a distraught wife who hadn't told her husband that his best friend had been her childhood sweetheart. One drunken confession later, 12 years of marriage and 20 years of friendship is hanging in the balance. Agony uncle says, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't!"

So do you or don't you? "Men tend to brood over the details," warns TV anchor Pooja Bedi. "We all have pasts, but women have wonderful memories for grisly details, and will extricate the information to use it against a man in an argument. Men on the other hand forget what they have revealed about their own pasts, and have no clue what's hit them!" she laughs adding on a serious note, "Leave the past in the past, and that's the best way to move on to the future."

Model Suchitra Pillai is all for honesty —with your girlfriends that is. "Chat about it with your girlfriends if you have to. It's necessary for a relationship to start in a place of trust, but it's also sensitive to spare your partner gory details."

"It depends on the individual's personality, not on the nature of the revelation or whether it's a man or a woman," warns psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria. "If a person is suspicious by nature, then, the partner needs to take care." She suggests couples give each other space. "I don't recommend hiding things or keeping secrets, but don't allow your honesty to feed your partner's insecurities," she warns. "Measure what you say according to the person you're dealing with." And how do women deal with their partners revealing their past? Do they get as possessive? "Of course women too get possessive, but they tend to hide their feelings,"says 30-year-old homemaker Nina Lele.