WIthholding information from a family member?

[MountainLaurel]

Have any of you been in a situation in which you've made a decision about withholding information from a family member or you've been the one who didn't know? It seems that whether it's perceived as being for the person's own good, because the subject in question is dead now and knowing would make no difference (or "serve no purpose"), or to spare other family members embarrassment, this is not an uncommon occurrence. A couple things made this come to mind. One was an advice column having to do with old love letters revealing an infidelity that an adult child burned after the parents' death without revealing the info to the other siblings. Also, I knew a child growing up who was being raised to believe that his biological mother was actually his older sister. According to an obituary about 20 years later, the ruse was still in effect.

So, I'm wondering about the process behind making such a decision: How does one reach the point where you decide not to talk about a grandfather's alcoholism or mental illness to the generation that never knew him, or to let an adult child keep believing lies about how why his mother left college (e.g., a voluntary decision vs. being expelled for criminal activity), etc. And if you are the person who has had information kept from you, how did you find out? What were the repercussions for you, and for those who withheld the info?

[XemaSab]

1. It's a good question

I would think you would have to look at the people involved, the evidence of this "secret," and make your own call.

I would say that the latter two examples (alcoholism and criminal activity) are less damaging than the former two examples (infidelity and his "sister" actually being his mom), but your family may be different.

In my own family, my dad was absent from my life, and my great-grandpa was a crazy-ass sonofabitch. And there was a lurking theory that all of grandma's kids may not have been grandpa's, and since grandpa was *gone* for most of the time, my grandpa was suspected of having another family, *plus* the suspicion that the creepy neighbor molested half the family...

You have to look at your own family, and make the determination there.

(And to clarify, half of this is fact and half is suspicion. Well, okay, it's 3:2.)

[MountainLaurel]

2. I was asking hypothetically

But it's a very interesting issue, which is why I've been pondering it.

[noamnety]

3. I've withheld information before

if it falls under the privacy act, I figure it's not my call to make the decision for another adult if something should or shouldn't be disclosed.

[pitohui]

4. withholding information? it's just what we did in the south

back in the day we didn't have oprah or the color teevee to tell us that sharing and communicating was healthy so fuck yeah, i could tell about a million stories about withholding/being withheld but i don't wanna bore you

people just didn't talk about crap like that until somewhere around 1985 or so

even now, those of us w. primitive minds have trouble talking about that stuff, if it's TRULY unfair to withhold the information, i for one tell em in an email and then they can call me and chew me out, real brave huh but it's the way i was raised