should I tell my friend what her daughter confided?

Question

My best freind;s 27 year old daughter confided that she just had an abortion. She is not married, nor was she in a long-term relationship. We are very close, and since she was little, she's always known she can talk to me about stuff and I would not judge her.
She asked me not to tell her mom. I feel really badly about not telling her mom, cause I know her mom would want to know, and I don't think she would judge her either. Also, I know if it was my daughter I would want to know.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Tell her mother what was confided only if you want her never to trust you again. The point of having someone to confide in is not to keep a secret but to have a safe place in which to express your feelings.

No doubt in the future she'll have an issue she is debating and may need advice from a friend rather than her mother. If you break that trust now, you rob her of that outlet. She may end up making a "bad" decision simply because she has no one to discuss it with.

I can see your dilemma and that this is a difficult situation. For me, however, the fact that she is 27 makes this an easy call. While it would be great if she felt comfortable telling her mother, she's old enough to make that decision for herself.

Best of luck!

Answer 2

I don't think you should tell. Unless your friends daughter is currently in any danger, I don't think you should betrade her trust in you. Let your friends daughter make the decision on her own to tell her mother the news of her abortion. It's not up to you to tell this information. When she is ready to tell her mother, she will. But instead, she felt more comfortable with telling you. I am 27 and had an abortion years ago, I never told my mother. I put it in my past and never told any of my family members. Why? What for? What's done is done and if I feel the need to share this information one day, I will do so. It happened years ago without complications so what good would it do to tell now? Just let her make the decision to tell her mom and try to put it behind you as best as you can. The more you keep worrying and thinking about it, the more you will be tempted to share this information. Don't get involved, leave this between mother and daughter. No mom should be told by someone else that her daughter had an abortion. When she's ready to come to terms with her mistake and her decision to abort, she'll talk to her mom when she's ready. She's ashamed right now and will eventually get over it. For now, just keep it between you and her. She will confess when she's ready.

Answer 3

My thoughts are that NO you should not tell her mother.
You would be opening a Pandoras box of negative outcomes potentially. Three outcomes could be:
Firstly the mother will resent the fact that you got to hear about this before her. She'll always be bitter about that and jealous of the closeness you have with her daughter.
Secondly your relationship with the daughter will probably end and you could become the object of somebody's anger and sense of betrayal for the rest of your life.
Thirdly you might destroy the relationship between daughter and mother. Sometimes good relationships are based on white lies and letting the whole truth out is a recipie for discord.

Answer 4

If you believe that she will not judge her then i best you tell her yourself more than she finds out because that will break the relationship between tyou guys ana it is not like she is a child whatever decisions she makes she will have to suffer the consequences and she wil need her mother to guide her especially if she needs the help. Trust your instinct. If it was my daughter i would not judge her as we all make mistake thats what makes us human all she can do is just be there for her. Or talk to her and the both of you can talk together with her mom or send her alone it will devastate her mother if she found out from somebody else.

Answer 5

Don't tell her. It would destroy an obviously very close friendship. There is nothing worse than finding out the hard way that the one person you trusted most was actually a enemy when you needed them. You tell on her now, she will never come to you again. She will tell her mother on her own when the time is right for her.

Answer 6

nicely she is confiding in you and in case you wind up telling her mom approximately countless the subject concerns she is telling then you sure it is erroneous. I mean until eventually countless the flaws are life threathening. She is trusting you like a pal. i don't think of that it rather is erroneous you being there for this lady yet whilst the difficulty would desire to be common to her mom then according to probability you are able to tension to her the magnitude of her speaking to her mom concerning to the difficulty. I mean kinda not common to respond to because of the fact i don't understand what the subject concerns are that she instructed you. i might say how might you sense in the journey that your daughter could be doing what she is doing?

Answer 7

As a mom I would want to know also but, the daughter is an adult now and you may do more damage than good between the daughter and her mom.

Answer 8

The daughter put you in a bad position. But if you said you would not tell, you cannot.

All you can do is ask the daughter to tell the mother herself, to get you off the hook.

Good luck.

Answer 9

Of course you should not tell the mom. Its her information to share & she told you in confidence. If she was under 18 years old it would be a different story but she is fully an adult.

Answer 10

as a mom, totally understand what you are saying but for some reason - she has yet to tell her mom and she should be the one to share something that deep......
give her time - for she is dealing with the many levels of this am sure

be thankful that she felt she could share this with you.....she needs someone to talk to, despite what they share in those clinics - abortions carry many more burdens than the fetus/baby - as God calls it

thanks for caring for this family

if God can forgive her and love her, mom can too!