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Note: This story contains spoilers for<\/em> The Drama.<\/p>\n As a child of divorce<\/a>, I\u2019ve never thought of marriage as some alchemic, all-consuming bond that inherently changes every molecule of who you are. I\u2019ve also never believed that you have to tell your spouse absolutely everything that\u2019s ever affected you over the course of your life. (You\u2019re still an independent person! Or you should be, anyway!) But when three of my friends and I left an evening showing of Kristoffer Borgli\u2019s new film The Drama<\/em> on Sunday night and repaired to our local dive bar for wine, hot dogs, and a spirited discussion of the movie we\u2019d just seen, I was surprised to discover just how varied our reactions were. It wasn\u2019t The Drama<\/em> itself that divided us\u2014we mutually granted it a three-star Letterboxd rating\u2014but the question of how honest you need to be with the person you plan to marry.<\/p>\n Honesty is perhaps the central theme of The Drama<\/em>, with Zendaya\u2019s character, Emma, drunkenly admitting to her fianc\u00e9, Charlie (Robert Pattinson), and his friends just a few days before their wedding that she planned and almost executed a highly disturbing crime during her maladjusted adolescence. Charlie and his friends\u2019 reactions to Emma\u2019s confession form the bulk of the movie\u2019s titular drama\u2014but what my friends and I were more focused on was why on earth Emma told them about it in the first place.<\/p>\n It\u2019s admirable to want to be forthright about the worst parts of your past\u2014and, hey, spontaneous, tipsy unburdenings certainly happen in real life\u2014but are there some secrets too dramatic, too character-defining, too potentially dangerous to reasonably expect your partner to take in stride?<\/p>\n \u201cIn my personal opinion, a secret becomes \u2018too big\u2019 to keep in a marriage when it has the power to directly affect your partner\u2019s emotional, physical, or financial well-being,\u201d marriage and family therapist Dr. Tarra Bates-Duford tells Vogue.<\/em> \u201cThis is associated with the secret\u2019s ability to limit or negatively influence the other partner\u2019s ability to make informed choices about the relationship, i.e., whether or not they want to continue in the relationship. If keeping the secret leads to changing the reality of the relationship in a meaningful way; leads to emotional, physical, or financial harm if they learned of the secret; or takes away the agency in the relationship to decide if they would be okay with whatever is disclosed, then this secret should not be maintained.\u201d<\/p>\n Obviously, most marital secrets aren\u2019t quite on the level of the one that Emma lobs at Charlie. According to Psychology Today<\/em><\/a>, the most common secrets that people keep from their spouses revolve around trauma, infidelity, sexual orientation, gender identity, finances, and mental health struggles. None of these categories seem like they should be inherently insurmountable, and research has shown that people hold an average of 13 secrets at any given time<\/a>. Most of us aren\u2019t guarding one major, life-altering secret that would alter the fate of our relationships, but rather a compendium of smaller things we\u2019d rather not share about ourselves (even with our closest and most intimate partners). But over time, it\u2019s easy to imagine that kind of secret-keeping driving a wedge between us and the people we profess to hold closest.<\/p>\n If you want to prioritize a more honest relationship with your spouse or partner, but don\u2019t know how or where to start, Bates-Duford\u2014who specializes in family dysfunction and trauma\u2014notes that the way<\/em> you choose to disclose your secrets to your partner matters as much as the choice to do so in the first place. \u201cI have observed that clients tend to communicate high-impact secrets more effectively when they prioritize the timing of disclosure, take ownership, and emotional responsibility,\u201d she says. \u201cPrior to disclosure, it is important that the partner with the secret chooses a setting that allows for privacy, time to process, and provides both space and opportunity to answer questions that the other partner may have. Secret disclosures should not be rushed, disclosed during a heated exchange, or disclosed in passing.\u201d In other words, maybe don\u2019t take a cue from Zendaya in The Drama<\/em> and offer up your most closely held confidence over one too many glasses of skin-contact wine at your wedding menu tasting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n