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Just don't forget to hide the receipt
©Associated Press, CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. -- Keeping something from your spouse? If so, chances are it has more to do with your checkbook than a steamy affair or fantasy, according to a new poll. The most common secret is how much a spouse spends. About 40 percent of married Americans admit keeping a secret from their spouses. Of those, 48 percent said they had not told their spouses about the real price of something they bought, according to the poll, being published today in the August issue of Reader's Digest. One respondent, a woman married 26 years, said she doesn't think there's a marriage where that hasn't happened. She chalks it up to "good bargains." It wasn't just women; the percentage was about the same for husbands. One man concealed the price of a small purchase, saying the item may not have been big, but the price was. The pollsters did not ask if the expenditure was for a gift. The second most-kept secrets, at about 15 percent, are about a failure at work or a child's behavior. There are times when kids do things that would make the spouse ballistic, said one woman respondent. Only 2 percent of all respondents, equally split among men and women, said they kept mum about an extramarital affair. Sixteen percent of both men and women admitted that, at least once during their marriage, they wished they could wake up and not be married any more. Some people kept secrets not out of guilt but to avoid hurt feelings. One woman said her husband told her for years that her cocker spaniel had been stolen, to spare her the knowledge that it had been killed by a car. The poll was conducted by Ipsos-NPD, an Illinois-based research group, which surveyed 1,000 husbands and wives by telephone in March. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
