How Talking About Your BF With Your Friends Damages Your Relationship

When it came to my love life, I used to be an open book. It didn't take long before I dished on a recent sexscapade or asked someone new for relationship advice. It sounds bad, but I felt there was nothing to hide. Everyone gets in fights with their partners, and every college student is experimenting with sex, so who cared if I talked about my relationship?

The first answer to that is “no one” because people mostly do not care about things that don't affect them. The second answer is “me.” It didn't hit me that I should care about how open I was about my love life until I realized how much I let other people influence it.

I let my friends give me advice on how to deal with my boyfriend drama, and I spilled private details just to sound experienced. I'm getting better at keeping things to myself.

Here are five reasons you should keep your personal life personal:

1. Your relationship is your business.

Remember when Rihanna released the song “Nobody's Business” with her now ex-boyfriend, Chris Brown? While their relationship ended on a horrible note, the song made sense. Your love life ain't nobody's business, but yours and your baby's. No one needs to know what happens behind closed doors except you and your SO.

2. People can get the wrong impression.

Your friends are only told about two aspects of your relationship: the fights and the sex. They only hear about the times his phone dies when he's out with his boys, when he refuses to admit he's wrong and how amazing the make-up sex is.

You're not going to tell them when he cuddles you through endless episodes of "Pretty Little Liars" or cancels plans with the guys to FaceTime all night because you don't need advice on these things (and no one likes a show-off). So, it's not their fault if they end up thinking your boyfriend's a horny jerk when he's actually #baegoals.

3. Take advice with a grain of salt.

What you don't tolerate in your relationship can be normal for someone else's. For example, I won't go to bed if my boyfriend and I are fighting; we can spend all night working it out if we have to. But maybe, you'd rather give each other space and talk about it the next morning.

Every relationship works differently, so another person's advice might not help yours. Plus, no one is going to fully understand the situation other than your boyfriend, which is exactly why he's the only person you should be talking to.

4. They could influence the situation.

Unfortunately, misery loves company, and not everyone has your best interest in mind. Some people might think your boyfriend is a horny jerk, or maybe they're just anti-relationships.

As DJ Khaled would say, "They don't want you to win.” Someone could influence you to blow a minor fight out of proportion and the next thing you know, you think your boyfriend is cheating on you because he hasn't responded to your text in two hours.

5. You're probably not going to listen, anyway.

You're the only one who knows what's best for your love life. So, even after your co-worker convinces you to ignore your boyfriend for a whole week, you're going to end up doing whatever you want to do.

I mean, you probably blew up his phone while promising her you'd ignore him, and that's exactly how it should be. After all, there's a reason it's called your “private” life, and you'll be a lot happier once you start treating it that way.