Sarah* and her husband are both on a diet. What he doesn’t know, though, is that the reason she’s lost more weight than him is because she’s using Ozempic. In fact, the 46-year-old has kept it a secret from everyone. ‘I do feel guilty that it’s easier for me as I have no appetite but at the same time, I know he wouldn’t approve and I know it is really helping me,’ she says. Sarah’s found that the weight loss infections are helping with food noise and perimenopause symptoms.

When you’re in a relationship you’ll know that honesty is one of the key components for keeping things healthy and happy. Obviously, serious lies and deception are unacceptable, but what about keeping smaller things hidden from your partner? A shopping habit, a chocolate stash, or a few face tweakments every couple of months, for example.

I was at an exercise class recently when a friend told me she’d paid for a cleaner to come for three hours while her partner, who refuses to have a regular cleaner, was at work. She said she felt no guilt about it and would tell him that ‘yes’, she had cleaned the house, if he asked.

Cleaning and household chores are some of the most common things couples can argue about, especially if you both work, have children and are thus time poor. Rae Radford, 62 from Broadstairs, used to run an ironing service and recalls one of her clients who had three daughters under three years old. ‘Her husband had no idea that I did the ironing for her weekly and that she had a cleaner for four hours twice a week. He thought that she just coped. The agreement was that if he were going to be around, she’d leave a message, and I’d collect or deliver the ironing the next day. I worked for her for 11 years, as did the cleaner, and he never knew.’

In this case this ‘fib’ or failure to tell a partner the full picture didn’t cause any problems, and in fact, made life a lot easier for the woman. But how damaging can it be to hide behaviours or spending from your partner? Relationship counsellor Georgina Sturmer says: ‘The acid test is to ask yourself how you might feel if they discovered your secret? Would it be something that you could laugh and smile about – or is there a deeper problem within the relationship?’

One common habit or behaviour that people hide from their loved ones is shopping. This could be ordering things online late at night or going to the shops and hiding the bags at the back of the wardrobe. Personal stylist Lindsay Edwards, 39, shops with hundreds of women every year. She says something she hears all the time from her clients is: ‘I’ll have to hide these clothes from my husband when I get home.’

The reasons behind so-called ‘stealth shopping’ are varied. A woman might keep it secret because they want to avoid an argument with their partner about money or because the dopamine hit you get from buying something new has turned into a habit. Sturmer explains that these behaviours can form in the same way as an addiction. ‘They become a way to soothe ourselves and distract or mask more difficult feelings, and so we might be frightened about stopping them or giving them up, even if we are unaware of this latent fear.  And if we are scared that someone might ask us to stop, then we might also want to keep it hidden.’

Olivia, 40, has been secretly having Botox for the last three years without her husband having any idea. She says lots of her friends do it too and having the injections makes her feel more confident about herself. ‘I pay for it with my own money and Botox makes me happy so I’m not going to stop having it, but I’m also not planning to tell my husband,’ she says.

This is something Jen Vittanuova sees a lot at her aesthetics clinics in Harley Street and Huddersfield. She has one couple who both come to her separately for secret Botox. ‘They both attend the clinic and have always said “Oh I can’t tell my husband/wife I have this done, she wouldn’t understand”’, she says. ‘So many women come to the clinic saying they don’t tell their other halves.’

Psychotherapist and relationship coach Susie Masterson says a lot of these stealth habits could be due to women using, and placing value on, their financial freedom. She says shopping or having beauty treatments can feel like self-care which ‘makes us feel good about ourselves, and is thus a form of self-validation.’

‘Despite being in a relationship, we may feel that making autonomous decisions helps us maintain a level of power and control,’ she adds.

While most of the behaviours we’ve discussed are harmless to both parties, hiding things from each other can also be a sign of problems in your relationship. Failing to be open or communicate with your partner could stem from a fear of conflict, explains Masterson. ‘It might not feel psychologically safe for a woman to disclose what she spends her money on. This could be about the financial outlay, but also about the type of purchases made. For example, if a woman invests in aesthetic treatments and their partner doesn’t approve; it could be a potentially confronting conversation.’

Sturmer says that while ‘it’s healthy to want to retain your own identity within a partnership’ if you’re doing these things because you have concerns about your partner’s reaction then it’s time to confront this larger issue. ‘Every couple has a different balance in terms of openness, independence, co-dependence and secrecy,’ she says, but if the secrecy starts to outweigh the honesty then it’s time to think about your future as a couple. ‘What’s important is to understand our reasons for the decisions we make and to be accountable for them,’ says Masterson.