Secret Lover issue-Bug or intended?

My sim is getting around town to stir the pot, and im unsure if its intended but when he has a secret lover, over time [or in my latest case almost immediately after] ill get the notification that my sim and secret lover sim are official partners...without the 'go steady' or 'go official' from the secret lover stage, which i think is why the secret children never seem to be secret since by that point the game reads them as being in a relationship, regardless if the secret lover is married or not.

Just a bit confused if that is intended or possibly a bug, or if the secret child thing is different from the dads perspective since I'm playing him atm.

If it is intended;

1. Does the perspective effect the mechanic?
2. Is there a cap to Secret Lover sims?
3. is there anyway to 'back track' the 'exclusivity' and back to secret lover stage?

Some info; the first 3? ish sims that were secret lovers, all became 'official partners' from the notification [similar to the first kiss notification] that 'X sim and X sim are now partners' at the exact same time when loading into my save without those sims being on lot So i dont think it was autonomously chosen to become official especially with 2 'secret' lovers at the exact same time.

I did notice that the 'memory' or connection thing on their profiles [where it could say things like 'deeply connected' etc] still had the 'Secret Lover' memory/relationship thing on the sims profile.

I'll try to give more info if anyone can confirm they have faced similar issues, Thanks for reading!! 🙂