Internationally, Secrets sold more than 15 million copies, thus cementing Braxton's superstar status. After 92 weeks in the charts, Secrets was certified 8x platinum, becoming Braxton's second straight 8 million seller. The romantically content won't want to go anywhere near it.Other singles from the album included the double A-side 'I Don't Want To'/'I Love Me Some Him' (which peaked at number one on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart) and 'How Could an Angel Break My Heart ' this last featured Kenny G, with whom Braxton later toured. This is a solid addition to both artists' discographies. While most of these songs are ballads, Babyface rarely pulls out his acoustic guitar - a saving grace for those who tired of hearing it throughout the '90s. "Reunited" is a blissful ballad, but it's followed by the embittered "I'd Rather Be Broke," where Braxton asserts, "Just because your money's strong don't mean you can do the things that you do." Babyface is civil and clear-headed on "I Hope That You're Okay," claiming he "can't go through the motions anymore," but Braxton follows with a solo spotlight, "I Wish," that seems drawn from a different situation: "I hope she creeps on you with somebody who is 22/I swear to God, I'm gonna be laughing at you every day." As a narrative, the album can be hard to follow, but it's not as if breakups have a simple arc with a steady, unwavering decline. Either that, or the relationship is extremely up and down the singers sometimes sound as if they are addressing ex-lovers from other relationships. The sequence of songs plays out like scenes on shuffle. "Sweat," a slinking groove, is like the "Love During War" to Robin Thicke's "Love After War," while "Heart Attack," near the album's end, is a retro-disco move that seems more like a throw-in than a crucial part of the album.
The duo don't seem nearly as connected to them.
The emphasis is on divorce, indicated from the very beginning on "Roller Coaster," where Babyface enters with "Today I got so mad at you, it's like I couldn't control myself." The set finishes with the bittersweet "The D Word," seemingly a Sade homage, in which Babyface confesses "You still own my heart, forever and ever and ever." Moments that deviate from issues of romantic strife are few.
Both endured broken marriages, and presumably it's those experiences that inform the material here - a succinct collection of 11 songs, eight of which are duets. On Love, Marriage & Divorce, Toni Braxton and Babyface, creative partners going back to the early '90s, rekindle their musical relationship.
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