I absolutely totally get what you're saying, Miss IC. And it seems to me that your apprehension is justified.

Well, IC, what do you have to say for yourself? Can you include Miss IC in your world? Do you realize that by shutting her out you are NOT protecting her... she's your partner and she wants to walk this path with you. Your intentions were honorable and I really understand your wanting to hold back, but do you see what her fear is? That you will withhold too much and leave her out in the snowbank alone?



I know that toward the end of his life my H did know he was slipping, and I only found this out after he died. People told me that he had shared some of his fears with them-- but not with me. I don't know if that was because we had retreated some from each other, or because just a month before he died I had lost a dear friend and was reeling from that. I'll never know until I get to ask him myself one day. ;\) It's natural to want to keep some of our fears to ourselves, partly to avoid alarming the other person, partly it's to protect ourselves... once you speak these things out loud they seem so much more real. Y'all have to find a balance between sharing every little anxiety and withholding too much.