Velvet, thank you for taking the time to comment, despite being in a rush. I appreciate your insight and I will take your encouragement to heart. 🙂
Vera, no, he didn’t ask me to keep any of his secrets. I chose to leave my family and friends out of it for a few reasons. Firstly, many of them haven’t gotten to know him well enough to be able to see beyond the problem. I know that he is an awesomely caring, funny and intelligent human being who happens to have a disease. I’m afraid that if I were to talk to them about this they’ll never learn about his good qualities and he’ll have to suffer the prejudice for as long as we are together.
Secondly, I’ve seen how the people in his life have reacted when they found out. And these aren’t people close enough to be directly impacted by his actions that I’m talking about. Most of his friends and some of his family have abandoned him. The rest believe they are now at liberty to treat him like a child. He has very few good relationships left and I don’t want to deprive him of the opportunity to form new ones with the people in my life.
Thirdly, in all honesty I may be scared of what they will tell me. My cousin, who is about 15 years older than I am, was in a surprisingly similar relationship with a CG when she was my age. It ended with him committing suicide. I doubt very much that I would get any positive feedback regarding my situation.
And I can’t argue with you about having to take care of myself! I came across the advice yesterday while I was browsing another forum as well. I burst into tears because I don’t know how to anymore. There are a couple of other things in my life that have been problematic for a long time and my needs usually take a back seat to whatever else is going on. Right now, I wouldn’t know where to begin…