Do We Ever Really Know Anyone Else?

Last week my partner came home with a bombshell – at least it felt that way to me.  It was work related, and it came as a complete surprise.  We have lived together for nine years now, and been together for ten.  I had no idea he was thinking any of what he told me that day, much of it that would obviously have an impact on me.  I did not react well.  All of my fear buttons were pushed: we won’t be able to afford our lives; I will be left out; I won’t be considered; he will leave me if I don’t agree to these changes; I will be alone.  Instead of listening to his experience and thoughts on how to cope, his ‘truth’, I reacted with my own stuff, which was not a good choice.  I don’t think he had to unload all of it at the same time, or all of it at all, but I have come to learn (clearly not well enough) that people who tend to keep a lot inside, also tend to blurt when they do unburden themselves, and what they blurt  doesn’t mean actions will necessarily follow.  Unfortunately I took him at his word, and freaked out.  Afterwards, when we had reached understanding about what each of us was saying and feeling, I asked him if he thought anyone could ever know another person.  Yes, he quickly replied. Except in an unusual situation, like being stranded with people you don’t know well in a plane or boating accident.  People act in unexpected ways when they are threatened or very frightened.  Indeed! He added that when you’ve lived with another person for years you do know them in very deep and personal ways, which is why you feel less alone.  I joked that if we were stranded on that island his first  move would be to make sure I was safe and secure. “Hell no. It’s every man for himself!” he joked. Then he said that once he was sure I was OK he would organize everyone into teams to ensure our survival: tool making, food gathering, exploration, shelter construction, etc.  The subject moved away from the one I intended, but so it goes.  What I’ve come to understand myself is that we can know another person only so far.  Of course we can trust what we know, but we can be equally surprised by what we don’t.  That makes me uneasy, as does much in life, especially in our increasingly  unequal and unjust world, but I also think it is true.  Now comes the work of learning to accept it.  In the end are we actually alone? What do you think?