Has anyone else never talked about "what if one of us gets seriously ill"? I finally brought it up and it was a lot.

Been married for 11 years. We talk about everything, or at least I thought we did. Finances, kids, career changes, where we want to retire someday. But somehow in over a decade we never once had a real conversation about what happens if one of us gets a serious diagnosis. Like actually serious.

It came up because my coworker's husband was just diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's at 44. Seeing what she's going through kind of shook me. I came home that night and just looked at my wife and thought, we have never talked about this. Not once.

I brought it up on a Sunday morning, kind of casually at first, like "hey I've been thinking about something." Within about 20 minutes we were both crying at the kitchen table. Not because anything is wrong, everything is fine, we're both healthy. But just the weight of realizing how much we'd been assuming without ever saying it out loud.

Turns out we had really different ideas about some things. She assumed I'd want to keep working as long as possible if I were sick. I actually wouldn't. I assumed she'd want to stay close to her family in that situation. She said she'd want it to be just the two of us somewhere quiet. We didn't know these things about eachother after 11 years.

The conversation was hard but I'm really glad we had it. We didn't solve anything or make any plans, it wasn't that kind of talk. It was more just, finally seeing each other clearly on something we'd both been quietly avoiding.

I guess I'm posting because I'm curious if other couples have had this conversation and how it went. Did it bring you closer or did it open up tension you weren't expecting?