So, my boyfriend has been dealing with depression for a few years now, and things are finally starting to get better for him.  A couple of days ago, we were talking about it and the circumstances that surrounded it, and he opened up to me about some details regarding a particularly hard time for him in the depression--some details that he had never been able to tell me when they were actually going on.  I felt terrible knowing the full extent of what he had been through, but I was also hurt because he hadn't been able to tell me.  He had always said beforehand that he was completely comfortable with me and that he could tell me anything, and that meant the world to me, he being an abnormally shy person and me being someone who, as you could all imagine, puts particular emphasis on the emotional intimacy between us.  Now, though, I have to face the fact that none of that is true; that, in what had to be the worst time in his life, he couldn't bring himself to tell me what was going on.  

I'm sort of having a hard time dealing with that.  I understand that things had sort of warped his perspective a little during that time.  He told me when we were discussing it that he still feels like he could tell me anything, though he knows that he didn't actually do it when things were bad.  I'm hurt because, when he could honestly tell me things like that, I felt so wonderful.  I felt like I had successfully made him feel safe, like he never had to deal with his pain alone.  That's what I wanted.  Now I feel like I'll never have that again because (hopefully) he'll never have another time like that in his life.  Therefore, no matter what happens and what he says and does to create that illusion, I'll always know that when it gets right down to the worst moments, it all goes away.

Our relationship is currently long-distance, but we're going to be together for a while in a month, and we've promised to have a talk when we can be in person.  I'm trying to decide what all I want to say to him when that talk comes.  I want to reassure him that we're still okay and that I accept him and love him even with what he told me, but I also want to express some of the feelings I mentioned above to him.  I'm thinking about it, and I think what I want to do is sort of explain an "abridged" version of the hurt-comfort/crying fetishes to him.  I don't want to bring in the word "fetish" or the sexual aspect, because a) the sexual part isn't that important to me and b) I don't want to damage his trust in me any more.  I think I want to say something regarding how important being there for him is to me.  Tell him that I am, by nature, more protective than the average girlfriend, that it manifests itself in many ways, from me wanting to be the "big spoon" abnormally frequently for a girl in a heterosexual relationship to me wanting to be able to actually take away all his problems.  That I just love the idea of making him feel safe, and that the reason his not telling me is hard on me is because it took away the feeling that I could successfully do this, that I could keep him safe.  I think maybe that if I blame the root of my pain on my own internal characteristics, it'll be easier to tell him it hurt me without him feeling as bad about it, and I would also get to explain this side of myself a bit to him, which I would really like to do.

So yeah.  Thanks a lot if you read all that.  I guess I don't really have any particular question to ask you all, I'm just sort of putting it here partially as a conversation starter for the forum and partially because I need to talk about it somewhere while I wait and plan for the real conversation.  So, to those of you that made it this far in the post, have any of you ever been hurt over knowing that someone you love most couldn't come to you in a time of need (particularly considering it meant so much to you, being someone with this fetish)?  Also, is there anything you think I should particularly be sure to say or not to say in trying to describe my desires to comfort and protect him (aside from the sexual stuff I already mentioned omitting)?