DEAR ABBY: My husband and I are separating after six years of marriage. I am 31 and he is 33. After months of discussion and many sessions with a marriage counselor, we came to realize that we had no common goals. (He initiated the idea of separation after expressing a desire to be on his own again.)

I have cried, bargained and offered to compromise, but his mind is made up; he wants his independence. I refuse to commit emotional blackmail or entrap him with a pregnancy to continue the marriage. Therefore, I have decided the best thing to do is let him go. It hurts, but this way we can part as friends and get on with our lives.

Our problem: how to explain this to our families, friends and co-workers who have always viewed us as the "perfect couple." We rarely fought. We trusted each other, supported each other's careers, shared the work and had fun together. No one would suspect that we've been talking about separating for the past four months. It will be a shock to our families and a total surprise to everyone else.

Abby, we want to be truthful and call it a mutual decision, but I know people will look for something more scandalous than incompatibility as soon as this spreads via the grapevine.

How do we maximize understanding and minimize rumor fallout? -- D.J., ILLINOIS

DEAR D.J.: First, announce it to your parents, then inform other family members and friends. To minimize rumors flying, present a united front. The message should be along these lines: "'Sam' and I have agreed to end our marriage. Although it may come as a surprise to all of you, this decision is mutual. Even though we care for each other, we have decided that we no longer want to be husband and wife. Please don't press us further because we both would rather not go into details at this time."

If anyone is so insensitive as to question you further, simply say, "We'd rather not discuss it right now."

Good luck to both of you ... wherever your separate paths may take you.

DEAR ABBY: My youngest brother-in-law is getting married this spring. We live on opposite sides of the country, but we are expected to come to this wedding. We simply can't afford to go as a family. My husband thinks he should go anyway, even though his wife and kids can't. I disagree with him; I say if we can't all go, then none of us should go.

I already know what the outcome is, but I would like to know what you think about this problem, and how would you resolve it?

I also know what the outcome would be were it someone in my family getting married. I'd tell them flat out that we cannot afford to go to the wedding, then we would send them a gift and our best wishes.

Am I being selfish, Abby? Or is my husband? -- FEELING ABANDONED

DEAR FEELING ABANDONED: I do not agree that since all of you can't afford to go to the wedding, nobody should go. Since your husband's youngest brother is being married and you can't afford to go with him, I think your husband should go without you.

By the same token, if someone in your family were being married on the opposite side of the country, and both you and your husband could not afford to make the trip, you should go without him.

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DEAR ABBY: My husband underwent multiple bypass surgery a year ago, and he's rapidly falling back into his old habits of working too long and too strenuously. I'm afraid he is soon going to be back to the state of health he was in when he got that heart attack.

He is in his late 50s and is still a workaholic. He is holding down two full-time jobs and, being the perfectionist he is, he tries to excel at both. Forget exercise. He has a stationary bicycle at the foot of his bed that he's had for two years, and it's as good as new.

The reason I'm writing is that some of my friends have told me that you had a poem in your column titled "Slow Me Down, Lord," and I would like to get a copy so I can have it blown up and framed and hung over his desk. He has promised that if I get it for him, he will read it every day and try to slow down. Please? -- "SKEETER" IN SOUTH CAROLINA

DEAR "SKEETER": The poem was written by Wilferd A. Peterson, and I hope your husband can slow down long enough to read it. And here it is:

SLOW ME DOWN, LORD

Slow me down, Lord!

Ease the pounding of my heart

By the quieting of my mind.

Steady my harried pace

With a vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me,

Amidst the confusions of my day,

The calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tensions of my nerves

With the soothing music of the sighing streams

That live in my memory.

Help me to know

The magical resoring power of sleep.

Teach me the art

Of taking minute vacations of slowing down to look at a flower;

To chat with an old friend or to make a new one;

To pat a stray dog;

To watch a spider build a web;

To smile at a child;

Or to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day

That the race is not always to the swift;

That there is more to life than increasing its speed.

Let me look upward

Into the branches of the towering oak

And know that it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord,

And inspire me to send my roots deep

Into the soil of life's enduring values

That I may grow toward the stars

Of my greater destiny.

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DEAR ABBY: I must take exception to your response to Karen A. Tamura of Cerritos, Calif., concerning the Vietnam War.

You said that National Guard units fired into a group of peaceful demonstrators at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine.

Mobs are seldom "peaceful." These "students" confronting the National Guard at Kent State that day in 1970 constituted a mob. Their zeal for a cause led them astray. Four had to die before reason regained the upper hand. They were armed with bricks, rocks and clubs, and were scarcely in a mood to exercise discretion. It is ever so easy, after the fact, to declare what was should not have been. -- ALLAN E. BOVEY, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

DEAR ALLAN: Read on:

DEAR ABBY: For years I have fumed as I read the sob stories about the "peaceful anti-war demonstrators" at Kent State. I know Vietnam wasn't a popular war -- I hated it, too. It is too bad these demonstrators were killed -- but peaceful? NO!

1. These "peaceful" demonstrators burned the ROTC building.

2. These "peaceful" demonstrators had been ordered to leave, but refused.

3. These National Guardsmen were about the same age as the "peaceful" demonstrators. They were there obeying orders. Wouldn't you feel your life was threatened if you were a member of a small group facing a large crowd who was pelting you with stones and other missiles? Small wonder someone panicked and fired.

Everyone has heard about the "peaceful" demonstrators who were injured or killed, but the public has never heard about the guardsman who phoned his young wife and cried as he told her what he had seen, and who today, at age 48, still has problems as a result of what happened that day, and the subsequent questioning and harassment these innocent young men were subjected to because of the Kent State riots!

No, I wasn't there -- but my 22-year-old brother was an Ohio National Guardsman protecting his country, his state and the taxpayers' lives and property. -- HAD IT WITH KENT STATE IN OHIO

DEAR ABBY: Perhaps being attacked with bricks, bottles, etc., is a peaceful demonstration to you, but those 18-year-old guardsmen were scared into retaliation. Where, oh where, has the truth gone? -- PHYLLIS GOLLESLIN, MELBOURNE, FLA.

DEAR ABBY: The governor of Ohio did not send for the state National Guard because of "peaceful anti-war demonstrators" at Kent State in May 1970. Mobs of raging students were roaming the campus -- pillaging and burning everything in sight (including whole buildings). Local authorities were terrified and helpless. Blame the issuance of live ammunition to a group of frightened soldiers, completely inexperienced in mob control, who were being shouted at, spit on, or hit by bricks and rocks. These guardsmen were no older than the students.

Abby, please read current accounts (unbiased) before wrongfully reporting this terrible tragedy. -- DAVID PAIGE, PUYALLUP, WASH.

DEAR DAVID AND DEAR READERS: My source for the explanation of the Vietnam War and reference to Kent State came from the World Book Encyclopedia. I felt that this was an unbiased account, and it was in no way intended to mislead or inflame. Referring to it as a "peaceful" demonstration was my mistake. I now know the truth.

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