Telling Your Partner What Doesn't Work: How to Do It Without a Fight

There are things in intimacy that just don't fit: the pace, the timing, the touch, the words, the setting. Saying this out loud is blocked by everything at once — shame, fear of hurting the other person, the habit of just enduring it. So a person stays silent for years, then wonders why intimacy has become unbearable. This article is about how to talk about the uncomfortable stuff so that it doesn't tear the two of you apart.

Why Silence Feels Safer

Silence looks like a good deal: nothing is happening right now, no one is fighting, the evening is calm. But the price of that calm is high.