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I spent three days in a recording studio reading my own book out loud, cover to cover.

You may not know this, but I’m a huge introvert. It’s been a steady struggle pushing myself to continue making content online, because most of my life I’ve flown under the radar. Over the years, I’ve developed relationships with many of you, and it was important to me that my voice share these pages to make it more personal.

I was unprepared for what it would be like talking for seven hours straight into a microphone. Thank you, lemon water! And I’m reserved by nature, pretty stoic, so I kept wondering if I’d do the dialogues justice. There are moments in this book where someone is begging their partner to hear them, and I wanted my voice to convey that.

The whole time I was picturing someone listening on a morning commute or while folding laundry, finally hearing the thing they’ve been trying to understand about themselves or say to their partner for years. That’s who this book is for.

Why We Fight comes out in three weeks! The audiobook is narrated by me, available everywhere audiobooks are sold. Link in bio to preorder.

“Whatever you want.”

“I’m fine either way.”

“We can talk at 6 if you want to.”
“Okay, but do you want to?”
“Either is fine.”

If you live with someone who never has an opinion, you know this isn’t the easy partnership everyone assumes it is. It’s exhausting. Every decision becomes two: the choice itself, and the guesswork about what they really want.

From the outside it looks generous. They never push, never make demands, never seem to want anything for themselves. People probably tell you how lucky you are. But what you actually experience is the slow build of resentment that comes from making every micro-decision in the relationship while your partner watches and sometimes critiques the result.

Here’s what’s actually happening. They’re avoiding the risk of being wrong or upsetting you. If they don’t have a preference, they can’t be blamed for the outcome. If you pick the restaurant and the food is bad, you can’t criticize them. “Whatever you want” is the safest possible answer.

Most of them aren’t doing this on purpose. Somewhere along the way, they learned that having opinions was dangerous. Saying no got punished. Wanting things were dismissed. So they stopped knowing what they wanted, because the wanting itself was pointless.

The way out isn’t asking better questions. It’s removing the test. Stop asking. Start deciding. “I made a reservation for 7. Tell me if you can’t make it.” Now there’s information to respond to instead of a test they’re trying not to fail.

More on the patterns underneath your partner’s non-answers in my book, Why We Fight. Comment whywefight for the order link.