For about six months, a topic has been on the agenda of a close personal relationship. It rises to the surface and then disappears. Sometimes it seems easy to consider; other times, it seems too personal to talk about, and it's the thing to avoid. Yet sooner or later you need to clear the air, with yourself and with people around you who in truth have a right to know what's on your mind and share what is on their mind. In an intimate relationship, everyone needs to be listened to otherwise, it's not really intimacy. Said another way, avoiding the most meaningful topics is an excellent way to turn down the level of contact, a way to make intimacy less intimate. Once you check for that factor and make up your mind how you feel about it, the next step is to have the conversation. You may feel intimidated by the weight of the past, or by how much there is to heal, when you write it out like a shopping list—though that is not how healing works. The larger questions all involve trust, and how to consider what has happened in the past. They are closely related. Trust is built and maintained, in a delicate process. Part of how that happens is that everyone involved demonstrates through their actions that they really have learned from history. That, and there are no more agreements to deny or pretend.
