Tonight, at his own anniversary dinner, Luis will be asked one question. Six words long. It will take him eleven minutes to not answer it.

The restaurant is perfect. He booked it a month ago. He has notes on the wine. He has their whole love story rehearsed like a toast. What he doesn't have is the one sentence his wife actually came to hear.

Are you happy? With us?

He gives her a podcast statistic, a comparison to another couple, a timeline of their fifteen years, and her dying mother. Everything except his own heart. By the time he finishes, the candle is an inch shorter and she's reaching for her coat.

This is the Over-Explainer and a wife who is tired of listening. A man who answers feelings with information, and a woman who has slowly stopped asking.

But before you sentence him when she asked if he was happy, Luis did the most vulnerable thing he knows how to do. He gave the question everything. In his language, the size of the answer is the love.

In this episode:
• Why some partners talk more the more a question matters
• Over-explaining as a defense: what it protects and where it comes from
• The difference between wanting conversation and wanting contact
• Why short questions are the hardest ones to ask
• Ten words that reached her further than fifteen years of paragraphs

If someone you love goes quiet when you talk or you've been told you talk too much when all you were doing was trying to get it right, this episode is about your table.

A scripted story about communication, emotional intimacy and being heard, from relationship and communication coach Lola Agosu.

If something in that sounded like your house, you're not imagining it.

Every marriage runs on habits nobody chose, and nobody named. The free companion workbook walks you through the six patterns most couples fall into, in about fifteen minutes, and most people recognize themselves by page three. inspire2coach.com

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Stop the Cycle is a scripted series. Every story is a composite drawn from years in the room with real people. No client is ever depicted.

Be brave enough to speak. Safe enough to hear.