My partner and I communicate well with each other.

Communicating well includes knowing when not to. Some of the strongest exchanges in a long relationship are versions of: not tonight, but Thursday, followed by Thursday actually happening.

The failure isn't silence. It is silence with no return date, where a subject goes down and both people tacitly agree never to look at it again.

If something has been sitting unsaid this month, you don't have to open it now, at eleven at night, tired, in the wrong room. You do have to name the day.