It’s been a while since I had a guest poster on here, but this one is well worth it! Dr. Corey Allan is a marriage and family therapist who’s worked with couples and addressed godly sex for a long time. You may recognize him from the Sexy Marriage Radio show/podcast where he’s been cohost for 16 years! Feel free to check my episodes with Corey on higher desire wives here and here later, but first here’s his wonderful post aimed at wives about how going along to get along may not be your best choice.

Take it way, Dr. Allan!

I want to talk to the woman who said “it’s fine” last night when it wasn’t.

Maybe it was about sex. Maybe it was about something else entirely — the plans he made without asking, the comment that landed wrong, the way he scrolled through his phone while you were mid-sentence. Whatever it was, you felt something rise in your chest. A flash of hurt. A flicker of anger. And then, almost instantly, you made a decision.

Let it go. Don’t make it a thing. Keep the peace.

You’ve made that decision a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. And every time, something small inside you goes quiet. Not peaceful. Just… quiet.

I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. I’ve been counseling couples for over two decades. And I need to tell you something that might be hard to hear: that silence is costing you far more than the argument ever would.*

*Quick note from J that I know Corey would agree with: if you fear that you’ll experience abuse if you speak up, please get help. That isn’t the situation for most of you reading, but for those few, it’s important to mention.

The Deal You Didn’t Know You Made

In my practice, I see a pattern so common it could be its own diagnosis. I call it mutual toleration — the unspoken agreement between two spouses to tolerate what they don’t respect in each other so neither one has to confront what they don’t respect in themselves.

It looks like peace. It feels like maturity. From the outside, people might even say you have a great marriage because you never seem to fight.

But underneath the calm surface, something is slowly dying. Your vitality. Your desire. Your sense of self.

Mutual toleration is a trade: I won’t bring up how you hurt me if you don’t bring up how I hurt you. I’ll manage your weaknesses if you manage mine. We’ll both pretend this is working.

The result? Low conflict, low connection, and a bedroom that feels more like a business arrangement than an intimate space. Therapist Terry Real calls this “stable misery.” I’ve seen it in hundreds of marriages, and it almost always starts the same way — with a woman (or a man, but in my experience it’s often the wife) deciding that the cost of speaking up is higher than the cost of staying silent.

It’s not. The math just feels that way.

Why You Keep Quiet (And Why It’s Not What You Think)

Most of us don’t swallow our truth because we’re doormats. We do it because we’re scared.

Here’s what’s actually happening: when something occurs in your marriage that feels like a criticism, a dismissal, or a threat — even a small one — your nervous system kicks into gear. You get a surge of anxiety, and you have about three seconds to choose: stay present and deal with it, or find an exit.

Most of us take the exit. And we’ve gotten remarkably creative about it.

Maybe you smooth things over with a cheerful tone that doesn’t match what you’re feeling. Maybe you redirect the conversation so you don’t have to sit in the discomfort. Maybe you tell yourself you’re “choosing your battles wisely” when the truth is you’re just afraid of what happens if you actually engage.

These aren’t character flaws. They’re protection strategies. Your brain learned a long time ago — maybe in childhood, maybe in a previous relationship, maybe in the early years of your marriage — that certain emotions aren’t safe to express. So you developed ways to manage the people around you instead of managing yourself.

The problem is, every time you take that exit, you teach your spouse (and yourself) that your real feelings don’t have a place in this relationship. Over time, you stop feeling safe enough to want what you want, say what you mean, or show up as who you actually are.

And if you can’t show up as who you actually are, desire — the real, embodied, I-want-you kind — doesn’t stand a chance.

The Mirror You Don’t Want to Look In

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable. I want you to try something.

Read the following paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:4–8 slowly. I’ve broken it into single lines for a reason.

Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love does not envy.
Love does not boast.
Love is not proud.
Love does not dishonor others.
Love is not self-seeking.
Love is not easily angered.
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil. Love rejoices with the truth.
Love always protects.
Love always trusts.
Love always hopes.
Love always perseveres.
Love never fails.

Now replace “love” with your first name. Read it again.

How’d you score?

I take this test periodically. I land between six and ten out of sixteen, which tells me I’ve still got work to do. And I’m a professional who teaches this material for a living.

The point isn’t to shame you. The point is to show you what you already know: nobody aces this test but Jesus. And without him, the kind of love described here — the honest, enduring, truth-rejoicing kind — is beyond what we can manufacture on our own.

But here’s what matters for your marriage right now: several of those descriptors are impossible to live out if you’re keeping the peace instead of telling the truth. Love “rejoices with the truth.” Love “always protects” — including protecting your own integrity. Love “is not self-seeking” — but neither is it self-erasing.

Keeping the peace at the expense of your honesty isn’t love. It’s fear wearing love’s clothes.

What Courage Looks Like at 9 PM on a Tuesday

So what do you do instead? You go first.

Not first as in you escalate, attack, or deliver a lecture. First as in you tell one true thing. One honest sentence, said with warmth, that represents what you’re actually experiencing.

“I felt dismissed when you picked up your phone while I was talking.”

“I’m saying yes to you tonight, but I want you to know I need to feel pursued, not just available.”

“When you made that joke in front of our friends, it landed on something tender.”

“I’m not fine. I don’t know exactly what I need yet, but I wanted you to know that.”

That’s it. One sentence.

You don’t need to have the whole conversation figured out. You don’t need to present a case. You just need to stop pretending you don’t feel what you feel.

Will it be comfortable? No.

Your nervous system will scream at you to take it back, soften it, laugh it off. That scream is not the voice of wisdom. It’s the voice of a protection strategy that has outlived its usefulness.

Will your husband respond perfectly? Probably not.

He might get defensive. He might go quiet. He might not know what to do with what you just said. That’s okay. His reaction is his to manage. Yours is yours.

The goal isn’t a perfect conversation. The goal is staying real. Because every time you choose honesty over silence, you build a muscle — the muscle of showing up as your full self in your most important relationship. And that muscle is the foundation of everything: deeper trust, real connection, and the kind of desire that doesn’t have to be manufactured because it grows naturally in the presence of two honest people.

The Peace That’s Actually Worth Having

There’s a difference between the peace that comes from avoiding conflict and the peace that comes from resolving it. The first one feels easier. The second one costs more.

But the second one is the only kind that leads somewhere worth going.

Your marriage doesn’t need you to be quieter. It needs you to be braver. Not the dramatic, blow-up-the-relationship kind of brave. The Tuesday-night, one-honest-sentence, I’m-going-to-trust-that-this-marriage-can-hold-my-truth kind of brave.

Go first. It will cost you the comfort of silence.

It’s worth it.

Dr. Corey Allan is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the host of Sexy Marriage Radio, and the author of the forthcoming book Go First: It Will Cost You. It’s Worth It.

For a free Healthy Marriage Mini-Course, visit tinyurl.com/smrcoursehhh.

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