This one is for the person who would find it very difficult to explain to anyone why they are upset right now.

Nothing happened. There was no argument. The person is right there. That is, in a specific way, the whole problem.

Relationship loneliness is one of the loneliest kinds because it comes with a gag order. You are not allowed to say it out loud. You have what people want. You are supposed to be grateful. So you lie there in the dark being very quietly devastated and telling yourself it is probably nothing and you are probably tired and you will feel differently in the morning.

You might. But tonight you don’t.

This episode does not fix the relationship. It is not trying to. What it does is something smaller and in some ways harder: it takes the loneliness you have been pretending isn’t there and names it, and then takes it one layer further to something that, at the end of twenty-five minutes, will feel less like a wound and more like information about who you are.

It is best listened to with the light off.

Press play when you are ready.

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