It's pretty tear-inducing just how much can go wrong in love because we fail to master a basic-sounding, hugely important skill that would probably have been in place if our childhoods had given us the right experience.
That is the art of saying how we feel relatively close to when we actually feel it, in a way that can be heard with gentleness and self-possession before our affections are irreparably affected.
In a better-arranged world, we would have been trained to speak up from an early age.
Alongside lessons in physics and geography, we would have learnt in our emotional communication classes exactly how to speak about our most intimate needs without causing upset.
The teacher would have told us to begin with a fundamental conviction: our needs are legitimate.
For example, there isn't anything wrong with us for not liking garlic, or not wanting to go on exhausting country walks, or not being thrilled by horses.
These aren't problematic positions; they are just us.
At the same time, it isn't fair or kind to say nothing at all to other people and then, when we are at the end of our tether, to begin to shout our needs, to act out our rage, to blame them for not being able to read our minds, minds which we've never taken care to open up to them.
It's incumbent on other people to listen, of course, but it's equally incumbent on us to speak.
We have to find our way to a poised manner of imparting difficult messages.
