Notes
This book gives general information. It isn't relationship counselling, legal advice or medical advice, and it's no substitute for a professional who knows your situation. NHS and Acas guidance is quoted as I found it in September 2026 and applies to England, or to Great Britain in the case of Acas.
I've kept sources out of the chapters where I could so they read easily. Here they are by chapter, with the limits I'm aware of. Unless I say otherwise, I read the published summary of each paper and not the full text. I checked each paper for a retraction or correction notice in September 2026 and found none. Where a chapter isn't listed, it rests on my own reasoning. That includes chapters 1, 3, 4, 12 apart from one study, 13 apart from one review, 14 apart from one study, and 16. Sam, the Saturdays and every other example are invented for illustration.
Before you start. The two questions about fear are from the NHS page "Getting help for domestic violence and abuse", which also gives the helpline number. The helpline named is described there as being for women, and the same page lists services for men and for other groups.
Chapter 2. Rosen and Tesser, "On reluctance to communicate undesirable information: the MUM effect", Sociometry 33, 1970, beginning on page 253. I couldn't obtain the paper or a summary of it. Dibble and Levine, "Breaking good and bad news: direction of the MUM effect and senders' cognitive representations of news valence", Communication Research 37, 2010, pages 703 to 722. There were 114 participants. Milliken, Morrison and Hewlin, "An exploratory study of employee silence: issues that employees don't communicate upward and why", Journal of Management Studies 40, 2003, pages 1453 to 1476. The list of reasons for waiting is mine, as is the distinction between deciding not to raise something and putting it off.
Chapter 5. Gilovich, Savitsky and Medvec, "The illusion of transparency: biased assessments of others' ability to read one's emotional states", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75, 1998, pages 332 to 346. None of the experiments involved couples or grievances, and applying the idea to hints is my step. McNulty and Russell, "When 'negative' behaviors are positive: a contextual analysis of the long-term effects of problem-solving behaviors on changes in relationship satisfaction", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98, 2010, pages 587 to 604. I read the full text. There were 72 newlywed couples in one study and 135 in the other, all in the United States. Indirect negative behaviour was coded as presumptive remarks about the partner's feelings, hostile questions, avoiding responsibility and sarcasm. Sighs and silences weren't coded, and the chapter says so.
Chapter 6. Levine and Cohen, "You can handle the truth: mispredicting the consequences of honest communication", Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 147, 2018, pages 1400 to 1429. That the participants were mostly in the United States is my assumption from the authors' institutions and isn't stated in the summary. The account of why rehearsals run dark is my interpretation.
Chapter 7. Overall and McNulty, "What type of communication during conflict is beneficial for intimate relationships?", Current Opinion in Psychology 13, 2017, pages 1 to 5. It's a short review. The rest of the chapter is my own argument.
Chapter 8. Schrodt, Witt and Shimkowski, "A meta-analytical review of the demand/withdraw pattern of interaction and its associations with individual, relational, and communicative outcomes", Communication Monographs 81, 2014, pages 28 to 58. There were 74 studies and 14,255 participants. The overall correlation was .36, with .42 for relational outcomes and .25 for wellbeing. McNulty and Russell as above. The distinction between peace and quiet is mine.
Chapter 9. Carrère and Gottman, "Predicting divorce among newlyweds from the first three minutes of a marital conflict discussion", Family Process 38, 1999, pages 293 to 301. There were 124 couples followed for six years. My caution about prediction studies of this kind is from general knowledge of criticisms made of them, and I haven't reviewed those criticisms for this book.
Chapter 10. Masicampo and Baumeister, "Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101, 2011, pages 667 to 683. The tasks were laboratory tasks. That booking a conversation quiets the rehearsals is my extension and hasn't been tested.
Chapter 11. Kruger, Epley, Parker and Ng, "Egocentrism over e-mail: can we communicate as well as we think?", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89, 2005, pages 925 to 936. The studies concerned tone in ordinary messages and not difficult conversations. That difficult messages are read as colder than intended is my inference.
Chapter 12. Rogers, Howieson and Neame, "I understand you feel that way, but I feel this way: the benefits of I-language and communicating perspective during conflict", PeerJ 6, 2018, article e4831. Participants rated hypothetical statements. The two-sentence opening is my own and hasn't been tested.
Chapter 13. Overall and McNulty as above.
Chapter 14. Gollwitzer and Sheeran, "Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes", Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38, 2006, pages 69 to 119. The rule and its parts haven't been tested together, and what I say to expect is my expectation and not a finding.
Chapter 15. The Acas advice is from its page "Grievance procedure step by step". The signs of an abusive relationship and the helpline are from the NHS page named above. Self-referral is from the NHS page "NHS talking therapies for anxiety and depression".