For the intimacy issue, there’s no easy medium, so I have to pick from imperfect choices.
The best time to discuss intimacy is the “down time” when the couple are free from most baggage. Any emotional baggage about anything could /interfere/ with an honest discussion, esp. if one side has a deep aversion to this very topic.
- 👍 record-keeping, much better than chat
- .. I can and do follow up
- .. I can resend and ask her to respond
- .. can integrate with blog
- 👍 I’m far less verbose cf chat
- 👍 I’m less emotional, much better than chat
- 👍 she is less turned off, much better than chat
- 👍 I am effective in expressing my opinion, even simple sentences
- .. esp. good for complex ideas
- 👍 she has breathing space to respond, esp. when she’s not in the mood
- 🙁 she rarely replies
— f2f .. good for short-n-sharp
- 👍 interactive and clarifying .. I can hear her response, sometimes very important
- 👍 paralanguage .. effective release of my frustration
- 🙁 hard to get her to commit to a serious discussion time
— chat
- 20% interactive as benchmarked to f2f
- 🙁 I hate typing on phone/wechat
- 🙁 once I start, I tend to neglect the gross inefficiencies of chat