Julie starts with a couple she is working with, where one partner's inability to name his own limits turned into burnout, resentment, an addiction, and eventually much bigger problems. The lesson is that nipping something in the bud early saves enormous heartache later, but almost everyone has fears in the way. She covers where those fears come from, why confidence is not the same as control, and how to prepare emotionally before a hard conversation. The second half is a walkthrough of DEAR MAN, Marsha Linehan's DBT scaffold, with live role-play and three member conversations.

Covered in this session:

• Why not speaking up costs more than speaking up: resentment, exhaustion, explosions, and checking out

• Growing up where having a voice had a cost, and how that becomes "I do not deserve a voice"

• Confidence is not control: your job is to pave the way for change, not to make the other person comfortable with it

• Separating discomfort from danger, using three questions to tell them apart

• Preparation: name what is under the anxiety, get clear on what you want them to know, decide whether you are sharing a feeling, a request, or a limit, and sit with the reaction you fear

• Speaking from vulnerability and agency together, since either one alone falls flat

• Front-loading, or naming your own discomfort out loud before you begin

• The DEAR MAN scaffold walked through live, including staying on topic when the conversation gets diverted

• Live coaching on needing a third party to speak for you, asking a friend for more time, and structuring hard conversations so one partner's nervous system does not flood