The key here is going slowly and staying curious. Again and again, we have seen couples turn things around simply by asking a lot of questions in the spirit of inquiry, rather than by jumping in to explain themselves.
The rule to remember is this: Understanding comes before explaining. Most people reverse this and try their hardest to get their partner to see things their way. It’s truly uncanny how it shifts when you can really hear your partner, when you can say “tell me more” and mean it. This, of course, is difficult when what your mate is telling you is hard to hear. But when you can hold on to it, this approach creates absolutely the right atmosphere for intimate disclosure.
— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 121