In this rich and moving episode, I talk with therapist and upcoming author Colette Jane Fehr, whose book The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love offers a compassionate roadmap for the moments that test — and ultimately strengthen — our relationships. Whether you’re in a relationship or seeking one, this conversation will give you tools to show up more bravely — and more lovingly — in the places that matter most.

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Listen For

• 03:19 Why is it important to have the hard conversations?
• 06:27 Why do we need to understand our fears and what’s happening inside of us?
• 12:10 How do you have assertive communications without being “aggressive”?
• 20:09 What is self-connected communication and why is it important?
• 34:21 What are the benefits of building your confidence and finding and using your voice?

 

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How To Have The Hard Conversations That Build Intimacy And Trust

An Interview With Colette Fehr, Author of The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love

It is so often the hard conversations that make or break our love relationships. In this episode, I interview Colette Jane Fehr, the author of the wonderful new book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love. In this episode, she will teach you the skills that you will need to keep your love alive and growing, even through those conversations that we know we need to have, but are so challenging to do.

 

 

KEN PAGE – Hello everybody, and welcome to the Deeper Dating® Podcast. I am so glad to be with you here today and so excited about my guest, Colette Fehr, who is the author of the upcoming book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love. I am just really excited to be here with Colette. I am just going to say a few things before we jump in.

I just want to say that in this and every episode, I try to share with you the greatest insights and tools that I know to help you find love and keep it flourishing and growing and heal your life in the process, because the skills of dating are the skills of intimacy, and those are the greatest skills of all for a meaningful, happy life.

If you want to learn more about the Deeper Dating® path to intimacy, you can just go to DeeperDatingPodcast.com, and you can find transcripts of every episode there. If you go to DeeperDatinggifts.com or if you sign on on the podcast, you can get a copy of my eBook of concepts that have gone viral on Psychology Today, and it’s called The Five keys to Deeper Intimacy. I am so glad to have all of you with me. I am so glad to be sharing this time with Colette. Welcome, Colette.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Thank you. I am so happy to be here, and I can’t wait for this conversation. Thanks for having me.

KEN PAGE – I just think that this is such a truly important piece of the whole intimacy journey, and I am thrilled that my listeners are going to be getting tools and insights from you for how to make this come alive in their relationships. I want to tell everybody a little bit about you first because I was just really excited to have you on. Colette is a licensed psychotherapist, a nationally recognized relationship expert, and the author of The Cost of Quiet, How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure, Lasting Love.

This book is coming out on February 3rd, 2026. That is a really exciting contribution. Colette co-hosts the popular podcasts, Insights from the Couch, real talk for women at midlife and Love Thy Neighbor, The Relationships Show also her 2025 TEDx talk Secrets of a Couple’s Therapist was actually selected as a TED editor’s pick and she has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Opera Daily, and other major media outlets. This topic matters so much, so I am so glad to have you here, Colette. I want to begin with a question, and that is, can you tell us why this matters so much to you, personally, and also in your professional mission?

The Cost Of Quiet: Silencing Your Voice & Conflict Avoidance

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes, it really matters so much to me because I lived the flip side of this journey, where I allowed my voice to be silenced. I did not realize I was doing it at the time, of course, in my first marriage, for many of the same reasons that so many of my clients come into my office for therapy, saying the same things I once did that, “I want to communicate, but I cannot, I do not get a good response. We just get into a dead-end argument”.

“He, she, they do not respond well to me when I try”. I noticed these patterns that I related to so much from my own failed first marriage, where you think you’re communicating, but you’re really not necessarily saying it in the way that is the most clear, vulnerable, and assertive, which are the tools I teach in my book. Then knowing how to take care of ourselves emotionally when and if we don’t get the response we want.

Just seeing that this is such a pervasive problem is really why I’m so passionate about this, that when I say quiet in the title of the book, sometimes it’s self-silencing and losing your voice like I did, but oftentimes, quiet’s really a euphemism for conflict avoidance. We’re all scared of conflict, naturally. It’s human because of how we’re evolutionarily wired, right, to fear anything that feels like a threat to our relationship.

We’re all naturally scared of conflict. It’s human—we’re evolutionarily wired to fear anything that feels like a threat to our relationships. But if we want emotional intimacy, conflict can be the best path to it when we know how… Share on X

But if we want that emotional intimacy, we know that conflict is actually the best way to get there if we know how to harness it for its possibility for deeper connection. That’s what the book is all about. I think I have so many people in my office who are like me, and that they’re assertive in other areas of their life. They have great jobs, right? They’re not shrinking violets. Yet when it comes to their relationships, because of a multitude of factors I outline in the book, they find themselves saying, “It’s not a good idea to bring that up, or I’ll just let that go.”

When we do that, when we do not address the small frustrations, whether we’re dating or in a long-term relationship or with colleagues or our family members or our friends, these things accumulate like pebbles in a jar, and they tend to calcify and harden into resentment that destroys the relationship over time. Also, most importantly, the greatest cost that I refer to is that it ruins your relationship with yourself. It ruins your inner well-being.

KEN PAGE – So powerful. All those things are so true. There is a cascade of consequences that happen both inside ourselves and in the relationship from that, but like you said, it is so scary. It’s so scary to do this. Can you talk more about that fear? Before you speak out, the fear that you might feel, maybe you feel some kind of dissociation, maybe numbness. You might not even be unconscious fully that something’s wrong. If you could talk about that backstory before we get to the point of communication, what happens inside us.

Understanding The Biological & Trauma-Informed Basis Of Fear

COLETTE JANE FEHR – I am glad you’re asking this because this is actually really the hardest part. You’re right that it’s often unconscious. I want to just acknowledge that many people have been through significant trauma. Emotional neglect even is just as traumatic as physical abuse. There are so many different versions. For those of us who had very challenging family of origin experiences or childhood experiences, if there was abuse, if it wasn’t safe to speak up, if it was never modeled, that people handled conflict in a healthy way, which for most of us, I like to say if you’re over 40, certainly, you probably didn’t see a lot of emotional attunement in your household, even if you had a pretty good family of origin.

It just wasn’t the thing back then, right? I had great parents, even though they got divorced, wonderful people, very loving, but nobody was leaning in, looking me in the eye and saying like, “How are you feeling, Colette?” My parents weren’t raised that way. This is something very new to most of us.

KEN PAGE – So true.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes, absolutely. I talk a lot about attachment science and attachment styles in the book, and how our family of origin experiences condition this, but then there is the simple fact that, regardless of that, regardless of trauma, it is very scary to lean into a conflictual moment. This is because of our biological wiring to need other people. We’re wired for connection. We’re pro-social herd animals. It’s in our DNA and in our neurobiology that if something feels like it could jeopardize the relationship being good, even a little moment, you see someone, you’re at a date, and somebody’s eyebrow goes up, like they did not like what you said, right?

We have an unconscious deep wiring that sets off an alarm bell that goes, “Danger, danger, danger, don’t do that,” right? That’s going to rock the boat. That’s going to push this person away. They did not like it. We’re relational beings. When we talk about leaning into conflict, it’s natural to feel afraid of something that feels like it could jeopardize or threaten the attachment bond or the burgeoning attachment bond.

Then also let’s be real about our biology in terms of pain. If you don’t get a great response, it hurts. We are averse to anything as human beings that brings pain. The idea of embracing conflict can feel like to people, I am telling you to go put your hand on a hot stove, right? It’s completely counterintuitive. Yet this fear is so natural and normal, but there are two things I really want people to know that I feel very confident are true from years of doing this work.

 

One is that the anticipation, anticipatory fear, is usually far worse than the thing itself, far, far, far worse. The second is that we know from the psychological concept of the paradox of fear that the more you do the thing you’re scared of, the easier it becomes. Every time you dive into a conversation, and you say something when you might have in the past been tempted to let it go. You work through the fear. You’re going to feel afraid. Like psychologist Susan Jeffries said decades ago, “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. You actually speak up.

A part of you goes, “Wow, look at that. I did not die from that.” Right? “It wasn’t as bad as I thought.” Then you start to build an emotional muscle where it just becomes easier and easier. We find that with certain tools that I’m happy to elaborate on at whatever point you want me to, that with the way you speak up, you often do get a good response. As you develop yourself, you realize, as an emotionally mature adult, that even though it’s not always ideal and it can feel painful, you can also handle it when you do not get an ideal response.

KEN PAGE – Wonderful. Yeah, I really want everybody to hear these tools, but I just want to stay for a few minutes more with this understanding of the fear. In my six-month intensives, I originally created those for single people, and then people who are in relationships said, “I really want to be a part of this too.”

I am thinking about what you’re saying in with the struggles that people experience in both of those cases, the single people who on a date or an early dating, struggle with, do I say what did not feel good, do I ask for what I want, etc. It’s so hard and so important, and also sets the stage for the future.

For people who are in relationships, and this was so powerful for me to see that the work of people who were in relationships is so much to be able to articulate our asks. Talk about what feels uncomfortable. Talk about what it is that we need. What I have found is that it’s harder than we think. It’s just really harder than we think. I think these tools are so key because if we’re in a good relationship, it’s easy to think I should just be able to do this, or I am in a good relationship, I should just be able to let this go because things are great. The other piece, I guess, I am just bringing up how this is for people in early dating and how they deal with their fear. For people in relationships, I guess we’ll talk about those tools in a moment, but if you could say something about the dating process and kind of how easy it is to squash our authenticity.

The Challenge Of Assertiveness In Early Dating & Relationships

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Oh my God, it is so difficult to speak up. First, let me say two things. One, I, as an adult, was dating for many years as a divorced single mom. I was eleven years single between marriages. It’s not just I work with a lot of people who are dating or dating after divorce as a therapist, but I’ve also been there myself. I had those moments where, despite knowing what I know, I did not say something. It’s very difficult. I like to say this process is actually incredibly simple, which is true, but it’s not easy.

It’s difficult. I want to give a nod to that. I want to also say that to me, the biggest message that we have to understand is that I already mentioned emotional maturity, but really, this is the value of dating of relationships is that other people in these intimate situations push your buttons, they push on your raw spots, on your potential triggers in ways nobody else in your life can, not your friends, not your coworkers. It shows us where we still need to grow and evolve.

This idea, as challenging as it is, of speaking up for yourself, taking care of your own inner child, we all have that little vulnerable person still in our bodies, our grown-up bodies, and really saying when something isn’t right or does not feel good. Yes, it’s difficult, and it is our greatest task of emotional maturity, and it is our fundamental responsibility to ourselves to do this. I see it as our growth journey, each and every one of us, to figure out how to do this.

That said, it’s not easy. When you’re early in the dating experience, it’s very challenging because you’re super vulnerable. You do not really know someone yet. You do not know how they’re going to react. You may be just getting a conversation going, and they’ve said something that rubs you the wrong way or offends you, or you’re not sure how they received something that you’ve said. It can feel so strange and even inappropriate to actually address something head-on because most people are conflict-avoidant, and most people do not do that, but I do think we can use a little bit of discernment, right?

The situation, how safe we feel, the other factors that are present, and err on the side of saying something, but saying something clearly and gently. This is the hugest part of assertive communication that I think gets lost, whether it’s in early dating or later in a relationship. It’s the same muscles, right?

It’s the same tools applied to different situations, as you’ve already said. It’s really that assertiveness, and as women, let me just say, assertiveness is still, women are still judged tremendously for being assertive, that we’re seen as difficult or called aggressive, where men tend to be told like, “Good for you, you’re a strong man,” but assertiveness is really just being clear, direct, honest, but also being kind.

Women are still judged harshly for being assertive—often labeled difficult or aggressive—while men are praised as strong. Yet assertiveness is simply being clear, direct, honest, and kind. Share on X

Assertive is not aggressive. Let us say you’re on a date, and someone said something to you, and you did not like it. You might just say, “You know, I’m sure you had no malintent with what you said, but I just want to let you know how that landed with me. Are you open to hearing about that?” Yeah, it’s a, it’s a truthful statement. You’re not blaming the person. You’re not accusing them of anything. If they’re receptive, then you can share more about how it felt inside.

KEN PAGE – I love that. As you’re speaking, I’m just thinking that the meta theme here in some way is about peacekeeping and creating peace. I am thinking of it, though, as what you’re teaching is dynamic peacemaking.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – I love that. I am going to steal that, Ken.

Special Considerations For Marginalized Communities & Speaking Up

KEN PAGE – That’s what’s inspiring me about this. It’s like work. It is work, but it builds something that wouldn’t otherwise be built. I love what you’re saying. Now I want to move on to you sharing tools, but before that, I just also want to mention that I’ve seen in my work that marginalized people, members of marginalized communities, may have a particularly hard time with this.

For example, people who are neurodiverse and have shame around that and feel like, how do I take up space with this extra need that I have? LGBTQ people, people of color, women, people with other kinds of disabilities as well, I think more easily are reeled in from sharing this. Any thoughts that you want to share about getting support for these communities?

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Oh my gosh, it’s so true. I’ve seen this so much in my work with clients. I think we have to think about the intersectionality of each individual and the various reasons why it might be harder to speak up. I will say, even though I’m a woman in many other ways, I have these identities that make it easier for me to move through the world, like being white and being able-bodied and not being neurodiverse. I also grew up in an environment where speaking up was encouraged, and still I struggled, right? Still, I struggled. I do think that I’ve felt the identity piece of being a woman, and that people want to hear from you in certain situations, but not others.

KEN PAGE – Right, and then the whole romantic piece about if you want an alpha male, you’ve got to be really careful with that because you could scare them off, and the fragility of alpha male-ness.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – You know, I think that I did. I think there are men, and I’m heterosexual, so I will just speak for a second to this piece of the experience, but then I want to extrapolate it out that when I was younger, I very much loved the traditional alpha male, but I always let my personality be bold and very forward, but when I’d get into a relationship, and I think men who liked smart women who had a lot to say were the ones who were attracted to me.

When I’d get deeper in the relationship, and something could make me feel like, “If I said this, they might think I’m too much,” or “I might push them away,” or “They might not love me anymore.” I really struggled with those things as I got deeper into the connection. Some people do better with the part where they do not know people, and then they’re more outspoken when they get more connected.

I want to go back to what you’re saying about people with marginalized identities and various different particularities that make it challenging, because I think it’s so true. I think that, of course, I want to encourage everybody that we feel all that awkwardness and that we may counter very hurtful or unfair reactions, but that it’s still worth doing, and it is so self-reinforcing because the one piece that does happen is that when you say something and you take care of yourself with self-compassion and validation, bolstering yourself that, “You know what, I did not get a good response and that person stinks, but good for me,” right?

It really builds your confidence, and more and more it becomes possible, and it becomes easier, and then we do have a contagion effect where the people around us, when we do this, people around us then feel like they have permission to be vulnerable, to be honest, to be assertive. It’s worth it for all of us, but it is harder for some than others. I think we have to acknowledge that.

KEN PAGE – I really appreciate that. That’s so true. In your book, you have three sections, and the second section is about finding your authentic voice. Talk to us about that.

Self-Connected Communication: Tuning Inward (Feelings, Needs, Validation)

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes. It is a process that I’ve developed that pulls from many of the, I’m sure there’s some of the same stuff in your work. There are so many different models that address these same things. It’s not really that I’ve developed anything unique, but I’ve put my own spin on what I’ve seen from years of therapy, really, really works, and makes this actionable and accessible. I call it self-connected communication.

KEN PAGE – I love that.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yeah, our connection to ourselves is the most important. If you’re not connected to yourself, you cannot have emotional intimacy. You cannot connect to anybody else without that wall being there, or what I call a surface relationship. It all starts – this communication, and finding your voice starts with tuning inward, getting curious, and processing so that you understand what you feel and need before and you get very, very clear on that and what you want to say before you approach another person, whether it’s on a date or in a relationship that’s evolving.

Our connection to ourselves is the most important. If you’re not connected to yourself, you can’t have emotional intimacy or truly connect with anyone else. There will always be a wall there. Share on X

Let us say you’re in that midpoint where, you know, you’re dating somebody, and it’s not super serious yet. I think that can be the hardest stage of all, really, for people. It’s really like, and first let me say just scientifically that feelings it’s not a woo-woo thing. I grew up in a family where my dad’s a doctor, my mom’s a lawyer.

They’re very smart, wonderful people, but they’re very logical and analytical. I’ve always been this big feeler. I think there’s a temptation still, especially in American society, to act like feelings are kind of woo-woo, and it’s really not true. Feelings are emotional, like they’re information-processing signals in the form of emotions that are designed to go off in your body to point you to your needs.

KEN PAGE – That was so well said. That’s great.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – It’s so true, right? So this is if we’re dismissing our emotions, we’re just compartmentalizing them, pushing them aside. We’re really not listening to ourselves, and we cannot even advocate for our needs if we do not know what they are. What I hear so often from people is, “I do not know what I feel. I do not know what I need, or I know what I feel, but I do not know what I need.”

You do know it’s like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. She’s running around looking for this ridiculous little man who turned out to be a hoax anyway, trying to find the answer outside herself when all along, all she had to do is click her heels, and she could go home. You know your intuitive self knows. The first part of self-connected communication is to go inward. Notice what’s happening in your body.

Sensations in the body, like a pit in the stomach, tension in your chest, a lump in your throat, a headache, right? These are often the first signs that emotions are happening, and then we want to tune into our emotions and actually name them, not an interpretation of like, “Well, I think you do not care about me,” or “I feel like you do not care about me,” right? That people say that’s an interpretation. That’s what I would call the story.

First, we want to name our feelings. I’m anxious, I’m lonely, I’m sad, I’m scared, I’m hurt, I’m angry, right? All roads go back to a couple of core emotions, and in relationships, it’s most often surface-level anger, irritation, or frustration, and then underneath it, fear, shame, hurt, loneliness, right? These are the core feelings to the human experience.

So we want to name those because that helps us regulate a little, and then it helps us point to our own needs. Then you go inside and really ask yourself, I like to close my eyes, you do not have to, and just ask yourself directly that part of you. Like, “What is this emotion trying to tell me? How would I comfort a friend? Do I need reassurance? Do I need behavior change? What would I hope would happen for somebody I love if they were feeling the way I am?”

By getting really curious, you’re going to find that your intuitive voice answers you. You have what I call a sage self inside, and this is a wise, loving adult that has way more information than you realize if only you’ll tune in and listen. This is the whole first step before we get into the expressing is finding out what you feel and need, because you cannot communicate if you do not know that.

KEN PAGE – Yeah, there was just so much in what you said because you talked about first starting with the signals that something’s going on for you and then moving into identifying what the feelings are there, and then this other part, which I really want to encourage people not to gloss over because that was a really strong and powerful instruction for gaining self-wisdom, connecting to your intuition and self-validation in a deep way, dignifying what you’re experiencing by thinking about what do I need? What would I advise someone I care about? I just want to really encourage people do not miss that step because it’s huge.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – It’s the whole thing. Yeah, and I love the way you say it, Ken. I love the term dignifying what you’re experiencing because we want to witness ourselves. I think that’s the part that often falls to the wayside. We’re so thinking about how we show up for other people, which is important, but let’s show up for us, and let’s validate that we’re feeling how we’re feeling for a reason. Our feelings are never wrong. They’re never stupid or silly. Now, what you do with them, once you have that information, you have choices, but we’ve got to tune in and really honor ourselves that what we’re experiencing is happening for a reason. Something important needs our attention.

 

KEN PAGE – Beautiful. I love that you are starting with this, and I want you to continue. What do we do next after this foundational work you just described?

The Self-Connected Communication Blueprint & Gentle Expression

COLETTE JANE FEHR – So I give a whole also, I just want to let people know in the book, I really make this very step by step, lots of exercises, lots of scripts that can be used not only in romantic relationships too, even though I focused on that in the book, just because I do a lot of couples therapy and divorce therapy, but this can be applied to all of our relationships, our close friendships and our family members and even coworkers.

Once we’ve gone inward and, like you said, that validation piece, that self-compassion, talking to ourselves like we would someone we love, we tend to be really hard on ourselves. Let’s not invalidate our own experience. Once we get clear, I encourage people to write these things down if possible, because it really, really helps you to process and distill and clarify. I give a very detailed tool in the book called the self-connected communication blueprint that walks you through exactly the questions and exactly the way it’s almost like Mad Libs for emotional maturity and intimacy.

KEN PAGE – That’s huge. That’s huge. That sounds like it would be so helpful.

I use it myself because emotions, when you’re in the swirl of them, they can feel big and confusing. These things help. Once we get clear on, you know, I did not say this part as much, but what’s the story that you’re making up? The brain is a meaning-making machine. If you put, let’s take a dating, if I could just give a little example here.

Let’s take somebody on like a fourth date, okay? Someone makes a comment. I’m trying to think of something. Okay, somebody makes a comment about where they like to vacation, and the other person makes a very strong statement that they hate that place and here’s why, and it becomes this sort of debating style. Just to give an anecdotal thing. One person might go, “God, that was so obnoxious and rude. This person is so opinionated and arrogant. They do not care about the fact that I have a different opinion.”

Somebody else might go, “Wow, what an interesting opinion. Let’s debate this more because they’re wrong and I’m going to show them why this is fun.” Right? And somebody else might go, “Oh my goodness, like I offended them and they’re so intense.” Like, “I should not say I should not have said what I said. I should have kept that to myself. I’m so opinionated.”

KEN PAGE – Great example.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yeah. You’re going to have wildly different ways things land. What we really want to do is realize that the story you come up with.

KEN PAGE – But it sounds like you as a jerk.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Right. I agree. Right. I’m with you. Totally would not work for me at all. I would not be going on a fifth date, but everybody’s going to react differently. I want people to just part of what we’re writing down before we communicate is also identifying the narrative, the meaning our brains have made of what happened that bothered us or is on our mind. There’s always going to be a meaning, and it’s going to feel like the truth, but we want to try to hold it lightly and name it as the story.

This is an important piece, right? Like you really see this as a therapist, Ken, because in my office, I’ll see the very same kinds of responses. One person will, when I’m doing couples work, one person will say, “Oh my God, you’re trying to manipulate me, I knew it,” and another person will say, “Thank you so much for sharing your feelings with me, that was so helpful to understand, to the same response.”

So what we want to hold is that whatever we come up with is likely informed by our family of origin, our personality, our cultural experiences, and not blame and accuse other people to realize that we’ve interpreted it as we have and to let them know, “Hey, here’s the story I came up with or here’s what this said to me.” So this is part of it. You’re going in this blueprint, you’re going to come up with what you feel, you’re going to know your emotions, you’re going to be able to name the story, right?

This told me that what I had to say did not matter to you. You did not want to hear my opinion. That’s the meaning I made. My feelings were anger, disappointment, and sadness. I’m just making this up. Then we get to what I need, and it’s what I need in this moment, and this is really big, and I want to encourage people because I think needs are so misunderstood. You’re never too needy, number one. Most of what you need a lot of the time is going to be comfort, reassurance, validation, and support. These emotional attachment needs that, because we’re relational beings, are so key.

 

KEN PAGE – You just cut through so much confusion to get to the heart of most of what it is that we need.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes, that’s what we need. There might be a behavior change, too, and I’ll give an example, but the behavior change is probably not the biggest piece, and sometimes there’s no behavior change needed. Many, many things in dating and relationships are just simple misunderstandings, right? You and I are both old enough to remember the game of telephone. I do not know if the younger generation still does anything that’s not digital at this point, but right, you whisper in one person’s ear and you say purple poodle and they hear pink elephant. It’s like, “What?” Communication is 7% valid, 7% by words.

KEN PAGE – That is a wild statistic. That’s an evidence-based statistic.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes, yes. It’s like Mehrabian’s rule. yeah. Much of it is tone and facial expression, non-verbals, right? The energy you transmit. What we know is that words are going to be misinterpreted, and we’re all so different, right? So I could say something that feels very innocuous, and somebody else might be upset or offended, and we want to care as good human beings, relational beings.

We want to care about our impact, not our intentions, and not get defensive, but we also want to express ourselves in a way that gives the other person the best chance possible of being heard. Saying this all gently and these needs for “Hey, when you said that,” just to give an example. “When you made that statement, I just want to slow down for a second and share with you, it did not land well with me.

I felt hurt and confused and even a little irritated by what you said, and it seems like the story I made up about it is that you do not care about my opinion,” right? “I’m not saying that’s the truth, but that’s the message I got from what you said, and what I really need right now is for you to clarify what you meant by that and to reassure me that I am important to you. Like I’m just making up a very ambiguous example.”

So it’s really making sure you identify what you need in that moment, and much of the time it’s going to be to know the core human attachment needs that you matter to someone, that they care about your opinion, that you’re valuable in their eyes, that you’re important to them, that you’re a priority, that they care about your feelings, right? Even in dating, you want to know somebody cares about your feelings.

If you tell someone, “When I did not hear from you for four days, I was surprised, and I was disappointed, and I care about this relationship enough to take the trouble, to go through the trouble, to tell you how I really feel. I think what I need most is not necessarily for you to do anything different, but to understand why I have not heard from you, and maybe for you to reassure me that you are invested in this, if that’s the case.” Right? So we’re very open, non-accusatory, but we’re telling the truth. By doing all of this work on the front end to process and connect to yourself, you’re able to give a very clear statement.

How Vulnerability Builds Confidence and Connection

KEN PAGE – Beautiful. What is your experience of what shifts for people when they do this work? What have you seen?

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Amazing things. I have guinea pigged myself because I always say I’m a people pleaser in recovery, and I’ll be in recovery forever. That part of me is still there, but I have experienced the benefits of finding and using my voice, and so have so many of my clients. You really build your confidence, your sense of self-worth, your ability to know that you can do hard things, you reduce the fear, and you realize that you can start to speak up in rooms where you might have once not felt at all comfortable to do so.

KEN PAGE – So it generalizes.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes. Yes, and it trickles exactly. It trickles into every corner of your life. I think one of the most, I do not talk about this part often, but it just popped into my head. I think the fear really shifts. You start to get more comfortable having a relationship with healthy, normal fear to know that I do not know that the fear ever goes away when a relationship’s really important to you and you’re about to be vulnerable.

It’s actually natural for that to feel scary, and you know you can do it, and you have to because otherwise you’re filled with resentment, animosity, you’re shut down, you become sick. We know that when we hold things in, we get sick and you will feel in your body because of how we’re designed as human beings that when you say the truth and you say it diplomatically and respectfully and you do not feel the need to manage how other people receive it, you will feel in your body how good it feels, the relief and the sense of empowerment.

KEN PAGE – It’s wonderful. You know, my feeling is that there’s the image that I keep getting is of like Christmas and these boxes of really cool things and you’re unpacking all these boxes, there’s still a lot more to unpack. People can learn about that in your book. I just feel like this is, you know, in some ways the primary relationship issue, and something that I teach that connects to this is that the very things we’re most afraid to share about are where our deepest intimacy gifts actually lie.

Those very things, so that there is another treasure there that gets discovered, but your work feels so important and so articulated, grounded in a lot of compassion, a lot of spiritual insight, but also really operationalized. Tell us how people can learn more from you, follow you, and get your book. Tell us how we can learn from your work.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Thank you so much, Ken, and I just love the way you put everything I have to say. My final thought here is like vulnerability for the win. Exactly what you said. It is scary. It’s a treasure trove. Most of the time, when you’re vulnerable, like a lot of people are going to meet you there. It creates such a powerful connection, and there’s nothing better in life.

KEN PAGE – Did you just invent that meme?

COLETTE JANE FEHR – What meme, vulnerability for the win?

KEN PAGE – Yeah.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yeah.

KEN PAGE – Oh my God. I love that. That’s a motto. That’s great.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – I know. I need to get like a little avatar thingy to go with it. I’m going to work on that.

KEN PAGE – Yes.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – I love it. So, okay, so you can find me and find my book and all that good stuff on my website, ColetteJaneFehr.com. It’s ColetteJaneFehr.com, and my book’s there. I have tons of free resources. If you buy my book before Tuesday, before it comes out, I have a digital course that goes with the book that’s free. I have a tool kit for everyone.

KEN PAGE – Do that.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Please do that. Please do that.

KEN PAGE – Get those gifts.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes. Yeah. Yes, and you can buy extra books to give to your friends and get all kinds of freebies, and then I’m pretty active on Instagram. I’m on all the social media, but Instagram, I think, is my primary one, and Substack. On Instagram, I’m @ColetteJaneFehr, and on Substack, I write a Substack weekly called Secrets from a Therapist, and I offer a lot of information, tools, and advice on all kinds of relationships that people might really enjoy as well.

KEN PAGE – Fantastic, and I’m just thinking that anyone who’s in a relationship, it would be great if you get two books, one for each of you, and do this work together as a couple. Yeah.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – That would be amazing, and I do think that if you read the book and you’re not in a relationship, you’d get a lot out of it because when you’re dating, like you said, this is when you set the stage.

KEN PAGE – You know it.

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yeah, and it’s so important. If I were single now again, or if I one day end up single, I mean, you never know what’s going to happen in life. There’s no guarantee. I would really be looking for somebody who wants to have deeper conversations, and even if they’re scared to, is willing to work at that with me because I think there’s no greater quality in a relationship than this.

KEN PAGE – I love that, and people can also follow you on your podcast. Yes. Colette, would you say the name again of the podcast?

COLETTE JANE FEHR – Yes, Insights from the Couch. I know I’m always forgetting. I do not promote myself well. Insights from the Couch, real talk for women at midlife. You do not have to be a midlife woman to get something out of it, but it’s two therapists who are women at midlife. We take that angle, and then also Love Thy Neighbor, The Relationship Show that I co-host with two men, Tom Vann and Dan Dennis, who are local radio celebrities here where I live in Florida, and it’s a great fun show where we dive into all kinds of relationship issues.

KEN PAGE – Beautiful. Colette, it was a joy to get to share you with my audience, and folks take advantage of this treasure trove. Thank you all. Thank you, Colette, and thank you all for being here, and I look forward to connecting on the next episode of the Deeper Dating® Podcast.

 

Important Links

• Colette Jane Fehr
• Colette Jane Fehr on Instagram
• Colette Jane Fehr on TikTok
• Colette Jane Fehr on Substack
• The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love
• Deeper Dating Podcast
• Insights from the Couch
• Secrets from a Therapist
• Love Thy Neighbor, The Relationship Show

 

About Colette Jane Fehr

Colette Jane Fehr is a licensed psychotherapist, nationally recognized relationship expert, and author of The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure, Lasting Love (Putnam / Penguin Random House, February 3, 2026).

She is the co-host of two shows: the popular podcast Insights from the Couch and Love Thy Neighbor, a weekly relationship talk show on Real Radio 104.1. Her 2025 TEDx talk, Secrets of a Couples Therapist, was selected as a TED Editors’ Pick.

Colette has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Oprah Daily, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She is also a regular contributor on Good Day Orlando Extra on Fox 35. She grew up in Rye, New York, and now lives in Orlando, Florida, with her family.