The Courage to Be Vulnerable

By Yaacov Weiss, LCSW

It’s easy to build walls of silence or deflect with clever words. But real growth begins when a husband and wife risk the scary act of revealing their hearts — even when the answer might hurt.

They sat across from each other, the air thick with unspoken words. On the surface, their marriage looked fine. They weren’t yelling, they weren’t slamming doors, they weren’t threatening to walk away. They came to therapy every week, practiced new tools, and nodded at all the right moments. But beneath the surface, something was missing.

When I asked him how he felt about the therapy and his marriage, his face clouded. “I don’t know,” he said. “Part of me wants this to work. But part of me wonders if she’ll ever make the kind of changes I need.”

Her response mirrored his. “I feel the same,” she admitted. “I don’t know if he can really change either.”

It wasn’t anger that filled the room, but doubt. Not explosive, but heavy — a fog that left them each guarded. They weren’t sure if they could trust the other with their heart.

The Shabbos Nap

Then he brought up something small, but meaningful.

On Shabbos afternoon, after the seudah, she had asked him whether he wanted to rest in the bedroom or the living room. In turn, he asked her what she preferred.

Her answer? “Wherever you’ll wake up best so you can be on time for Mincha.”

He bristled. To him, it felt like mothering — as if she couldn’t trust him to manage himself. He told her how it bothered him that she brought up Mincha, which he felt was a jab at his unfortunate habit of missing tefilla betzibur, but she couldn’t understand why.

As we unpacked the moment, a fuller picture emerged. She didn’t like to nap in her bed Shabbos afternoon; she only rested on the couch recliner in the living room. What she really wanted was for him to rest on the other recliner and keep her company. When I asked why she didn’t just say that, she hesitated.

“I didn’t want to sound needy,” she confessed. “And I was afraid that if I said it and he said no, I’d feel even worse — like I wasn’t important to him and even more lonely than had I not asked in the first place.”

So instead of asking for what she truly wanted and being vulnerable, she pivoted to his weakness and what sounded like logical reasoning (him being on time for Mincha) and hid behind it.

He, for his part, admitted that he actually preferred his bed — it was quieter and darker there. But if she had told him straight out that she wanted his company, he would have tried to honor it, because her closeness mattered to him.

What could have been a beautiful moment of connection — “I’d love if you joined me in the living room” — turned into a misunderstanding, simply because she was too afraid to be vulnerable.

Why Vulnerability Feels So Risky

This is what happens so often in marriages. When we’re afraid to put our hearts on the table, we cover them with clever words, or safe logic. We ask indirectly, hint, or deflect — all to protect ourselves from rejection.

But here’s the irony: in avoiding the pain of vulnerability, we often create the very disconnection we fear. By hiding what we really feel, we lose the chance to be seen and loved for who we truly are.

I pointed this out to them. “Her request was actually beautiful. She wanted to be with you. But because she was scared, it came out in a way that felt ugly. When we don’t let ourselves be vulnerable, we often end up pushing each other away.”

They both nodded. The weight of the insight settled between them.

Building Safety Together

Vulnerability is not a one-time leap. It’s a practice — one that requires courage from the speaker and gentleness from the listener. To say, “I want you with me” means risking a no. And to hear it requires the maturity not to weaponize that need later.

That’s the work of marriage: creating a space where each partner can risk being honest, and trusting that the other will handle that honesty with care.

Before they left, I challenged them both. “This week, practice sharing the real thing — even if it’s scary. And when the other opens up, treat it like the fragile gift it is. Protect it.”

They promised to try.

Because at the end of the day, the question wasn’t whether they could learn skills or check boxes in therapy. It was whether they could take the risk of vulnerability.

*Details may have been changed.