Ray, I keep re-reading your comment because I can’t decide where to start, it’s so helpful!

To continue your thoughts on communicating, here’s a piece of advice / thought experiment from my pre-wedding marriage counseling. Mileage may vary, but it really helped me get my head around wedding vows. If someone in a relationship is withholding something from their partner, not even out of malice or even if with the intent of protection, but because that experience is a ‘burden to the other’ or ‘something they can handle themselves’, then the continual decision to not share that burden/experience/etc is actually prohibiting the partner from living up to the vows they took with that person. They are making the choice for the partner, which isn’t a good place to start off a conversation. This usually sounds like, “Why didn’t you tell me…?” or “How come I didn’t know…?”.

So, just as you said, sharing those experiences of upbringing and background, those “certainties” that each person has of “how that world works”, that is the point of departure, it is only the beginning of the conversation! This is true of good friends and partners.