I recently found out that my wife has a habit of suppressing some of her real feelings. I wish that she felt more comfortable speaking her mind, but I learned that it’s from past relationships where her partners were really abusive. Sometimes she was judged just for having a certain interest in movies for instance. More specifically, she had a boyfriend that would make fun of her just for liking Disney and Marvel movies. Now to be fair, I’m not a big fan of Disney or Marvel myself. I’ve gone through phases where I’ve actually hated watching superhero movies. But I love my wife to death and I would never be hateful towards one of her interests. I especially wouldn’t give her criticism or scrutiny just for liking something that I didn’t like myself. Unfortunately she’s internalized this with a lot of things, including her temperature preferences when it comes to our HVAC system. I tell my wife all the time that she should be honest about where she wants us to set the thermostat for the air conditioner or furnace. However, she often just goes along with whatever she knows I prefer. I finally had a discussion with her recently and told her that we need to be more honest with each other moving forward. If she wants a different temperature in the house than me, all she has to do is speak up or just change the thermostat herself. I want my wife to feel comfortable having autonomy, even when it comes to a heating and cooling system.