Around thirty minutes. Eight to twelve beats. Three kinds of turn, movements you enter only if you both agree, and an ending that is chosen rather than the point at which the questions ran out.
Not ready to invite someone? Prepare privately first — the solo work stands on its own, even if they never say yes.
Pass. Pause. Not Today. Stop. Your rights in every conversation →
The question appears for both of you. You each write a single sentence privately, and neither answer appears until both are in. The long version is said out loud — the writing exists only so that nobody's answer is shaped by hearing the other first.
In most hard conversations, whoever speaks second is really responding. This removes that.
One of you answers out loud. The other does not respond, agree, or correct — they only listen. Then the listener writes back what they heard, and the speaker says whether it landed: that is it, close, or not quite. On not quite, the speaker says it once more.
Once. Not until they get it right — a loop like that becomes a way to keep someone in the wrong.
A beat with no question. Sometimes ten seconds of held silence that neither of you can skip. Sometimes naming one thing the other said that you do not want to forget. Sometimes something deliberately lighter.
A conversation with no relief in it is one that gets abandoned halfway.
Every deck is written as an arc. You start with ground rules and end with what happens next, and you cannot jump into the middle. Crossing into a heavier movement takes both of you — either of you can simply not, and the session ends there instead.
Above: the arc of Former Partners. Every deck has its own.
Whole movements can be removed. If either of you marks one, it is gone — not softened, gone. The session gets shorter, which is a legitimate way to have it.
Short, standard, or long. If the two of you choose differently, the shorter one wins without either of you having to argue for it.
Only the limits cross over, and only as a constraint on which questions appear. What you wrote stays yours.
Skip the question. It moves on when you both have.
Nothing advances. The prompt does not change while you are paused.
Say the topic matters without discussing it now.
It ends. One of you is enough, and no reason is required.
Never shown to anyone. Not the letter, not the goal, not what you will no longer carry.
The only thing that crosses over — and only as a constraint on which questions appear.
Private until you both answer. If one of you stops first, the other's answer is never shown.
Private to you. Neither of you sees what the other flagged.
You are asked what you want to remember, what is still unresolved, and what support you want in the next few days. Stopping early is not a failure state that deserves less care than finishing.
Beforehand you would be agreeing to a hypothetical. Afterwards you know what you actually said. It defaults to no, you each answer separately, and if either of you declines, nothing is used.