I’ve been with my partner for 12 years. We’re so close and happy. We have a healthy sex life, don’t argue and are very happy and content. So why does it bother me that he won’t talk about sex, or even just his feelings?

I ask him things about what he enjoys and what he’d like to do and he just clams up. Sometimes he’ll reply in a jokey way. I’m worried he thinks and feels things and won’t share those feelings with me.

I feel like I take the lead a lot - he’s amazing in bed but could initiate and take control more.

I don’t want to make a big deal of this as I don’t want it to knock him and make him less confident.

It’s been such a long time that we’ve been together and this part of him has not altered: do I just leave it and accept that’s how he’ll always be or are there ways I can gently try to bring him out of his shell? He has always been a shy person but has grown so much since we’ve been together.