A conversation moved into writing gains a record and loses the help of tone.

Writing trades one kind of accuracy for another. On paper you get precision, a record, and time to think, and you lose everything the voice was doing: the warmth that made a criticism survivable, the hesitation that signalled openness, the pause that said this is hard for me too. Readers fill that absence with their own weather, which is usually worse than the truth. Most written conflicts began as neutral sentences read on a bad morning.

When a subject is delicate, put it back in a voice. And where writing is unavoidable, say the tone out loud in words: I am asking, not accusing.