The conversation most of us keep putting off
Most of us have had some version of “the chat.” Usually it’s triggered by a funeral, a health scare, or a quiet moment where one of you says something like
“if anything ever happened to me…” and the other reaches for a subject change.
We mean well. It just feels like a conversation for later – for when we’re older, or less busy, or when it starts to feel more relevant.
Here’s the thing: you’re building a life together right now. And one of the most loving things you can do, at the very beginning of that, is to make sure the person beside you actually knows what you’d want.
What “sorted” actually looks like
Most people, when pushed, will say “we’ve talked about it” or “we’ve got a will.” A will is a meaningful step – but it tells your executor what to do with the things that have a dollar value attached. It says very little about everything else.
And everything else is actually everything.
I mean the photos on your phone – the ones that tell the story of your life – and whether anyone knows where they are, what they mean, or what you’d want done with them. Your social media accounts. The subscriptions still quietly charging your joint account two years after you’re gone because nobody knew how to cancel them.
I mean the song you’d want played at your funeral. Your end of life care wishes – what you actually want if things get slow and difficult. The things about you that you’ve never quite said out loud, but that you’d want the person you love to know.
Why this is an act of love
There’s a particular kind of intimacy in saying to someone:
“I trust you enough to tell you all of it. The practical things and the personal things. I want you to be ready. I want you to know me well enough to help me have a good death.”
That’s not a morbid conversation. It’s one of the more loving things two people can do for each other – and it’s even more meaningful to have it early, before life gets complicated and the weight of it starts to feel too heavy to lift.
I built Adios – Australia’s digital estate planning platform – because I kept seeing what happened when this conversation didn’t happen. Not just the practical chaos, but the deeper grief of not knowing. Partners left wondering what the person they loved would have wanted, because they’d never asked, and now they couldn’t.
How to start
Not with a formal agenda. Just a genuine opening.
“I’ve been thinking about what would happen if I died, and I realised there’s a lot you don’t know. Can we talk about it?”
That’s enough. From there, the practical conversation – accounts, passwords, access – is actually the easier part. The one that takes more courage is the personal one: What do you want? How do you want to be remembered? What would a good death look like for you?
These questions don’t have right answers. But they open something important between two people – a willingness to go into the difficult rooms together, not just the easy ones.
That willingness, I’d argue, is what commitment is actually made of.
Over to you
Have you and your partner talked about your death? Not around it – actually through it?
If not, what’s one thing you’d want them to know?
By Nook
About Nook
Nook is the founder of Adios (adios.au), Australia’s digital estate planning platform that helps people get their digital life in order – accounts, assets, and wishes – before they’re gone. She has thought more about death than most people she knows, and considers that a good thing.