<human>: Can you condense the text into three sentences or less?

Basically my question is, how do you deal with someones trauma (?) of getting their head chomped off every time they disagreed with their ex (or did something the ex didn't like)? From what I've gathered she was very insecure (cheated on and also abused) and quick to pick fights. 

Because even though i love my SO to bits, its getting to me. I feel like i'm sort of forced to make everything sort of funny or explain myself in a egg-shell-walking-manner so he doesn't get bummed out. Both of us are easy going, and are goofy as hell together. We get shit done, but avoid conflict like the plague. Like I dont want conflict. the last thing I want to do is hurt my SO, i love him more than anything. We have a really good thing going ..I just wish it wasn't. so. delicate. Or is that how some relationships just are?

How do you establish frank loving communication with someone if their immediate reaction to being assertive is 'whoa tiger', a half-hearted smile and ultimately shutting down. I realize its a pretty small problem, but i feel like its wearing me out. He basically avoids that conversation until hes sure the coast is clear and i usually end up apologizing and trying to explain what i meant but it still takes the entire damn day. I feel like i'm dealing with behaviors he picked up in the last relationship and I just want to stomp around yelling "ARRR DUDE I AM NOT HER!! FOR FUCKS SAAKE" <- sure this would work. I dont want to stew on and on about this. I think part of it also might be our different cultures and him being brought up around some really really strong, outspoken women. I dont know, i'm tired of analyzing it. Anyone know how to deal with this kind of thing?
<bot>: Trying to be assertive is interpreted as being angry by my SO - how do you deal with weird PTSD due to psycho ex?