Yeah, my husband didn't even BELIEVE me at first when we finally had a conversation about my stuttering. He genuinely hadn't noticed, even though I was struggling so hard to get a particular word out right in front of him, and word-substituting like mad. I'm a lot more open about it with him now, and can even laugh about it. That's interesting about your friend. It's funny; even though it may seem like it wouldn't be as big a deal, I think covert stuttering can be just as stressful as overt, though in a different way. SO MUCH energy constantly goes into hiding the fact that you stutter. Then when you do block severely on a word, or do the c-c-c-c-c-c-classic stammering bit, people are like, "WTF?" , because they think of you as fluent.