Wow Anita – I am humbled, deeply by the enormous investment in time and thought into your reply and oh my gosh – how frustrating to lose two hours of your work. Your reply is spot on and absolutely reflects where I find myself. I am afraid of his anger and I have always avoided conflict like the plague. It is a toxic situation and I am trying to resolve it as ghandi like as possible because yes I am afraid of prolonged anger, positioning and hurt on all sides. An update – is that he told me he is so angry and frustrated he has ‘not together now’ with his girlfriend and met her to brief her of his home situation with me. It is my feeling based on what he said in the conversation that he has left a door open to resume the relationship after Christmas once things are resolved. He has booked a meeting with me on January first to chart a course though he says it will be a very difficult conversation.  I am working very hard using all my resources to bring my most rational brain to the conversation even though I do accept that he has been very disrespectful to me over the last few weeks and years to be honest with his attitude and controlling nature. He’s a totally different man now and virtually unrecognisable from the one I married. He has lumped all his woes and troubles of the last decade into my head and I’m to blame for everything- insofar as his current angry outbursts maintain, To be honest what you said about an open marriage with children pique my interest because in an ideal world – that would be least abrasive to all five of us with the least consequences when it comes to living separate lives but without the dramatic elements of legal intervention/custody arrangements/mediations etc etc and potential estrangement from the bitterness that can ensue.. how does one enter into that mindset? How do you cultivate an open marriage arrangement/environment/emotionally acceptable habitation? Is there a way I could move softly into that space? Whilst in my heart – if I had no kids I’d be on the first flight to New Zealand for a year – to detoxify my soul of all the terrible effects he has had on it over time with his resentment and contempt- I love my family with my whole being and the part he plays in it too. It’s complex I know and so much of my psychology is unexplored around this hyper-identification into him and clown self reliance/self esteem in myself that I do recognise . 2020 is my year for growing these parts of me and building resilience and greater independence. Anita – your thoughts and carefully and sensitively worded responses mean so much to me. I thank you. Oonagh x

Thanks Anita – yes that is what I’m finding in living experience.. and understanding how we as humans are primed evolutionarily to respond to fear and especially women, whose primitive and primary fear drive around being ‘replaced’ by another female must have meant huge real and existential threat to her life and those of her children, supports your view. Yet in contemporary western society where divorce and separation are commonplace from our chosen mates that fear drive should have less primacy thus allowing us to really endeavour to prevent that amygdala hijack using multiple mind body spirit strategies practiced for centuries by mystics and I know must be successful utilised by others possibly very quietly in society around us. Rare yes but impossible? I know how only one week ago rational thought was out of the question 90 percent of my waking moments as the animal part of me reigned supreme and lurched from one grief and rejection drama to the next. Yet within all of that pain, the ‘i am’ part of myself – the quiet neutral observer of my own thoughts- still held ground and reminded me that whilst my thoughts and body were being lashed by a tropical storm – behind that there was stillness and reason. The last 3 days i have focussed all efforts on giving greater space to that observing voice, ensuring that I pay attention to all words I am using with my ex to ensure that the ripple effects create least damage as they move out into the space between us – conscious that each word carries huge responsibility with it. I have trained myself for the most part to respond instead of react to anything he says and take time before replying. This is helped by 3 years of meditation practice in fairness. I have also been religiously repeating De Hew Len’s Hawaii based mantra that cleans and cleans toxic data and memory from te body spirit and mind – I love you, I am so sorry, please forgive me, thank you,’ and I have found this quite an incredible added resource. Experiencing the calm it brings vas I offer it up to the cosmic consciousness- I do feel it releases resistance and creates energy in me that is calm and positive also ensuring other negative energy has less place to land. Maybe these things and a combination of practicing the others I mentioned will at least take some of the more potent and sinister consequences of fear from both my ex and I around this which could move things from Def con 4 down to 1.. I think it can only do good. He is refusing to leave the house and children and says I will just have to stop loving him quickly – use therapy and other supports to move on, stop using the children as a power play and then we can all live happy ever after. Yup sounds great on paper- his fear and family history- has turned his view of my experience of grief at his relationship- into an exercise of power and control. If I fight fire with fire here- it will get beyond ugly for everyone and I will lose everything I have spent 13 years of my life nurturing loving tending feeding and growing with the deepest and most enduring of love. Do I sacrifice all of that because of one man and one random woman? Sacrifice meaning if I go down the route I have been advised to go down by every single person I talk to..professionals get involved – my ex has to time share kids – he will hate me with every breath in his body / the kids will get sucked in despite all attempts to shield them And after maybe two years of painful adjusting – I will have three teenagers two of whom are sons- all living and adjusting to their deeply loving and connected family now in a new more fractured setting. I stand in everyone’s shoes here all the time and play things out and it boils down to one thing — the bomb is detonated not by my separated ex who has not had an affair but is dating whilst living at home with his beloved children but by me whose fear, grief and rejection view his relationship as a threat to my own view of my self, my relevance, my enough-ness… is it not supremely selfish of me to put human weakness, emotion driven behaviour at the front and centre of this- when the consequences are so precarious for those whom I love the most? Surely there has to be a way as an advanced race we can access a super consciousness that makes all this bottom dwelling emotion less relevant. Maybe I ask too much of myself and others… but boy if there was a way … how much generational trauma would be avoided on both sides…

Thank you Anita, such kind and compassionate words.  Your wisdom is much appreciated. Xx much love to you and yours. O x