Dear Anita,

I have talked over this with him. The primary problem is that he is unable to relate to what might be emotional danger, or pain for me. He is good with things that are more physical (like staying out late because of work), things that *he* can relate to and I can trust him to not put me in a tough spot with those things. He says that if he was in my position in this matter, he would probably brush it off (and I know he is telling the truth about that). He agrees that he’s made a big mistake and that he will be more open to my perspective in the future. But I am not able to get over my anger, and move forward constructively.

Dear Mark,

We went to counselling a few months ago (not over this). In a positive scenario, his curiousity, desire to explore and general optimism has helped me change many aspects of my life for the better. I tend to be an obsessive planner and play by the rule-book a lot. This is one of the downsides of that type of personality. Our opposite natures attracts us to each other – we can balance out the other from going overboard. But it also comes with friction. In counselling, we both resolved to moderate some of the extremes of the nature. Our counsellor cautioned us, though, that change would not come overnight and it might take some years before both of our edges fit in smoothly.

Dear Anita,

Thank you for replying to me.

You are right. My husband has a consistent history of not listening to me on many things. He has a tendency to disregard the consequences of many of his decisions on me. Most are minor things, some are not.

I am ok with the open marriage, though, but not ok with him getting involved with someone who has a negative history with me. In this context, although we have had a falling out, I still consider her as one of “my people”, so to speak. Maybe, in the future, our differences can be sorted out but his actions have created a much bigger divide.

I understand that there is a history contributing to my current anger. But I don’t know how to deal with it