Dear Belle:

My understanding of what happened is that you are okay with your husband having relationships with other women, your one year old marriage being an open marriage, only not with that woman, your relative. You told him, to “not get friendly with her because of our bad blood”, but he did get friendly with her.

This woman hurt you before and you kept your distance from her, “Keeping a healthy distance has helped us both so far”. You tried your “level best not to give her ‘ammunition’ to indulge in toxic behavior with me”.

Your husband gave her that ammunition and the distance from her was made void by his actions, and he made that distance you  need from her void, “My husband broke open my ‘safety fence'”-

-he broke open your safety fence, leaving you exposed to danger.

– and “Since then, I have been very, very angry at (him)… my rage boils over sometimes… most of my anger is stemming from a feeling of loss of power over my own life”-

Anger is there to alert us to danger, to motivate us to fight against perceived danger.

– there are certain people who endanger our physical/ emotional well being. If your husband undoes that distance that you need for your protection, he is exposing you to danger. Question is, what else might he do to endanger you next. If you can’t trust him to not endanger you, how can you feel safe with him in your life?

anita