Dear Oonagh:

Let’s look at what you wrote in your most recent post about this man’s anger and your fear of it: “I am afraid of his anger and I have always avoided conflict like the plague… I am afraid of prolonged anger.. he told me he is so angry.. he says it will be a very difficult conversation.. I’m to blame for everything.. his current angry outbursts”.

About open marriage, you wrote that the idea piqued your interest because it “would be least abrasive to all five of us with the least consequences.. without the dramatic elements of legal intervention/ custody.. and potential estrangement from the bitterness that can ensue.. how does one enter into that mindset? How do you cultivate an open marriage arrangement..?”

My answer:

-you wrote that an open marriage arrangement will be “least abrasive to all five of us”, as if you are not already in an open marriage arrangement, and as if it hasn’t been already very abrasive to your physical and mental health, and your eldest son already expressed his significant distress over the situation.

-you wrote that an open marriage will be one without “potential estrangement from the bitterness that can ensue” as if you are not aware that there already is estrangement and bitterness. Look at your own words regarding his anger, that I quoted in the beginning of this post.

I am supposing you are afraid that in the future, there will be more estrangement, more bitterness; more anger.

“How to cultivate an open marriage arrangement”, you asked. Well, you already have an open marriage arrangement. I will answer then the following question:

How to cultivate a lasting open marriage arrangement with this man that you are living with?

My answer: by doing as he says. By agreeing to all the significant things that he wants. By cooperating with what he wants and how he wants it.

It will not be a good arrangement, not for you and not for your children, but it will be a lasting arrangement. Your children will have the opportunity to learn that aggression works, one of your children may learn to be aggressive to others, two of your children perhaps may learn to submit to others aggression), but the arrangement will last for as long as it is financially beneficial to him.

anita