Dear lovely Dez,

Let us for a moment put aside the other possibly developing connection and focus on you. I really wish telepathy was real so that I could show you what I see and feel and wouldn’t have to type it all into rational sentences 🙂 There’s a lot I want to say.

“I feel like what I really need is space and time to reconnect with myself, to get my joy and inspiration flowing again, to find my center, before I can meet my husband in a really good space. Like I need to take care of a deep inner healing and not sure if my husband has the patience to hold my hand through it.”

I agree, that you need to take care of a deep inner healing, we all do, but it also seems as if you are only seeing worth in a being that is already strong and healed when connecting with other people. I don’t think that’s the case. If you would go to your husband and say “I feel scared and confused, but I want to open up to you, to be vulnerable with you. Could you please help me?” then isn’t that also creating a deep connection and intimacy? Healing each other can also be extremely intimate, and chances are that he needs healing and nurturing as well.

I think you are somehow not seeing your own capabilities and power in all of this. As if you only could have two states of being: either being defensive and appear strong, or showing your vulnerability and being completely weak in that moment. Are you afraid that if you open up, you’ll feel so raw that all kinds of scary feelings come to the surface and it not only overwhelms you, but your husband as well, and you end up becoming defensive again? What if you talk about this fear honestly and rationally before you try it?

Also, your husband is not your only source of love. You have children, who look at you with admiration and do not judge you. You are free to open your heart when you are with them and allow the love run freely back and forth. You can also love yourself. I personally had the most profound spiritual experience when I was in a support meeting and we were talking about not allowing love in. I was listening to another woman talking about it and I realized that it was I who did not let love in and that the problem was not that I wasn’t loved. The love was there, I just didn’t allow myself to have any. So in that moment I decided to change that and try. I decided that I would let my guard down and let the love in. I sat in my chair and focused on my heart and focused feeling compassion towards myself, like I would towards some other person. I also said quietly in my mind something like “please love me”. I felt this huge surge of energy flowing in. I wish I could say that it felt great, but I was so scared and felt quite nauseous 🙂 But I was determined, and just forced my muscles to relax instead of being tight, as they always were, as I was shielding myself. That love has not left my heart, and it changed everything for me. The point of my story is that we are the gatekeepers to our core and what nurturing gets through and what doesn’t. If we block love and care, then we’ll slowly wither and become even more desperate for someone to love us, to see us. But how can they love us or see us if we keep blocking the entry? A romantic relationship is not the only way to get nurturing love and a deep connection.

Now, it sounds like your willingness to be open-minded is clashing with your heart. You don’t have to accept any kind of extramarital relationships, regardless of their nature. I personally don’t think that there is any value in forcefully pushing oneself to accommodate a relationship pattern that is not suitable for you. That said, it would be better if you could think about such things only after you are in a place where you feel safe and secure regardless of other people. Where your source of love and safety lies within you, and is not attached to other people or events. That’s when it’s easier to judge whether something is appropriate or not. When I said that I like it that you are able to look at the situation with such calmness, I didn’t mean that you should just disband your own needs and feelings to accommodate the needs of your husband. I just meant that it is scary for the other person as well, if someone attacks who they are out of fear. For example, I like to be friendly with all kinds of people. It is in my nature. I am curious about people. If I was in a relationship where the man felt threatened by me being friendly with other men and he would try to solve the situation by trying to force me into changing my whole being or shaming me because of who I am, just because he would be scared, then that would be terrible. However, if he would tell me openly that it scares him when I am friendly with other men, and it concerns him what might happen, but would allow me to make the decision of what to do about it, it would be completely different. And if my loved one would be scared, then I would do anything in my power to make him feel that he was safe and loved in our relationship. The difference is not only in either being forceful or not, but also in showing one’s vulnerability. Being open, instead of being defensive. I think that it’s quite universal, that people react favorably to another one being open and vulnerable, and they react with defensiveness to other people’s defensiveness.

I hope you’ll get something out of all of that 🙂 Just, don’t be so hard on yourself and don’t compare your soul to the soul of another person. How your soul dances might be different to the other woman’s, but it is not any less enticing. Besides, you are his wife and the mother of his children. Your soul is the one he wants to see and be intimate with.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 7 months ago by The Ruminant.