Wendy - in a sense I am - intentionally. Me saying “I don’t agree with this” with no further discussion always means that the same thing will be brought up over and over. Reinforcing that boundary over and over hasn’t met with success. My hope here is for W to think about reasons to choose monogamy for herself so that maybe future conversation will be different and more productive - less “black and white”. I doubt the conversation will change from “you are controlling me because of an antiquated sexist belief”, but at this point it is worth a shot. My hope is that she discusses what I said with her T this week.
Maybe she can think - “Gee, he does do all the work already - and if I find other partners he has no reason to stay married.”
Or maybe she has some insight that that her issues have gotten in the way of having a healthy relationship in the past and will similarly impact future relationships. She is capable of that insight, but I don’t expect behavior to change. She did decide to do laundry and dishes last night. She’s likely to see this as transactional, though - she will do housework for a week and then expect me to be okay with extramarital relationships, but if it all gets her to consider other viewpoints than her urges, I call that positive.



