As some of you may have read on my previous post, I asked my husband for an open marriage but then started feeling some intense anxiety over it.

When I was first considering an open marriage, I was excited not only for my own experiences, but also for those of my husband. I WANTED him to feel the thrill of meeting someone new, kissing them for the first time, having sex with them, etc. I was able to separate sex from love and was truly ok with him having FUN, NSA fun with others.

After reading so many people on here saying feelings are inevitable, and that their relationships failed because someone caught feelings, it’s like a switch has flipped in my mind and I am rendered completely unable to think about my husband with someone else, without an intense fear of losing him. I think about sitting at home alone while he’s out with someone else and it makes me really sad.

Not only that, but my desire to be with anyone else has completely gone away— I think because I know that me taking those steps also means my husband gets to do the same.

I used to want to swing, and even tried finding partners for that in the past. As some suggested, this may be a good first step to ENM. But even the thought of that brings up bad feelings.

I truly want to get over these fears. I’ve felt like something is missing in my sex life ever since we stopped the hot wife thing. I know deep down I need to have an open marriage. And my husband deserves to feel the same things I say I want and need.

I just feel paralyzed, like I can only see the negatives. I can’t see the positives I once saw. I’m stuck.

I guess all that rambling is to ask you to please help me once again see the positives, the benefits, the good in all of this.

Anxiety has created pathways in my brain to now associate an open marriage, with pain and fear and sadness. I want to rewrite those. I want to rewrite the narrative. Help me to once again see the benefits to all of this. Please?