Our tenth wedding anniversary was supposed to be a quiet celebration of everything Dave and I had built together. I arrived expecting a toast, maybe a kind word about our family, or at least a moment where we could remember why we had chosen each other in the first place.
Instead, over dinner, my husband leaned back and told me he thought an open relationship might be good for our marriage.
He did not present it as a confession or even as a difficult conversation. He spoke as if he had solved a problem for both of us. In his mind, I was always too tired from the children, the house, the errands, and the daily weight of keeping our lives running. So, he suggested, he could see other women, and I would not have to feel responsible for meeting all his needs.
For a moment, I could barely process what he was saying. He had looked at my exhaustion and decided the answer was not to help more with bedtime, dishes, laundry, school routines, or anything else. His solution was to give himself more freedom while leaving my life exactly the same.