I saw your last post about the OPP and realize that’s what me and my husband have. Do you have any resources on how my husband can get over his hangups over the OPP? I want to help him work through this because I love him so much and want to stay married to him, but I also don’t want to not be who I am.
The two articles linked in my longest post on this issue are the ones I'd endorse as starting points.
Start from a place of openness and gentleness, asking questions to help both of you understand where his OPP is coming from. Help each other give language to your needs, your desires, how you see your relationship, how you frame the openness of the relationship, your fears, etc. For a lot of people, being asked to explain just what threatens them about a man vs a woman helps them realize that there isn't really anything they can identify - it's just an underlying assumption they never questioned.
For a long time, I thought I didn't like coffee cake. I can't stand coffee, and coffee cake seemed to always go with coffee. Adults liked it, and I didn't like adult things like almonds and red wine and mushrooms. I kinda figured it tasted like coffee, and the crumbly bits on top looked like other things I don't like. So I just moved through life as a person who didn't like coffee cake. I turned it down when it was offered and never thought much about it otherwise. Until someone asked me: "you don't like coffee cake? Why?" And I said "Well I don't like coffee, so..." and they explained that coffee cake tastes like cinnamon and sugar and loveliness. And so I tried some. And now I like coffee cake. Well, now I know that I like coffee cake.
The point is that we all move through life with assumptions that we think are empirical facts, but are really just things we absorbed somewhere that may or may not be true. They're amalgamations of messages we've gotten from other people, from the media, one-off experiences, and misinterpretations. A lot of beliefs that stem from mono-normativity and hetero-normativity and cis-normativity fall into this category. They seem true because they seem true. But they don't stand up to actual scrutiny.
All that said, keep in mind that although there are lots of good articles out there about how to interrogate and challenge the mindset that leads to OPPs, it's best to let go of "get your husband to get over his hangups" as a goal. You can have the perfect conversation, share with him the ideal article, have a wonderful metaphor in your head, be totally awesome at deconstructing the ideas behind OPPs - and there's still no guarantee that you can change another person's mind. For a lot of people, those internalized assumptions are their truth, and the feelings and values attached to them are just too strong.
Stay focused on what you can control - your own choices. If he won't or can't change what his boundaries are, and if a relationship with those conditions isn't healthy or fulfilling for you, then you may need to make some changes for yourself.