For anyone prone to experiencing secondhand embarrassment, there's a scene in Molly Roden Winter's debut, “More: A Memoir of Open Marriage,” that should come with a warning.
Winter is at her house in Brooklyn. She just had sex with her boyfriend while her two children sleep upstairs. Her husband, Stewart, consented to her date, but feeling guilty, she runs naked into the kitchen to text him: Don't worry, she writes, “he has nothing to do with you as a lover.” But instead of texting her husband, she accidentally texts her boyfriend, who storms off and then breaks up with her. Winter, devastated, begs her husband to come home to comfort her.
“I still get a little nauseous thinking about it,” said Winter, 51, who was drinking tea in the living room of her bright, airy home in Park Slope, Brooklyn. “We talked about the most embarrassing, shameful, horrible thing that could happen.”
It's far from the only agonizing and incredibly sincere scene in “More,” which documents Winter's often turbulent experience of open marriage: the resentment and jealousy she felt toward her husband's girlfriends, the flashes of guilt and shame, and the challenges of juggling your obligations. as a wife and mother in her search for sexual and romantic fulfillment.
Winter is well aware that people may judge her for the behavior she describes in “More.” But she also said that she felt compelled to write about her experience, in part because she felt that non-monogamy is often described as something that happens on the sidelines, not as a lifestyle that married mothers follow.
“I felt like there were no mainstream stories about it and I felt very closed in,” Winter said. “It often seems like mothers are not supposed to be sexual beings.”
“More,” which Doubleday will release on January 16, comes at a time when polyamory is moving from the fringes to the mainstream. About a third of Americans surveyed in a YouGov poll in February 2023 said they preferred some form of non-monogamy in relationships.
Along with novels, television shows, and movies depicting couples, movies, and other permutations of open relationships, there is a growing body of nonfiction literature that explores the ethics and logistical pitfalls of polyamory. Recent titles include memoirs like journalist Rachel Krantz's 2022 book “Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy” and inspirational and self-help books like “The Anxious Person's Guide to Non-Monogamy,” “ The Polyamory Paradox” and “A Polyamory Devotional”, which has 365 daily reflections for polyamorists.
Jessica Fern, a psychotherapist who counsels people in open relationships, said Winter's story adds a new layer to the growing catalog of nonfiction about polyamory.
“Her story, which is about what it means for a mother to be erotically charged, I haven't seen that story enough yet,” said Fern, author of “Polysecure” and “Polywise.”
Fern noted that there might be a shortage of books written by mothers in open marriages because they are simply too busy: “When you're a mother and you're polyamorous, who has time to write?”
Winter admits that polyamory can be exhausting, especially when she had to balance it with marriage, childcare, and working as an eighth-grade English teacher.
“I didn't sleep much,” he said.
Open marriage wasn't just about doing what you wanted and with whomever you wanted, she said. She had to shake off internalized sexism and her tendency to put the needs of others before her own, issues he resolved in therapy. What started as a sexual thrill seeker unexpectedly led to self-discovery.
“I thought non-monogamy was going to be all about sex,” he said. “I thought I was going to embark on a great sexual adventure and that it was going to be super exciting. And it was, until it wasn't.”
To be clear: “More” also has to do with sex. Winter chronicles his experiments with butt plugs, fisting, and anal intercourse, and catalogs his extramarital affairs, which range from brief encounters in seedy hotel rooms to years-long romantic partnerships, in meticulous detail. She changed the names of her and her husband's respective partners to protect her privacy, but often left little else to her imagination.
There's “Karl,” the generous German lover who seems determined to please her in bed, then pushes her into a threesome with him and her fiancé, then cheats on her. There's “Laurent,” the French-Argentine lover who refuses to use condoms and likes to have sex in public bathrooms and co-working spaces, a fetish that gets Winter banned for life from a shared office space.
And there is “Jay,” a 29-year-old man with a surprisingly large penis. After having unsatisfactory sex, Jay tells Winter that he normally can't orgasm from intercourse, but that he plans to masturbate to the memory of her. “You're sweet,” she tells him.
Winter grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and was in her early 20s when she met Stewart Winter, the man she would marry. He made her laugh and was passionate about her work composing music for television shows and movies.
In 2008, they had been married for almost a decade and had two young children when Winter met someone else. Frustrated after a tiring day caring for her children while he worked late, she went out for a walk one night. A friend invited her out for drinks and at the bar she struck up a flirtatious conversation with a man.
When she later told her husband, to her surprise, he was not angry. Instead, he urged her to sleep with her new acquaintance and share the details.
After Winter began dating, it wasn't long before Stewart began dating other women as well. Although she agreed that she was fair, her jealousy consumed her and at times she asked him to end the marriage.
Stewart confirmed that she found open marriage easier at first.
“Molly might have been pickier than me at the time,” he said, comparing his dating experience to being “at a salad bar.”
In the early years, many of his sexual exploits proved unsatisfactory. At the time, most online dating sites were not geared toward polyamorous people, so she sometimes resorted to dating men who cheated on their wives and girlfriends. “It's not my best moment,” she said.
Some of her closest friends were worried that she was sabotaging their marriage and that she would get hurt.
“I was worried that she was leaning so much into the sexual part that she wasn't really thinking about the emotional element,” said Rebecca Morrissey, a friend of more than 25 years, who added that her concerns faded when Winter began forming more relationships. healthy with their lovers.
Over time, Winter gave up on men who cheated on her and began dating people who were also in open relationships, a demographic that became easier to find when online dating services added the non-monogamous option to their menus. Even then, options were limited.
“There were so few people who kept pairing me with Stewart,” he said.
Winter and her husband struggled with when and how to tell their children about their agreement and wanted to wait until their children were mature enough to handle it. That plan backfired when his oldest son, then 13, saw his father's online dating profile on his laptop and, in a panic, texted his mother asking if they were in an open marriage. . Her youngest son found out similarly a few years ago, when he was 14, she said.
Now, their children, who are 19 and 21, are indifferent to their parents' sex lives. His older son read his book and told Winter that she skipped some of the “essential” sex scenes, while his younger son decided not to read it, she said.
It took a few years before Winter felt comfortable revealing the details of her open marriage to a wider circle of friends and family.
When she told her mother about her adventures in non-monogamy, she learned more about how her parents, who have been married for almost 60 years, also had an open marriage.
Her parents, Mary and Philip Roden, were a little uncomfortable with the intimate details their daughter shares in her memoir, but ultimately supported the book, they said in a video interview.
“Overall, I totally approved of what she was saying,” Mary Roden said, although she noted that she was put off by “the crude, detailed sexual descriptions.”
For his part, Stewart is excited about the memoir, but worries that people will think he manipulated his wife into opening up their marriage.
“All my reservations, to be completely honest, are because I'm being selfish and wondering: How is this going to make me look?” he said.
“More” ends in 2018, when Winter's boyfriend, whose wife had recently divorced, broke up with her after she rejected his ultimatum to end her own marriage. Winter was heartbroken, but she moved on and has since had other serious romances.
He is more confident that his 24-year marriage has benefited from his outside relationships. She is considering another book about her open marriage, which in part will explore the surprising connections she has formed with the “other women” in her life, including Stewart's girlfriends and the wives of the men he dated. she leaves.
For now, Winter is preparing for the impact the book will inevitably have on her and those around her, but she didn't seem discouraged.
“I've spent a lot of time calming everyone else down,” he said. “This doesn't seem like something I should be afraid of.”
