For anyone prone to 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 her home in Brooklyn. She just had sex with her boyfriend while her two children slept upstairs. Her husband, Stewart, has consented to her tryst, but feeling guilty, she rushes naked into the kitchen to text him: Don’t worry, she writes, “he has nothing on you in as a lover. But instead of texting her husband, she accidentally sends the message to her boyfriend, who leaves in anger, 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 sipping tea in the living room of her bright and airy townhouse in Park Slope, Brooklyn. “Talk about the scariest, scariest, most horrible thing that could happen.”
It’s far from the only distressing and breathtakingly frank scene in “More,” which documents Winter’s often turbulent experience of an open marriage — the resentment and jealousy she felt toward small friends of her husband, the flashes of guilt and shame, and the challenges of juggling her obligations. as a wife and mother with her quest for sexual and romantic fulfillment.
Winter is keenly aware that people may judge her for the behavior she depicts in “More.” But she also said she felt compelled to write about her experience, in part because she felt non-monogamy was so often portrayed as something that happened on the fringes, not as a lifestyle that married mothers pursue.
“I felt like there was no mainstream story about it and I felt very boxed in,” Winter said. “We often have the impression that mothers are not supposed to be sexual beings. »
“More,” which Doubleday will release on January 16, comes at a time when polyamory is drifting from the margins into the mainstream. About a third of Americans surveyed in a February 2023 YouGov poll said they prefer some form of non-monogamy in relationships.
Alongside novels, television shows, and films that depict groups, polycules, and other permutations of open relationships, there is a growing body of nonfiction literature that explores the ethics and logistical hurdles of polyamory. Recent titles include memoirs like journalist Rachel Krantz’s 2022 book “Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy,” and self-help and inspirational books like “The Anxious Person’s Guide to Non-Monogamy”, “The Polyamory”. Paradox” and “A Polyamory Devotional,” which offers 365 daily reflections for polyamorous people.
Jessica Fern, a psychotherapist who counsels people in open relationships, said Winter’s account 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, that story, I haven’t seen enough of yet,” said Fern, author of “Polycure” and “Polywise.”
Fern noted that there might be a shortage of books by mothers in open marriages because they are simply too busy: “When you’re a parent and you’re polyamorous, who has time to write?
Winter admits that polyamory could be exhausting, especially when she had to balance it with marriage, childcare, and working as an 8th grade English teacher.
“I didn’t sleep much,” she said.
Opening up the marriage wasn’t just about doing what — and who — she wanted, she said. She had to shake off internalized sexism and her tendency to put the needs of others before her own, issues she worked on in therapy. What started as a search for sexual thrills unexpectedly led to self-discovery.
“I thought non-monogamy would be all about sex,” she said. “I thought I was going to have a great sexual adventure and that it was going to be super exciting. And it was, until it wasn’t.
To be clear: “More” is also about sex. Winter recounts her experiences with butt plugs, fisting, and anal sex, and catalogs her extramarital affairs—which range from brief encounters in seedy hotel rooms to romantic partnerships that lasted for years—in meticulous detail. She has changed the names of herself and her respective partners to protect their privacy, but often leaves little else to the imagination.
There’s “Karl”, the generous German lover who seems determined to please her in bed, then pushes her into having a threesome with him and his fiancé, then ghosts her. There’s “Laurent”, the French-Argentinian lover who refuses to wear condoms and enjoys having sex in public toilets and co-working spaces – a fetish that gets Winter banned for life from a shared office .
And there’s “Jay”, a 29-year-old man with an incredibly large penis. After having unsatisfactory sex, Jay tells Winter that he usually cannot orgasm during sex, but plans to masturbate in remembrance of her. “You’re nice,” she told 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 his work composing music for TV shows and films.
By 2008, they had been married for nearly a decade and had two young sons when Winter met someone else. Frustrated after an exhausting day caring for their boys while he worked late, she went for a walk one evening. A friend invited her for a drink, and at the bar she had a flirtatious conversation with a man.
When she later told her husband, to his surprise, he was not angry. Instead, he urged her to sleep with her new acquaintance and share the details.
After Winter started dating, it wasn’t long before Stewart began seeing other women. Although she recognized that it was right, she was consumed by jealousy and was sometimes asked to end the marriage.
Stewart confirmed that at first, the open marriage was easier for him.
“Molly might have been more perceptive than me at that point,” he said, likening his dating experience to being “in a salad bar.”
In the early years, many of his sexual exploits proved unsatisfactory. At the time, most online dating sites didn’t cater to polyamorous people, so she sometimes resorted to dating men who were cheating on their wives and girlfriends. “This is not my finest hour,” she said.
Some of her closest friends feared she would sabotage her marriage and get hurt.
“I was worried that she was so interested in the sexual part that she didn’t really think about the emotional element,” said Rebecca Morrissey, a friend of more than 25 years, who added that her concerns were faded as Winter began to form a healthier relationship with her. his lovers.
Eventually, Winter gave up on men who cheated and began dating people who were also in open relationships, a demographic that became easier to find when online dating services added non-monogamous services to their menus. Even then, options were limited.
“There were so few people that I kept getting paired with Stewart,” she said.
Winter and her husband wondered when and how to tell their sons about their arrangement and wanted to wait until their children were mature enough to handle it. That plan failed when their eldest son, then 13, saw his father’s online dating profile on his laptop and texted his mother in a panic asking if they were in a marriage open. Her youngest son discovered it the same way a few years ago, when he was 14, she said.
Now his sons, aged 19 and 21, are jaded about their parents’ sex lives. Her oldest read her book and told Winter he skipped some of the “essential” sex scenes, while her youngest chose 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 the fact that her parents, 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 shared in her memoir, but ultimately approved of the book, they said in a video interview.
“For the most part, I totally agreed with what she was saying,” Mary Roden said, although she noted that she was put off by “the detailed and crude 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 perfectly honest, are because I’m selfish and wondering what is this going to make me look like? ” he said.
“More” ends in 2018, when Winter’s boyfriend, whose wife had recently divorced, broke up with her after she refused his ultimatum to end his own marriage. Winter was heartbroken, but he moved on and has since had other serious romances.
She is increasingly convinced that her 24-year marriage benefited from their outside relationships. She’s mulling another book about her open marriage — which will explore, in part, the surprising connections she made with the “other women” in her life, including Stewart’s girlfriends and the wives of the men she dates.
For now, Winter is bracing for the impact the book will inevitably have on her and those around her – but she doesn’t seem intimidated.
“I spent a lot of time calming everyone down,” she said. “That doesn’t seem like something to be afraid of.”