Speaker 1: Hello, She Wants More listeners, Joe Piazza here. I can't
Speaker 1: believe that it's been a year since we launched this
Speaker 1: wonderful show, but time flies, it really does. I don't
Speaker 1: know about all of you, but I've been so busy.
Speaker 1: My new novel, The Sicilian Inheritance, comes out in about
Speaker 1: six weeks and it is available for pre order right now.
Speaker 1: The Sicilian Inheritance is an adventurous mystery set in Sicily,
Speaker 1: all about a woman who wants more, more out of life,
Speaker 1: more out of everything, just like a lot of us.
Speaker 1: And yes, there are some fairly steamy sex scenes. You
Speaker 1: can order The Sicilian Inheritance right now wherever you get
Speaker 1: your books now. This episode is actually from my other podcast,
Speaker 1: Under the Influence, But when I landed this interview with
Speaker 1: Molly Winter about her open marriage, I knew that I
Speaker 1: had to drop it in the She Wants More feed.
Speaker 1: Mollie is the New York Times best selling author of More,
Speaker 1: a memoir where she writes so honestly about the first
Speaker 1: ten years of opening up her marriage when her children
Speaker 1: were young. In two thousand and eight, Molly and her
Speaker 1: husband had been married for about ten years and then
Speaker 1: Mollie met someone else. She was exhausted, her husband was
Speaker 1: working all the time, and suddenly she just felt desire again.
Speaker 1: And that was amazing. When she told her husband, he
Speaker 1: wasn't mad, and he said, why don't you sleep with him?
Speaker 1: Why don't you give this a try? Why don't we
Speaker 1: open our marriage? And they did. This one line from
Speaker 1: Mollie really stuck with me. She said, mothers in our
Speaker 1: society are meant to put on a one sized fits
Speaker 1: all mom suit and were meant to lop off all
Speaker 1: the parts arts that don't fit inside the suit. It
Speaker 1: just minimizes us and destroys so much of our feminine vitality.
Speaker 1: I could not agree more. Molly's account of the first
Speaker 1: ten years of her open marriage is raw and honest
Speaker 1: and eye opening, and it has plenty of lessons for
Speaker 1: people who don't want to open up their marriage, who
Speaker 1: want to stay monogamous, but who just want a better
Speaker 1: way of being a partner in the world. I love
Speaker 1: this conversation with Molly, and I really think you're going
Speaker 1: to too.
Speaker 2: So before we opened our marriage, to said the scene,
Speaker 2: my children were six and three years old. I had
Speaker 2: just decided to stay home for I thought maybe a while,
Speaker 2: but I lasted one year. I had been a teacher,
Speaker 2: and I had decided to stay home because my youngest
Speaker 2: needed some different therapies things like that, and it was
Speaker 2: just I was having a lot of guilt around not
Speaker 2: being home, so I decided to stay home and then
Speaker 2: lost my mind. But my husband has always had to
Speaker 2: work late, and I say has to kind of with
Speaker 2: air quotes, but you know the truth is he was
Speaker 2: running his own company. He's in New York doing music
Speaker 2: for TV and movies, and so often late calls with
Speaker 2: la blah blah blah. And so he came home really
Speaker 2: late one night and I was just like done, and
Speaker 2: I just walked out of my house, without my keys,
Speaker 2: without my phone, and I ended up meeting a guy.
Speaker 1: I think so many mothers can relate to that moment
Speaker 1: right just where. You know, I know that you're working,
Speaker 1: I know that you were doing things to support our family,
Speaker 1: but I've also been doing this work at home all
Speaker 1: day long, on the most most labor that is unacknowledged,
Speaker 1: and I'm just at my I'm done, I'm at my
Speaker 1: wits end. I have to walk away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you have to walk away sometimes. And I
Speaker 2: didn't realize what I was walking into when I walked away.
Speaker 2: But we did have some precedent in our marriage before
Speaker 2: we even got engaged, and when we were dating, like
Speaker 2: my husband was kind of into my being with other people.
Speaker 2: I was never that into it though, because it was
Speaker 2: more in like a swingery kind of way. We had
Speaker 2: gone to a couple sex clubs and had a three someones,
Speaker 2: but that was all before we had kids. Once we
Speaker 2: had kids, that was just shut down, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. I could barely muster the energy to have
Speaker 2: sex with my husband. So I knew that he was
Speaker 2: a little into it. He had even said to me
Speaker 2: also that if I ever wanted to sleep with someone
Speaker 2: else once we were married, that if I wanted to,
Speaker 2: I could just as long as I told him about it.
Speaker 2: And part of that was his titillation, and part of
Speaker 2: that was like he just you didn't want me to
Speaker 2: lie to him, right right? So I knew there was
Speaker 2: like a pos sibility, but I hadn't. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was the farthest thing from my mind. So when I
Speaker 2: walked into this bar, a friend of mine like found
Speaker 2: me on the street just wandering and she was like,
Speaker 2: come to the bar. With me. So I went to
Speaker 2: the bar and it was one of her friends there,
Speaker 2: and I was shocked that like desire course through my
Speaker 2: body when I met this guy. So it wasn't like
Speaker 2: I really had planned to open my marriage, and once
Speaker 2: that happened, I didn't necessarily plan to act on it.
Speaker 2: So the book tells the story of the first ten
Speaker 2: years of our opening our marriage, starting at that point
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight when my kids were little,
Speaker 2: and now they're nineteen and twenty two.
Speaker 1: Almost oh gosh, they're grown ups. When people say that
Speaker 1: to me, yeah, oh my gosh, Wow.
Speaker 2: It happens. It does so long, and now I like
Speaker 2: missed the little buggers. I'm like, no, it's it's crazy
Speaker 2: how how intense it is and then how over it is.
Speaker 2: But part of me wants to say from the get go,
Speaker 2: it's like, with that endpoint in mind, like you're supposed
Speaker 2: to leave your children to have their own lives eventually,
Speaker 2: and if you don't preserve any part of yourself for
Speaker 2: that moment, it's not good for anyone. You know. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know it was there. It was probably escaping motherhood
Speaker 2: that led me out the door that day. But it's
Speaker 2: also been such an important piece of my own journey,
Speaker 2: and I think has cultivate helped me to cultivate a
Speaker 2: very authentic relationship with my children now that they're older.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I'll I have I have so many
Speaker 1: more questions about that once we get down the road
Speaker 1: a little bit. Sure, I want to go back to
Speaker 1: that first night. So you're feeling desire for the first
Speaker 1: time in a long time. I mean, I know what
Speaker 1: it's like to just I mean, the desire faucet kind
Speaker 1: of gets shut off for a while. I mean, for
Speaker 1: some moment. We're all different, right, we are not a monolith,
Speaker 1: but it can get shut off for a while after
Speaker 1: you have kids, and when it's not even the having
Speaker 1: of kids, it's the very physicality of motherhood too. Someone
Speaker 1: is always touching your body and you're exhausted.
Speaker 2: You're exhausted, exhausted.
Speaker 1: Exhausted, and but you're feeling it for the first time,
Speaker 1: and that is exciting. Was it also terrifying?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, exciting and terrifying, And I'd say those were
Speaker 2: probably the two key emotions. For the first five years
Speaker 2: or so, I was kind of vacillating between thrill and terror.
Speaker 2: And you know, I wasn't bored though, so that was
Speaker 2: good because I had been getting into a place where,
Speaker 2: you know, like you can only in my day it
Speaker 2: was like a lot of freaking Teletubbies and Nolo and
Speaker 2: and Thomas the Tank Engine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're at like Bluey and Pepa Peg. Actually we
Speaker 1: watch a lot of dinosaur crap in our house.
Speaker 2: Where ours was it train household, primarily a lot of trains.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's really not you know it. There is
Speaker 2: nothing to feed the kind of human woman part of
Speaker 2: yourself that is not the maternal part for so long
Speaker 2: that you kind of forget that you have this sort
Speaker 2: of working body with sex orgs.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, a body, a body that want a body
Speaker 1: that once had sex.
Speaker 2: Right like like enthusiastically, you know place. And I think
Speaker 2: I also had so much anger at my husband at
Speaker 2: the time that I couldn't even when he was trying
Speaker 2: to connect with me. I was just I was angry
Speaker 2: at him, some for reasons that that were his fault,
Speaker 2: and some for reasons that weren't his fault or that
Speaker 2: went beyond him, that went into the larger patriarchy. And
Speaker 2: for some reason, this young single guy who didn't see
Speaker 2: me as a mom who had not impregnated me and
Speaker 2: stayed late at work, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yes, I could see him with these fresh eyes that
Speaker 2: I could not see my husband with anymore. So that
Speaker 2: was part of it, I'm sure. And it's a complicated soup.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And that's the thing. It is all complicated.
Speaker 1: I think that's what people have really responded to in
Speaker 1: this She wants more podcasts. It's that women are complicated.
Speaker 1: We are not one thing or and just one thing.
Speaker 1: We are. We have so much that has not been
Speaker 1: expressed in popular culture, and especially if you were a mother,
Speaker 1: we have been told to be a certain way. We
Speaker 1: do not see mothers as erotically charged, as sexual creatures.
Speaker 1: And I think that your book is really breaking down
Speaker 1: stereotypes around that.
Speaker 2: I hope so. And sexual creatures, yes, and also like
Speaker 2: like willful creatures, you know what I mean, like people
Speaker 2: with their own will we are. We are told that
Speaker 2: we should subvert our own desires, be they sexual or otherwise,
Speaker 2: in order to raise our children. But I don't think
Speaker 2: it's serving I don't think children either. I don't think
Speaker 2: it serves the children.
Speaker 1: I don't. I absolutely don't.
Speaker 2: I think that. I certainly doesn't serve humanity. We need
Speaker 2: we need moms to be their full selves.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, and yes. So this happens. How do
Speaker 1: you then move into an open marriage? What are the
Speaker 1: conversations like that get you from there to there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean we went through a lot of different evolutions,
Speaker 2: and there were a few times when I did want
Speaker 2: to close the marriage. My husband said to me more
Speaker 2: than once, Molly, you're going to change your mind. As
Speaker 2: soon as you meet someone, You're going to change your mind.
Speaker 2: And he wasn't wrong. But the other person that I
Speaker 2: had in my ear was my mother, because my mother
Speaker 2: also had an open marriage, but she never told me
Speaker 2: about it. So part of the reason that we persevered
Speaker 2: for so many years, even when things were hard, is
Speaker 2: that my mother was there on the other side of
Speaker 2: all this, still happily married to my father, saying to me, oh, honey, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember those conversations. I remember those feelings. You know,
Speaker 2: don't worry. You know, you could close your marriage, you
Speaker 2: could leave it open. It's all about just paying attention
Speaker 2: to yourself and continuing to talk to your husband, and
Speaker 2: it's going to be okay. So I was getting this
Speaker 2: like kind of curiosity about myself and wanting to push
Speaker 2: through it. So many ups and downs. But really it
Speaker 2: went from me fearing falling in love with another person,
Speaker 2: and fearing my husband falling in love with another person,
Speaker 2: to finally being at a place where I understood for
Speaker 2: myself anyway that that could happen and it would actually
Speaker 2: make us stronger and love each other more, which is
Speaker 2: what has happened. It doesn't make any sense in some ways,
Speaker 2: but that's what happened. But we had lots of rules
Speaker 2: at the beginning that were all meant to contain it.
Speaker 2: Our big rule was no falling in love, but we
Speaker 2: had lots of other rules. And when I say we,
Speaker 2: it was really me who was fictating the rules. And
Speaker 2: over time those rules shifted, and my own understanding of
Speaker 2: what I wanted shifted. I was also in therapy during
Speaker 2: these ten years, and a lot of the evolution came
Speaker 2: from our conversations, but I'd say even more of the
Speaker 2: evolution came from my own inner dialogue and my discovery
Speaker 2: of what it was I was looking for the whole time.
Speaker 1: What did you think you wanted in the beginning, What
Speaker 1: did you think that this was going to accomplish?
Speaker 2: I wanted to escape. I wanted some excitement and adventure.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be the anti mom. So I was thinking.
Speaker 2: I was thinking. I used to go on trips with
Speaker 2: my friends to Las Vegas too, Like the first time
Speaker 2: was probably when my kids were one and four. We
Speaker 2: went away for the weekend, so it was before we
Speaker 2: opened our marriage. But it was so exhilarating. We thought
Speaker 2: of if anybody knows park slope, it's like so mom
Speaker 2: centric and everybody has a stroller, and so my friends
Speaker 2: and I, who are also park slope moms, like, we
Speaker 2: thought of Vegas as like the anti park slope too,
Speaker 2: where it was just like because it is yes, totally irresponsible, ye,
Speaker 2: nobody made like like the goal was to make zero
Speaker 2: good decisions, you know what I mean, to be totally irresponsible.
Speaker 2: And we had a blast. So but that would be
Speaker 2: like we did that a few times, but it was
Speaker 2: like three days and then you'd come back and you'd
Speaker 2: be like you had seen this glimpse of this self
Speaker 2: that was you know, it was just kind of running
Speaker 2: the It was polarity though. It was like bouncing from
Speaker 2: one extreme to the other as opposed to finding a
Speaker 2: place in the middle. So I thought I just wanted
Speaker 2: to run to the other end of the spectrum of irresponsibility.
Speaker 2: But I think what I really was craving and what
Speaker 2: I have achieved to a degree now anyway, is like
Speaker 2: an integrated self where I can be my whole self
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break here. When we
Speaker 1: get back, we'll talk about the rules that Molly and
Speaker 1: her husband set for their open marriage. After you meet
Speaker 1: the guy in the bar, you come home, you talk
Speaker 1: to your husband. What were the main rules besides don't
Speaker 1: fall in love?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had. I for example, didn't want him in
Speaker 2: particular to date anybody that he might fin all in
Speaker 2: love with. So they had to not like live nearby,
Speaker 2: you know, no no exes. Although the first that rule
Speaker 2: came after he dated his ex and then I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't like this. You know, sometimes something would happen
Speaker 2: and then I would make a rule about it, like
Speaker 2: make sure it didn't happen again. It feels like no
Speaker 2: playing chess with anybody else, because that was our thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that one. That one is so fascinating
Speaker 1: to me because you know, I mean, obviously you read
Speaker 1: read things like this and then you're like, well, what
Speaker 1: would my role be. What do you like to do together? Ye,
Speaker 1: right now, it's nothing, But we did like to do
Speaker 1: things together before we had a one year old. But
Speaker 1: the the no chess. I liked that role.
Speaker 2: But if you can imagine something you did used to
Speaker 2: do that, you don't have time to do anymore if
Speaker 2: you started doing that thing with somebody else. Even just
Speaker 2: like if I, if I had thought of it, I
Speaker 2: would have done, like, no reading the Sunday Times in
Speaker 2: Central Part with anybody else, because that's what we used
Speaker 2: to do. We used to like bring a picnic to
Speaker 2: the park and the newspaper and hang out all day.
Speaker 2: You know, if he were to do that with someone else,
Speaker 2: I would want to kill him totally.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that brings me to another question that
Speaker 1: I have always had for friends who have opened their marriages.
Speaker 1: And I'm essentially living in the park slope of Philadelphia, so.
Speaker 2: Every neighborhood, every city has their park.
Speaker 1: Slope, every city has their park slope. And but you know,
Speaker 1: we are seeing more of our friends opening up their
Speaker 1: marriages and more women that I know having affairs, And
Speaker 1: when I've talked to them, I'm like, you know, I
Speaker 1: am a jealous bitch. And I know this about myself
Speaker 1: so well that I don't know if I could personally
Speaker 1: handle it, because I think I would seethe with rage
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah I did. I did. Part of the reason that
Speaker 2: I tolerated it is because I did it first, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, with his permission. And so then
Speaker 2: when he wanted to see people too, I knew that
Speaker 2: wasn't I knew I couldn't say no because you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, that was I'm not I'm not illogical.
Speaker 2: So I was like, all right, if I am seeing
Speaker 2: other people, I need to let him see other people.
Speaker 2: But it has taken a very long time for us
Speaker 2: to get to the understanding that it is still harder
Speaker 2: for me than it is for him in terms of jealousy.
Speaker 2: It never really made him jealous in the same way
Speaker 2: that it made me jealous. But what I read this
Speaker 2: book right away, not right away, but early on, called
Speaker 2: The Ethical Slut, Yeah yeah, the Bible of polyamory, and
Speaker 2: it really is yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: That was the first book that my friend read when
Speaker 1: she opened her marriage.
Speaker 2: It's also kind of when it was the only book
Speaker 2: for quite some time. So now there are a few
Speaker 2: more poly secure is a good one. I hope my
Speaker 2: book will be helpful just as an individual deep dive
Speaker 2: into what it was like. But I loved the line
Speaker 2: they had that jealousy is just a mask for whatever
Speaker 2: you have going on right now. And so for me,
Speaker 2: when I dug underneath the jealousy, you didn't have to
Speaker 2: go very far. There was anger, and you said, seething
Speaker 2: with rage. There was anger that I didn't feel like
Speaker 2: I had enough freedom and he did. And there was
Speaker 2: insecurity that he was going to love somebody else more
Speaker 2: than me. But when we dug under there, that led
Speaker 2: to some real changes. Because if he was staying at work,
Speaker 2: for example, and I was home with the kids, that
Speaker 2: felt like, well, that was just the decision we made, right,
Speaker 2: he made more money. I was a teacher. It makes
Speaker 2: sense for me. You know. Eventually I did go back
Speaker 2: to work, but I didn't have to. I was a teacher,
Speaker 2: So I still picked the kids up from school and
Speaker 2: had their vacations off and all of that. You're still
Speaker 2: you're the primary parent, like ye, right, But once he
Speaker 2: started dating, I could say, wait a minute, if you're
Speaker 2: going out, I'm going it, you know, as opposed to
Speaker 2: my feeling like I was supposed to stay at home
Speaker 2: with the kids. It just it just changed enough for
Speaker 2: me that I started giving myself permission to do something
Speaker 2: that wasn't kid centric. And there was still a lot
Speaker 2: of guilt around it, but ultimately I discovered this is
Speaker 2: better for me. I am not walking around as an angry,
Speaker 2: migrain riddled person. As I started to feel better in
Speaker 2: my own skin, I started to realize this is actually
Speaker 2: good for my kids too, and for my family and
Speaker 2: for my marriage. But that wasn't like really the prime motive.
Speaker 2: The primary motive was like I I felt broken and
Speaker 2: I needed I needed to reestablish some time for myself
Speaker 2: however I could. And in New York, I think it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's probably the same where you are. It's
Speaker 2: probably same for a lot of people. If one partner
Speaker 2: is working all the time, because it is expensive to
Speaker 2: raise kids in the city, and you do need someone
Speaker 2: to make some dough, it's very hard to carve out
Speaker 2: time for anything. But I think doing this shifted both
Speaker 2: of our priorities a bit, and we started realizing we
Speaker 2: need to realize them to live, started giving each other,
Speaker 2: you know. Somehow, the time materialized partly we didn't sleep
Speaker 2: as much. That was one thing. But I wasn't sleeping
Speaker 2: much anyway. It's like, once you're down to five hours
Speaker 2: of sleep a night, Hey, what's the difference between for
Speaker 2: three and a half and five?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: It's like I had the adrenaline at that point anyway.
Speaker 2: But there were some things that started to become more
Speaker 2: balanced in our relationship that made me appreciate what was
Speaker 2: happening for him. I started to see some change too
Speaker 2: in him, based on honestly, some of the women he
Speaker 2: was dating too, some of the understanding he was getting
Speaker 2: around what it's like to be a mother because a
Speaker 2: lot of the women he was dating were also mothers.
Speaker 2: Oh right, Yeah, And so my next book, actually Spoiler,
Speaker 2: is going to be about the relationships with these other women.
Speaker 2: In polyamory, there's a term called metamoor, and it's your
Speaker 2: partner's partner. And I haven't always met my partner's partner,
Speaker 2: but I have a lot to thank them for in
Speaker 2: terms of what they have taught my husband. And my
Speaker 2: partner's wives always tend to love me, whether they've met
Speaker 2: me or not, because I am their biggest advocate. I'm like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: you're not going out tonight. Your kid is sick. Hell no,
Speaker 2: go home, you know that kind of thing. So we
Speaker 2: kind of have each other's back to in this weird
Speaker 2: sister wife kind of way.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm very into that. I'm very into that. Well,
Speaker 1: because it does a marriage. A marriage requires a village,
Speaker 1: and I think that in America we've lost that village.
Speaker 1: We've siloed ourselves into these very small nuclear units.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we no.
Speaker 1: Longer have the brothers, the sisters, the cousins, the aunties,
Speaker 1: the uncles giving you advice, you know, pushing you in
Speaker 1: the right direction. Like we think that we can do
Speaker 1: this all ourselves, and the fact is we can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am so appreciative. I didn't marry my husband until
Speaker 1: he was I think he was forty two. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was forty two, because he's turning fifty this year when
Speaker 1: I was thirty five. And I'm so appreciative to all
Speaker 1: of the women that dated him before. Yeah, because they
Speaker 1: fixed him. I you know, they did. I mean I
Speaker 1: still had to do so much work, and there's still
Speaker 1: much more to do, but these women like already did
Speaker 1: put in all of the work that I had been
Speaker 1: putting in with these terrible men for years while I
Speaker 1: was Yeah, so I got him as a fully formed
Speaker 1: human in the world. And the other interesting thing I
Speaker 1: have to say about this is we live in a
Speaker 1: society where I don't think men have nearly enough space
Speaker 1: to have relationships with women. If you had more of
Speaker 1: like a council or a coven of female friends, then
Speaker 1: they would be telling you how to better be a
Speaker 1: partner in the world.
Speaker 2: But that is so good. I love that idea.
Speaker 1: Male female relationships are always only sexual.
Speaker 2: And that's actually kind of a joke in polyamory that
Speaker 2: like people say swingers have sex without talking, and polyamorous
Speaker 2: people talk without having sex, And like, I do have
Speaker 2: partners now that like maybe we used to be sexual
Speaker 2: in the past, but we're not anymore, but like we
Speaker 2: still hang out because there's also something lovely about the
Speaker 2: intimacy that has been established. Early on, five of my
Speaker 2: husband's ex girlfriends were at our wedding, like he always
Speaker 2: has stayed friends with his exes.
Speaker 1: Stame, stame I had. We had four of his exes
Speaker 1: at our wedding, and we had three of mine.
Speaker 2: Very nice. We had zero of mine because I only
Speaker 2: had one ex and I no longer could talk to him.
Speaker 2: So I hadn't ever really dated widely. I got married.
Speaker 2: I met my husband when I was twenty three, so
Speaker 2: i'll you're a baby. I was, and so he is
Speaker 2: five years older. He had dated more, but was also
Speaker 2: you know, he was thirty blond when you got married.
Speaker 2: So I feel like you are so right and and
Speaker 2: you know, you remember I think it was Mike Pence
Speaker 2: who said in an interview, like you wouldn't even have
Speaker 2: lunch with a female colleague or something like that, Like,
Speaker 2: think about when men have no interaction with women, what
Speaker 2: are they think the world is?
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, No, exactly exactly, And it's so
Speaker 1: many of the women that I've interviewed for she wants
Speaker 1: More say, it's just been world opening for everyone. The
Speaker 1: kinds of connections that you can make are not just sexual.
Speaker 1: You are making friends. I have friends that are like,
Speaker 1: you know, I've made some really good business contact.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, one of my partners just got like a
Speaker 2: great apartment.
Speaker 1: Yes. No, it's like you just don't know, you just
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a wonderful network.
Speaker 1: Often, yeah, but usually, I mean there is this paradigm
Speaker 1: that when we get married, we shut ourselves off to
Speaker 1: opening up like that in that way except for a
Speaker 1: couple friends and things like that. So I do. I
Speaker 1: think there is so much that we can learn people
Speaker 1: who don't even want to open up their marriages, just
Speaker 1: from the model of polyamory about what all of us
Speaker 1: are missing out on as human beings.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And Yeah, a good friend of mine who's monogamous
Speaker 2: but is still close friends with one of her ex boyfriends,
Speaker 2: she said, like reading my book actually helped her talk
Speaker 2: to her husband a little, because like she really wanted
Speaker 2: to go away for a weekend trip with her ex
Speaker 2: boyfriend because like they miss each other, and so they
Speaker 2: did and it was just like it was just like revelatory.
Speaker 2: They have such a good time, and they came back
Speaker 2: more kind of like juice to be with their partners too,
Speaker 2: And she was like, and nothing sexual happened. I'm not
Speaker 2: attracted to him anymore, but he's like my brother and
Speaker 2: the fact that like I can't hang out with him
Speaker 2: unchaperoned anymore or something, it's like it's upsetting, you know.
Speaker 2: So I love this idea that we're gonnaproach that kind
Speaker 2: of thing too. And my parents also, who had an
Speaker 2: open marriage. They are still close friends with some of
Speaker 2: their former partners. And that's like what my mother's main
Speaker 2: partner when I was a kid, I knew him as
Speaker 2: her best friend. I didn't know anything else was going on.
Speaker 2: I didn't find out till my aunt told me when
Speaker 2: I was twenty eight, and I was like, ooh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll tell the audience a little bit about that moment. That,
Speaker 1: so you found out that your parents had had an
Speaker 1: open marriage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was it was before we had opened
Speaker 2: opened but after we had done some of the like
Speaker 2: you know, a couple sex clubs, threesome or two kind
Speaker 2: of thing that I was like, oh, I'm not into it.
Speaker 2: And then my aunt told me that my mother had
Speaker 2: had an affair with her best friend. It took me
Speaker 2: a year to confront my mother about it, and when
Speaker 2: I did, I asked her if my dad knew, and
Speaker 2: she said, well, it was your father's idea, but she
Speaker 2: never used the term open marriage, and so it wasn't then.
Speaker 2: We didn't have another conversation about it until after I
Speaker 2: had opened my marriage and wanted to talk to her
Speaker 2: because it took a while for me to realize what
Speaker 2: I was really looking for was that kind of connection
Speaker 2: that she had with a guy, you know, I love.
Speaker 2: I loved the friendship she had with this guy who
Speaker 2: I called Jim and the story, and I wanted that
Speaker 2: for myself. So I feel like that is part of
Speaker 2: what I have gained. But it took me a while
Speaker 2: to get there because I was also so afraid of
Speaker 2: falling in love or of my husband falling in love
Speaker 2: that I was trying to keep my contact with other
Speaker 2: men very superficial for a while. So I feel like
Speaker 2: the first half of the book is almost sad in
Speaker 2: some ways because of I didn't quite know what I
Speaker 2: was looking for. But I wanted to show readers kind
Speaker 2: of like what the trajectory really looked like for me.
Speaker 2: So I wrote it in present tense to really be
Speaker 2: in that place and not look back with more with
Speaker 2: a wiser eye. I wanted to really show what was
Speaker 2: happening for me during those years, which was really from
Speaker 2: age thirty five to forty five, which is how part
Speaker 2: of it was looking for friendship, looking for connection.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, And in the beginning, how was the suck?
Speaker 1: Was it satisfying or were you trying lots of different
Speaker 1: things and not necessarily getting what you wanted, or was
Speaker 1: your mind blown right away?
Speaker 2: My mind was not blown right away. No, my mind
Speaker 2: was blown occasionally by things I discovered I liked, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, things that were you know. I
Speaker 2: still consider myself pretty vanilla overall, because once you dip
Speaker 2: a toe into this world, like I don't know if
Speaker 2: anybody's ever been on the field app but I went
Speaker 2: on field when I was in London, partly because I
Speaker 2: just wanted to see if there was an open marriage
Speaker 2: scene there. Yeah, And seeing I was non monogamous, everybody
Speaker 2: kept inviting me to like dungeon parties and I was like, oh, no, no, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not into I'm that. And the assumption was if
Speaker 2: you're non monogamous, you're like into BDSM, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: that's not what I was into. So I'm pretty vanilla,
Speaker 2: I think. But one man's vanilla is another man's kink, right, So.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm actually I'm working on an essay right now.
Speaker 1: Uh as I'm promoting my new my new novel, The
Speaker 1: Sicilian Inheritance, because I put some some steamy sex scenes
Speaker 1: in it. But I'm like, yeah, I mean steamy enough, right,
Speaker 1: Like average person sex and uh, but I'm writing and
Speaker 1: I say, how do you write steamy sex scenes when
Speaker 1: you actually really like vanilla sex? Like when I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, whoa, I get off on Missionary.
Speaker 2: What's hilarious is people when people have described my book
Speaker 2: as like steamy or like raunchy, I'm like, are you Jill.
Speaker 1: It shocked me.
Speaker 2: It shocked me because I don't think it's that raunchy.
Speaker 1: I don't think it is either. It's just honest. It's
Speaker 1: honest about sex, but it happens in the.
Speaker 2: World and it's not it's not painted over with some
Speaker 2: sort of like gauzy filter, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's not wort in sex, and it's not. It's like
Speaker 2: there's like fluids and sounds, and you know, it's a
Speaker 2: gross and sad in some places, but it grows.
Speaker 1: It has gross and sad in some places, and it's
Speaker 1: and it's and it seems great and fun in other places.
Speaker 1: I will tell you I think that the Times really
Speaker 1: just wanted an excuse to write butt Plug. They're like,
Speaker 1: They're like, we are never going to get butt Plug
Speaker 1: past the standards department, except right now, so we say
Speaker 1: right now, I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Say butt plug whenever I can, and I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: I haven't used a butt plug in many years, but
Speaker 2: but plug, I's a plug for butt plugs. No, I
Speaker 2: but it like taught me something about myself. It taught
Speaker 2: me to like look at my anus, which I had
Speaker 2: not done before, and like explore a little bit and
Speaker 2: realize that sometimes shit comes out during sex and yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, nobody talks about that. And the truth is,
Speaker 2: if you can't be comfortable with someone if a little
Speaker 2: shit comes out during sex, that's not going to be good.
Speaker 2: So oh and I tried not to talk. I don't
Speaker 2: know if they're the shit during sex scene might have
Speaker 2: gotten cut from my book, but there's sometimes this shit.
Speaker 1: There's sh there's shit and yeah, I mean the Bodley
Speaker 1: fluids galore galore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's funny sometimes and if so. Part
Speaker 2: of what I learned in this exploration was I need
Speaker 2: someone I can laugh with, and I need little one
Speaker 2: who's not gonna take it all too seriously. And I
Speaker 2: needed to not feel like a performance. But that's partly
Speaker 2: because I felt like it was a performance for a
Speaker 2: lot of years now with my husband. But I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I was exploring. I hadn't done the whole
Speaker 2: dating thing in my twenties. Ever, I hadn't really ever
Speaker 2: done it. And for friends of mine who were single
Speaker 2: throughout their twenties, they may not want open relationships, but
Speaker 2: they still might want male friends, or they still might
Speaker 2: want freedom in these other ways. So I think it
Speaker 2: looks different for different people what you're gonna want, But
Speaker 2: I didn't ever get that. So it was something I
Speaker 2: think I needed to do to get in touch with
Speaker 2: my own body and my own physicality and my own
Speaker 2: erraticism in a way I never had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I hear that. It is amazing how many
Speaker 1: similarities I hear. And that's why, like so many of
Speaker 1: this does feel universal to the female experience, and yet
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about and yet we haven't talked about it.
Speaker 1: But yes, so many women, especially women that got married young,
Speaker 1: said I didn't even know what I liked to do.
Speaker 1: I just started having this kind of sex because I
Speaker 1: thought that's the kind of sex I wanted to be having,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what turned me on. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, are like, this is why exploring now
Speaker 1: in my thirties and forties' that's part of why I
Speaker 1: had to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it doesn't. And it feels like, as you
Speaker 2: were saying before, with mothers that were I've used this
Speaker 2: line before, but you know, it feels like we're we're
Speaker 2: meant to put on this one size fits all mom
Speaker 2: suit and we have to lap of the parts of
Speaker 2: ourselves that don't fit inside. And it's just minimizing for
Speaker 2: such a big swath of the female population that we
Speaker 2: are denying our society the full vitality of like feminine
Speaker 2: energy is. It feels that vital to me. The more
Speaker 2: women I've talked to, even in the few weeks since
Speaker 2: my book came out, I've been feeling it more stridently.
Speaker 2: You know that you don't know how much your story
Speaker 2: is going to resonate with other people until people start
Speaker 2: responding to it. But because of the responses I've been getting,
Speaker 2: it seems really quite critical to me now that this
Speaker 2: is something that women's full expression, whether that's through open
Speaker 2: marriage or not. I don't have a vested interest in
Speaker 2: everybody being polyamorous, so I haven't written a manifesto, but
Speaker 2: I do think our society has a vested interest in
Speaker 2: the full expression of women and for men to be
Speaker 2: exposed to more that I led. So I love your
Speaker 2: idea about more men having female friendships, like more, more,
Speaker 2: more women. That's not what I meant initially when I
Speaker 2: have the word more in my book as my title.
Speaker 2: But I think it's more a lot of things, and
Speaker 2: more feminine energy as one of them.
Speaker 1: Yes, more feminine energy, more conversation, you know, more, yes,
Speaker 1: more and more and more. How did you come up
Speaker 1: with the title for the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, my title was initially the Experiment because it
Speaker 2: felt like this grand experiment, but it sounded yeah that
Speaker 2: my my publisher didn't like that, and so then we
Speaker 2: switched to Open. But then Rachel Krantz wrote a book
Speaker 2: called Open about her own open relationship, which is very
Speaker 2: different from mine, and I'm a big fan of having
Speaker 2: lots of different takes. She was, you know, single, not
Speaker 2: not with kids, and so it was just an open relationship,
Speaker 2: which led her down a very different road than it
Speaker 2: led me down. So but so we needed a new title,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, no, I don't have a
Speaker 2: new title. I don't have another title. And then it
Speaker 2: was during I Meditate. I started meditating after the period
Speaker 2: that the book takes place, and the title came to
Speaker 2: me in a meditation, and I was, like my mother
Speaker 2: says to me, more than once in the book when
Speaker 2: I was. The first time was when I was breaking
Speaker 2: up with somebody, and I love it that when I
Speaker 2: was breaking up with someone, the two people who really
Speaker 2: consoled me were my husband and my mother, usually the
Speaker 2: two last people you could tell. But my friends didn't
Speaker 2: really handle it at the time. They couldn't wrap their
Speaker 2: heads around what I was doing. Everybody gets it now
Speaker 2: because they've seen that my life didn't implode, and now
Speaker 2: they actually seek advice for me all the time because
Speaker 2: they think I'm actually pretty good at this relationship thing.
Speaker 2: But my mother said, oh, sweetie, don't worry, there will
Speaker 2: be more, and she had more than one partner. But
Speaker 2: I think I come to understand that there will be
Speaker 2: a lot more of a lot of things when you
Speaker 2: open yourself up to the truest expression of yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and God right, yes.
Speaker 2: And how else are you going to grow if you
Speaker 2: don't have some pain? Right? I think in our society too,
Speaker 2: we think and I get this question a lot, like, well,
Speaker 2: it seems like you were having a lot of difficulty
Speaker 2: in the early stages of opening up your marriage, why
Speaker 2: didn't you close it or why didn't you get a divorce?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, I also had a lot of
Speaker 2: difficulty in the early stages of motherhood, but nobody says,
Speaker 2: why didn't you give your children up for a duction?
Speaker 1: Yes, like, we know.
Speaker 2: That sometimes things are hard, even when they're valuable, and
Speaker 2: maybe especially because they're valuable. Maybe that's where we learn
Speaker 2: and grow. So if we only have void the things
Speaker 2: that are hard, not a lot would happen, and we wouldn't,
Speaker 2: I think, do what we're supposed to do on this planet,
Speaker 2: which is learn about ourselves through relationship. I think that's
Speaker 2: a big part of the human experience. So I knew
Speaker 2: I could tell, and therapy helped. Conversations with my husband
Speaker 2: were essential, but I could tell something important was happening,
Speaker 2: both for me and between us, and I didn't want
Speaker 2: to turn my back on that and try to go
Speaker 2: back into some safe space because I also knew I
Speaker 2: was at a breaking point when this all began, so
Speaker 2: recruiting to something that also hadn't been working for me
Speaker 2: didn't feel like a great idea. And I loved my
Speaker 2: husband and I did not want to divorce them. People
Speaker 2: have a hard get that.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I mean that's that is the number one
Speaker 1: thing that I've heard from people before they listened to
Speaker 1: the podcast. They're like, if you're not happy to get
Speaker 1: a divorce? Yeah, yeah, And that feels like the most
Speaker 1: simplistic thing ever. I mean, it's almost in you know,
Speaker 1: I've compared it to if you're not happy with your job,
Speaker 1: quit There's a lot more to a job than your happiness.
Speaker 1: There is supporting your family, there is the fact that
Speaker 1: maybe maybe you do enjoy some parts of what you do,
Speaker 1: like it is not all black and white. But people
Speaker 1: love that line. They do. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I've been accused, not a lot, but a couple
Speaker 2: times of being anti divorce because one of my partners
Speaker 2: was going through a divorce and I said something to sparagic.
Speaker 2: But it was also like I didn't want him to
Speaker 2: be in a divorce because then he wanted me to
Speaker 2: be monogamous, so it was like it was going to
Speaker 2: be complicated. But I am not anti divorce. I feel
Speaker 2: like the best marriage is though in the best partnerships
Speaker 2: are those in which both people are giving each other
Speaker 2: freedom to grow throughout their lives. I can't still be
Speaker 2: the same person I was when I was twenty three
Speaker 2: when I met my husband. Now, if that were the expectation,
Speaker 2: then I would get a divorce. If he didn't want
Speaker 2: me to ever become more than I was at twenty three,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be able to stay in my marriage. But
Speaker 2: he was encouraging me to do things and to grow
Speaker 2: in ways that I do think I needed to grow.
Speaker 2: And I was also trying to give him the space
Speaker 2: to do that, even though it was really really hard
Speaker 2: for me, because I feel like that's what a good
Speaker 2: marriage is. You let each other grow. And if we
Speaker 2: had ended up growing away from each other and not
Speaker 2: being in love with each other anymore, then I think
Speaker 2: we would have gotten a divorce. But that's not what happened.
Speaker 2: So I think we have to redefine what makes a
Speaker 2: good marriage too. We think that monogamy automatically makes a
Speaker 2: good marriage, and I don't think that's true. Nor do
Speaker 2: I think non monogamy makes a good marriage. I've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of non monogamy as marriages end, and for
Speaker 2: good reason. But you know, we have to think about
Speaker 2: what it is that we're trying to achieve as human
Speaker 2: beings in these partnerships, and can we change the container
Speaker 2: as needed to make marriage work for people, and maybe
Speaker 2: by introducing some more flexibility and some more conscious decision
Speaker 2: making about what will our marriage look like, as opposed
Speaker 2: to everybody adopting the same model that they were handed
Speaker 2: by their parents.
Speaker 1: Right right. I mean it is interesting because we have,
Speaker 1: you know, blown up so many other models and so
Speaker 1: many other industries and evolved, and yet marriage does remain
Speaker 1: this kind of one institution that people get very nervous
Speaker 1: when you talk about doing anything different.
Speaker 2: I heard like Dan Savage talking about this on the
Speaker 2: Savage Lovecast that like, I didn't know this, that there
Speaker 2: were like right wing conspiracies out there that like all
Speaker 2: this talk about polyamory was you know, some sort of
Speaker 2: like takedown of the nuclear family. And he was funny,
Speaker 2: so he mentioned my book and was like, no, it's
Speaker 2: just like a really good pr campaign vibe who wrote
Speaker 2: a book, you know what I mean? And I'm like,
Speaker 2: thank you publicist at Double Day. And it's true in
Speaker 2: some ways, but I'm like, I had no idea that
Speaker 2: people were like, it's been crazy. People are like really upset,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I just told my story. I didn't
Speaker 2: even it's how too manual, it's not in anything except
Speaker 2: my story, and it's so threatening to people.
Speaker 1: This is just your life, y And yes, and I
Speaker 1: think that women's stories are threatening to people. I do.
Speaker 1: I saw that so much. We had a lot of
Speaker 1: hate thrown at us for even daring to publish podcasts
Speaker 1: about women having affairs. Yeah, we were told very similar things,
Speaker 1: that we were undermining the institution of marriage, that we
Speaker 1: were undermining the nuclear family, that this was some kind
Speaker 1: of liberal agenda as opposed to a woman just talking
Speaker 1: about her life.
Speaker 2: And crying for help sometimes too, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: like for help sometimes in many ways, that my opening
Speaker 2: my marriage was started out as a cry for help,
Speaker 2: you know. And it could have gone a number of
Speaker 2: different ways. And I could have learned everything that I
Speaker 2: needed to learn about myself and then closed my marriage
Speaker 2: and that would have been fine too, you know. Or
Speaker 2: I might have cried for help in a different way.
Speaker 2: It turned out that this was something that I changed
Speaker 2: the way I was doing it many many times. And
Speaker 2: the way it looks now is different than it looked
Speaker 2: even at the end of the book, which ends in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen. But that's because life is long, and I'm
Speaker 2: changing as a person, and that to me that I
Speaker 2: keep evolving and growing. I love being fifty one. It's
Speaker 2: way better than forty one, which was way better than
Speaker 2: thirty one, which was way better than twenty one. So
Speaker 2: I can't like I'm loving my fifties. And I feel
Speaker 2: like we also need to model for younger women that
Speaker 2: life doesn't end when you get married, and life doesn't
Speaker 2: end again when your kids leave. Like m h, I
Speaker 2: cried for a little while when I dropped my youngst
Speaker 2: at school to college, but then it's been kind of fantastic,
Speaker 2: I have to say. And I feel like you're kind
Speaker 2: of not supposed to say that either. But it's better
Speaker 2: for my kid that I'm not like calling him constantly
Speaker 2: and sobbing and like where, well, well I do with myself,
Speaker 2: Like why would we do? Why would I waste all
Speaker 2: of this potential, all the things I've learned by just
Speaker 2: sobbing over my empty nest for the rest of my life,
Speaker 2: which is kind of what the image that I wish show.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, also just the way of do you just
Speaker 1: described it an empty nest? You're empty now? Yes?
Speaker 2: And empty? Right? You're the other one. I love us,
Speaker 2: the selfless mother, the mother who has no self mm hmm,
Speaker 2: rightm hmm. You're just avoid you're just annoyed.
Speaker 1: I mean about that too, with words like stay at
Speaker 1: home mother. Yeah, oh you're not. You're not You're not
Speaker 1: a work at home mother. You're just staying, just staying,
Speaker 1: not a last Yeah, yeah, I know. The words we
Speaker 1: use to describe women are terrible, and we could only
Speaker 1: break it with stories. That is the only way we
Speaker 1: can fix anything. Yeah, it is true, It is so true.
Speaker 1: We are going to take a quick break here, and
Speaker 1: when we get back, I want to talk to Mollie
Speaker 1: about when she first talked to her kids about having
Speaker 1: an open marriage. When did you first talk to your
Speaker 1: children about having an open marriage?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I didn't handle this great. I I was
Speaker 2: trying to hide it from my kids, just like my
Speaker 2: mother hid it from me. Even though I came to
Speaker 2: see that it was like I was glad I knew,
Speaker 2: but I always had a little ambivalence, like did I
Speaker 2: want to know when I was a kid? Did I
Speaker 2: not want to know? You know? Am I glad she
Speaker 2: didn't tell me? So I hadn't really worked it out.
Speaker 2: But then, because we're in a different era. My oldest
Speaker 2: found my husband's okay Cupid profile when he went to
Speaker 2: use his laptop, because my husband is not, you know,
Speaker 2: a good he's sloppy.
Speaker 1: Shitty spy. You're a shitty spy, is what you are? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would not be a good spy.
Speaker 2: No, And we're both terrible liars too, which is partly
Speaker 2: why one of our rules. At one point I wanted
Speaker 2: like a don't ask, don't tell, but then I ended
Speaker 2: up yelling at him, at my husband because he wasn't
Speaker 2: lying well enough, and I was like, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: not good. This is not all fad. So we got
Speaker 2: rid of that one. But my oldest, when he was thirteen,
Speaker 2: found the okqpid profile and thought that my husband was
Speaker 2: having an affair. So that conversation is the prologue for
Speaker 2: my book how that went and it wasn't. And then
Speaker 2: I still didn't want my youngest to find out, but
Speaker 2: he found out in a similar way when he was fourteen,
Speaker 2: so now they both know. And I think it's kind
Speaker 2: of a tricky thing because where I've landed is that
Speaker 2: there is a difference. You know, privacy is important and
Speaker 2: boundaries are important, but authenticity is also important. And it's
Speaker 2: kind of like the cocktail. It's kind of also like
Speaker 2: if you're married and living with your husband and you
Speaker 2: don't you know, you don't necessarily announce, hey, kids, we're
Speaker 2: going upstairs to have sex. Although there was an article
Speaker 2: about this, I think it was in The Atlantic recently
Speaker 2: about like how do parents get it on?
Speaker 1: I didn't read it yet. I should read it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty good, but it was like it was
Speaker 2: an interesting kind of poll. They were like twenty percent
Speaker 2: of parents said that they tell their children that they
Speaker 2: need time to be intimate or something, but they use
Speaker 2: kind of like coach, you know, couch it in I
Speaker 2: don't know, vague language, right. But that's also kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, nobody knows kind of how to talk about
Speaker 2: sex with their kids period, or even just acknowledging that
Speaker 2: you have sex with your with your the father of
Speaker 2: your children, you know what I mean, let alone having
Speaker 2: sex with adults side of the marriage. So I think
Speaker 2: there needs to be more done collectively to normalize this.
Speaker 2: I feel like, now that my kids are older, I'm
Speaker 2: glad they know that I'm a sexual person because they
Speaker 2: have told me about some of the stuff that's going
Speaker 2: on in their own lives. They don't want to tell
Speaker 2: me details. I don't need them to tell me details,
Speaker 2: but there have been some things that they've like confronted
Speaker 2: that I'm glad that they feel comfortable talking to both
Speaker 2: me and to my husband about stuff. And it's not
Speaker 2: a completely sanitized, pearl clutching household, and I think that's important.
Speaker 2: So ultimately, I think it's it's good to talk to
Speaker 2: your kids about what you're doing. It's never easy, no
Speaker 2: matter if you're in a monogamous or a non monogamous relationship.
Speaker 2: One thing I did feel, though, was like I was
Speaker 2: glad by the time my son found out, I was
Speaker 2: in a slightly more stable, balanced place with it where
Speaker 2: I was able to talk about it, you know, cogently,
Speaker 2: because I've been doing enough therapy to understand kind of
Speaker 2: what this was and what this wasn't. And by the
Speaker 2: time my youngest felt found out way more comfortable. Well,
Speaker 2: so that's important. I don't know that I would have
Speaker 2: told them everything I was, you know, it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: appropriate for them to know. No, well, of course everything
Speaker 2: I was up to. So what we landed on for
Speaker 2: both of them is like that I have a right
Speaker 2: to privacy. Both of them asked me to not tell
Speaker 2: them when I was going out on a date. But
Speaker 2: at this point, my oldest has met my current main partner,
Speaker 2: who I've been dating for over three years, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to invite him to my birthday party. My husband
Speaker 2: was there too, and my son was home, so I
Speaker 2: was like, are you cool with that and would you
Speaker 2: like to meet him? He's like, sure, I'll meet him,
Speaker 2: and then he introduced me to his girlfriend, and I
Speaker 2: had never met her, so he's kind of he's a
Speaker 2: much more like keep it to himself kind of guy
Speaker 2: my oldest, So it was kind of nice that we
Speaker 2: were able to do that, and we're establishing a more
Speaker 2: adult relationship now that he's in his early twenties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he's a grown up, right, He's grown up. And
Speaker 2: if you think about it now, it's like, how how
Speaker 2: often did you think about what your mother was up
Speaker 2: to when you were like nineteen twenty twenty one? Like
Speaker 2: not at all? Never?
Speaker 1: Literally never. I thought about it more when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I think, ye, honest, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So like once that kind of anxious phase was over,
Speaker 2: I think it was a little uncomfortable when they were
Speaker 2: going through puberty. But it was a little uncomfortable anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, life is uncomfortable. The idea that anyone has sex, ever,
Speaker 1: it's disgusting, yeah, and also awesome. So like it's very
Speaker 1: confusing to them.
Speaker 2: Right, And we want a model for daughters that you
Speaker 2: can still be a sexual person when you're a mom.
Speaker 2: We want a model for sons that their mothers are
Speaker 2: whole people and they are not carbon cutouts there to
Speaker 2: serve you. So I feel like, ultimately, I'm very happy
Speaker 2: with all of the messiness that happened. I don't have
Speaker 2: regrets about really anything that happened because it's all brought
Speaker 2: me to this place and i have strong relationships with
Speaker 2: my kids now and I'm happy about.
Speaker 1: That, which is great, Which is great. The book takes
Speaker 1: place over ten years, and as you said, it ends,
Speaker 1: it's twenty eighteen that it ends, right, Yeah, yeah, where
Speaker 1: are you? Where is your marriage now? How are how
Speaker 1: are things? I guess is that the best question? How
Speaker 1: are things?
Speaker 2: Our marriage is the best it's ever been. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, the kids. For some people, I think
Speaker 2: when the kids leave, the marriage goes through some pressure
Speaker 2: because maybe there's no triangulation anymore, or there's no common
Speaker 2: focal point. But because we've had our own things going on,
Speaker 2: the kids leaving has made it like awesome, So we're
Speaker 2: like really enjoying time together and time apart which we
Speaker 2: always have. The sex is better with my husband than
Speaker 2: it's ever been.
Speaker 1: I think, did the sex get better when you opened
Speaker 1: up your marriage?
Speaker 2: Yes, and not for the reason that everybody assumes. I mean,
Speaker 2: in part, I think it's because we were exploring with
Speaker 2: other people and figuring out what we wanted. But also,
Speaker 2: I write about this in the book, there are some
Speaker 2: facets of my husband's sexuality that do not match with
Speaker 2: some facets of my sexuality, and until I started seeing
Speaker 2: other people, I couldn't really put my finger on what
Speaker 2: that was. But ultimately he is more dominant than I prefer.
Speaker 2: I need him to tone it down with me, and
Speaker 2: so I now though, don't feel like I have to
Speaker 2: compromise with him. He can take He doesn't need that
Speaker 2: all the time, but you can get that elsewhere. So
Speaker 2: I don't have to change my boundaries for him, and
Speaker 2: he doesn't have to negate this whole part of his
Speaker 2: sexuality for me, And I think that's a really beautiful
Speaker 2: thing that we're able to give each other. So because
Speaker 2: of that, there's it's just so much less fraught. We
Speaker 2: kind of know the kind of sex we like to
Speaker 2: have and it's awesome, and it's not the only kind
Speaker 2: of sex we like to have, and so we have
Speaker 2: that other kind with other people. And so it's just
Speaker 2: taken all the pressure off of us in a way
Speaker 2: that's actually opened us up. We have been a little
Speaker 2: more experimental with each other because they're like, yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: we'll try it with the you know, things that I
Speaker 2: didn't think I would like with him, but I do
Speaker 2: like with other people sometimes does happen stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So overall, it's just kind of given a freedom to
Speaker 2: our sex life that that has benefited our relationship as
Speaker 2: much as it has our other partnerships.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, you're talking about it with regards
Speaker 1: to sex, but I say all the time, I'm like,
Speaker 1: your spouse cannot be your everything. They are not gonna
Speaker 1: your soul and your best friend and the person you
Speaker 1: played tennis with and the mind blowing sex, right and
Speaker 1: so yeah, but there yet another myth that deserves to
Speaker 1: be busted. Yeah, is that they should satisfy every single need. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you're happier when they satisfy the needs that they're good at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it was so funny. I got interviewed for
Speaker 2: the New York Times Food section because they were talking
Speaker 2: about marriage and food and I hadn't really thought about
Speaker 2: it so much before. But like, I don't cook, or
Speaker 2: I don't like to cook. My husband doesn't cook, so
Speaker 2: nobody cooks, right. Yeah, my boyfriend is in hospitality and
Speaker 2: cooks and used to like but also would make these
Speaker 2: like amazing shark uterie plates when we were first dating,
Speaker 2: and reminding him of that now because anytime you're with
Speaker 2: someone for a while, you get into a lull. But like,
Speaker 2: he'll cook for me sometimes, and my husband's girlfriend cooks
Speaker 2: for him sometimes, and we both get said in this
Speaker 2: way that we weren't previously. Yeah, we both love it
Speaker 2: getting cooked for but both of us hate took cook
Speaker 2: So it's this way we can just like get something
Speaker 2: that we don't get from each other. That's very lovely.
Speaker 1: That's very lovely exactly because not everyone can be all
Speaker 1: the thing right right, that is all that we have
Speaker 1: for today. The Under the Influence podcast explores the many,
Speaker 1: many facets of a woman's very complicated life. And if
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, please find us wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. It is the Under the Influence podcast. And
Speaker 1: as I said before, if you're looking for your next
Speaker 1: great summer read my new novel, The Sicilian Inheritance is
Speaker 1: available for pre order now and we'll be on bookshelves
Speaker 1: on April second. It is fun, it is sexy, and
Speaker 1: it might just be the book of the summer. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that I got to spend time with you today.
Speaker 1: Getting to be back in your feed was a real treat.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys. Have a wonderful day. Go do something
Speaker 1: nice for yourselves.
Speaker 2: Looking them talking