0:00

Hello, She Wants More listeners,

0:03

Joe Piazza here. I can't

0:05

believe that it's been a year since

0:07

we launched this wonderful show, but

0:10

time flies, it really does.

0:13

I don't know about all of you, but I've

0:15

been so busy. My

0:17

new novel, The Sicilian Inheritance, comes

0:19

out in about six weeks and

0:22

it is available for pre order right

0:24

now. The Sicilian Inheritance

0:26

is an adventurous mystery set in

0:28

Sicily, all about a woman

0:30

who wants more, more

0:33

out of life, more out of everything,

0:36

just like a lot of us. And

0:39

yes, there are some fairly steamy sex

0:41

scenes. You can order The Sicilian

0:43

Inheritance right now wherever you

0:45

get your books now.

0:48

This episode is actually from

0:50

my other podcast, Under the

0:52

Influence, But when I landed

0:54

this interview with Molly Winter about her open

0:57

marriage, I knew that

0:59

I had to drop it in the She Wants More

1:01

feed. Mollie is the New York

1:03

Times best selling author of More, a

1:06

memoir where she writes so honestly

1:09

about the first ten years of opening up

1:11

her marriage when her children were young. In

1:14

two thousand and eight, Molly and her husband had

1:16

been married for about ten years and

1:19

then Mollie met someone else. She

1:22

was exhausted, her husband was

1:24

working all the time, and suddenly

1:27

she just felt desire again.

1:31

And that was amazing. When

1:34

she told her husband, he wasn't

1:36

mad, and he said, why

1:39

don't you sleep with him? Why don't

1:41

you give this a try? Why

1:44

don't we open our marriage?

1:46

And they did. This one line

1:48

from Mollie really stuck with me. She

1:51

said, mothers in our society

1:53

are meant to put on a one sized

1:56

fits all mom suit and

1:58

were meant to lop off all the parts arts

2:00

that don't fit inside the suit. It

2:03

just minimizes us and destroys

2:06

so much of our feminine

2:08

vitality. I

2:10

could not agree more.

2:14

Molly's account of the first ten years of her open

2:17

marriage is raw and honest

2:19

and eye opening, and it has plenty of lessons

2:21

for people who don't want to open up their marriage,

2:24

who want to stay monogamous, but

2:26

who just want a better way of being a partner in

2:28

the world. I love this

2:30

conversation with Molly, and I really think you're

2:32

going to too.

2:36

So before we opened our

2:38

marriage, to said the scene,

2:41

my children were six and three years old.

2:45

I had just decided to

2:48

stay home for I thought

2:50

maybe a while, but I lasted one year.

2:53

I had been a teacher, and

2:56

I had decided to stay home because my youngest

2:58

needed some different therapies things like that,

3:00

and it was just I was having a lot

3:02

of guilt around not being home, so

3:06

I decided to stay home and

3:08

then lost my mind. But

3:11

my husband has always had to work late,

3:13

and I say has to kind of with air

3:16

quotes, but you know the truth is he was running

3:18

his own company. He's in New

3:20

York doing music for TV and

3:22

movies, and so often late calls

3:25

with la blah blah blah. And

3:27

so he came home really late one night and

3:29

I was just like done,

3:31

and I just walked out

3:33

of my house, without my keys,

3:35

without my phone, and I

3:38

ended up meeting a guy.

3:40

I think so many mothers can relate to that moment

3:43

right just where.

3:45

You know, I know that you're working, I know that you were

3:47

doing things to support our family, but I've also been doing

3:50

this work at home all day

3:52

long, on the most most labor that is unacknowledged,

3:55

and I'm just at my I'm done, I'm at my wits end. I have

3:57

to walk away.

3:58

Yeah, yeah, you have to walk

4:00

away sometimes. And I

4:03

didn't realize what I was walking

4:05

into when I walked away. But

4:08

we did have some precedent in our marriage

4:10

before we even got engaged, and

4:13

when we were dating, like my husband was kind of into

4:15

my being with other people. I

4:18

was never that into it though, because it was

4:20

more in like a swingery kind of way.

4:22

We had gone to a couple sex

4:24

clubs and had a three someones,

4:27

but that was all before we had

4:29

kids. Once we had kids, that

4:31

was just shut down, you know what I mean.

4:33

I could barely muster

4:36

the energy to have sex with my

4:38

husband. So I

4:41

knew that he was a little into it. He had even

4:43

said to me also that if I ever

4:45

wanted to sleep with someone else once we

4:47

were married, that if I wanted

4:49

to, I could just as long as I told

4:52

him about it. And part of that was his titillation,

4:54

and part of that was like he just you didn't want me

4:56

to lie to him, right right? So I

4:58

knew there was like a pos sibility, but

5:00

I hadn't. I mean, it was the farthest thing

5:03

from my mind. So when I walked into this bar,

5:05

a friend of mine like found me on the street just

5:08

wandering and she was like, come to the bar. With

5:10

me. So I went to the bar and it was one of her friends there,

5:13

and I was shocked that

5:15

like desire course through my body

5:18

when I met this guy. So

5:22

it wasn't like I really had planned

5:24

to open my marriage, and

5:26

once that happened, I didn't necessarily

5:29

plan to act on it. So the

5:31

book tells the story of the first ten years

5:33

of our opening our marriage, starting at

5:35

that point in two thousand and eight when my kids were

5:37

little, and now they're nineteen and twenty two.

5:39

Almost oh gosh, they're grown

5:42

ups. When people say that to me, yeah,

5:44

oh my gosh, Wow.

5:45

It happens. It does so long,

5:48

and now I like missed the little buggers.

5:50

I'm like, no, it's

5:53

it's crazy how how

5:55

intense it is and then

5:58

how over it is. But part of me wants

6:01

to say from the get go, it's like, with

6:03

that endpoint in mind, like you're supposed

6:05

to leave your children to have

6:07

their own lives eventually, and

6:09

if you don't preserve any part

6:12

of yourself for that moment,

6:15

it's not good for anyone. You know. Ultimately,

6:19

you know it was there. It was probably

6:22

escaping motherhood that

6:24

led me out the door that day.

6:27

But it's also been such

6:30

an important piece of my own

6:32

journey, and I think has cultivate helped

6:34

me to cultivate a very

6:36

authentic relationship with my children now

6:38

that they're older.

6:40

Yeah, yeah, and I'll I have I have so many more

6:42

questions about that once we get down the

6:45

road a little bit. Sure, I want

6:47

to go back to that first night. So

6:49

you're feeling desire for the first time in a

6:51

long time. I mean, I know what it's like to

6:54

just I mean, the desire faucet

6:56

kind of gets shut off for a

6:58

while. I mean, for some moment. We're all different, right,

7:00

we are not a monolith, but it can

7:03

get shut off for a while after

7:05

you have kids, and when it's not even the

7:07

having of kids, it's the very

7:09

physicality of motherhood too. Someone

7:12

is always touching your body and

7:15

you're exhausted.

7:16

You're exhausted, exhausted.

7:17

Exhausted, and but

7:19

you're feeling it for the first time, and that is

7:22

exciting. Was it also

7:24

terrifying?

7:26

Yes? Yes, exciting and

7:28

terrifying, And I'd

7:30

say those were probably

7:32

the two key emotions. For the first

7:35

five years or so, I was kind of vacillating

7:37

between thrill and

7:40

terror. And you

7:42

know, I wasn't bored though, so that

7:44

was good because I had been getting into a place

7:47

where, you know, like you

7:49

can only in my day it was like a lot of freaking

7:52

Teletubbies and Nolo

7:55

and and Thomas the Tank

7:57

Engine.

7:58

Yeah, we're at like Bluey and

8:01

Pepa Peg. Actually we watch a lot of dinosaur

8:03

crap in our house.

8:05

Where ours was it train household, primarily

8:08

a lot of trains. But

8:11

yeah, it's really not you know it.

8:14

There is nothing to

8:18

feed the kind of human

8:21

woman part of yourself that

8:23

is not the maternal part for

8:25

so long that you kind of forget

8:28

that you have this sort

8:30

of working body

8:32

with sex orgs.

8:34

Yes, yes, a body, a

8:36

body that want a body that once had sex.

8:39

Right like like enthusiastically,

8:42

you know place. And I

8:44

think I also had so much anger

8:46

at my husband at the time that

8:49

I couldn't even when he was trying

8:53

to connect with me. I

8:55

was just I was angry at him,

8:58

some for reasons that that were his

9:00

fault, and some for reasons that weren't

9:02

his fault or that went beyond him,

9:04

that went into the larger patriarchy.

9:08

And for some reason, this young single

9:10

guy who didn't see me as a mom who

9:13

had not impregnated me and

9:15

stayed late at work, you.

9:17

Know what I mean.

9:17

Yes, I could see him with these fresh

9:20

eyes that I could not see my husband with anymore.

9:23

So that was part of it, I'm sure. And

9:25

it's a complicated soup.

9:28

Yes, yes, And that's the

9:30

thing. It is all complicated. I

9:32

think that's what people have really responded

9:35

to in this She wants

9:37

more podcasts. It's that women are complicated.

9:39

We are not one thing or and just

9:41

one thing. We are. We have so much

9:45

that has not been expressed in popular culture,

9:47

and especially if you were a mother, we have been told

9:50

to be a certain way. We do not see

9:52

mothers as erotically charged,

9:54

as sexual creatures. And I

9:56

think that your book is really breaking down

9:58

stereotypes around that.

10:00

I hope so. And sexual creatures,

10:03

yes, and also like

10:05

like willful creatures, you

10:07

know what I mean, like people with their

10:10

own will we are.

10:12

We are told that we should subvert our

10:14

own desires, be

10:16

they sexual or otherwise,

10:19

in order to raise

10:22

our children. But I don't think it's serving

10:25

I don't think children either. I don't think it

10:27

serves the children.

10:28

I don't. I absolutely don't.

10:29

I think that. I certainly doesn't serve humanity. We

10:31

need we need moms to be their full

10:33

selves.

10:34

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. So

10:37

this happens. How do you then move

10:40

into an open marriage? What are

10:42

the conversations like that get

10:44

you from there to there?

10:47

Yeah? I mean we went through a lot of different evolutions,

10:50

and there were a few times when I did want to

10:52

close the marriage. My

10:55

husband said

10:57

to me more than once, Molly, you're going to

10:59

change your mind. As soon as you meet someone,

11:01

You're going to change your mind. And

11:04

he wasn't wrong. But the other

11:06

person that I had in my ear was

11:08

my mother, because my mother also

11:10

had an open marriage, but she never told me about

11:13

it. So part

11:15

of the reason that we persevered for

11:18

so many years, even when things were hard,

11:21

is that my mother was there on the

11:24

other side of all this, still happily married

11:26

to my father, saying to me, oh,

11:28

honey, yeah, I remember those conversations.

11:31

I remember those feelings. You

11:34

know, don't worry.

11:36

You know, you could close your marriage, you could leave

11:38

it open. It's all about just paying attention

11:40

to yourself and continuing

11:43

to talk to your husband, and

11:46

it's going to be okay. So I

11:48

was getting this like kind of curiosity about myself

11:50

and wanting to push through it. So many ups

11:52

and downs. But

11:55

really it went from me fearing

11:57

falling in love with another person, and

12:00

fearing my husband falling in love with another

12:02

person, to finally being at

12:04

a place where I understood

12:07

for myself anyway that

12:09

that could happen and it would actually make us

12:12

stronger and love each other more,

12:14

which is what has happened. It

12:17

doesn't make any sense in some ways,

12:21

but that's what happened. But we had lots

12:23

of rules at the beginning that were all meant

12:25

to contain it. Our

12:27

big rule was no falling in love, but

12:30

we had lots of other rules. And when I say we,

12:32

it was really me who was fictating the rules.

12:36

And over time those rules shifted,

12:38

and my own understanding of what

12:40

I wanted shifted. I was also in therapy

12:42

during these ten years, and

12:46

a lot of the evolution came

12:48

from our conversations, but I'd say even

12:50

more of the evolution came from

12:53

my own inner dialogue

12:55

and my discovery of what it was I was

12:57

looking for the whole time.

13:00

What did you think you wanted in the beginning,

13:02

What did you think that this was going to accomplish?

13:05

I wanted to escape. I

13:08

wanted some excitement and adventure.

13:11

I wanted to be the anti mom.

13:15

So I was thinking. I was thinking. I used to go on trips

13:17

with my friends to Las Vegas too,

13:19

Like the first time was probably

13:22

when my kids were one and four. We went

13:24

away for the weekend, so

13:26

it was before we opened our marriage. But it was

13:28

so exhilarating. We thought

13:30

of if anybody knows park slope, it's

13:33

like so mom centric and everybody

13:35

has a stroller, and so my friends

13:37

and I, who are also park slope moms, like,

13:40

we thought of Vegas as like the anti park

13:42

slope too, where it was just like because

13:44

it is yes, totally

13:46

irresponsible, ye, nobody

13:48

made like like the goal was to make zero

13:51

good decisions, you know what I mean, to

13:53

be totally irresponsible. And

13:55

we had a blast. So but that would

13:57

be like we did that a few times,

13:59

but it was like three days and then you'd come

14:01

back and you'd be like you had seen

14:03

this glimpse of this self

14:06

that was you know, it was just kind of running the It

14:08

was polarity though. It was like bouncing

14:11

from one extreme to the other as opposed

14:13

to finding a place in the middle.

14:15

So I thought I just wanted to run

14:18

to the other end of the spectrum of irresponsibility.

14:21

But I think what I really was craving and

14:24

what I have achieved to a degree

14:26

now anyway, is like an integrated self

14:28

where I can be my whole self

14:31

all the time.

14:32

We're going to take a quick break here. When

14:35

we get back, we'll talk about the rules that Molly

14:37

and her husband set for their open marriage.

14:42

After you meet the guy in the bar, you

14:44

come home, you talk to your husband.

14:47

What were the main rules

14:49

besides don't fall in love?

14:52

Yeah, we had. I

14:54

for example, didn't want him

14:57

in particular to date anybody that

14:59

he might fin all in love with. So

15:01

they had to not like live nearby,

15:04

you know, no no exes.

15:07

Although the first that rule came after

15:09

he dated his ex and then I was like, oh, I don't like this.

15:11

You know, sometimes

15:15

something would happen and then I would make a rule about

15:17

it, like make sure it didn't happen again. It

15:19

feels like no playing chess with anybody

15:21

else, because that was our thing.

15:23

Yeah, I mean that one. That one is so

15:25

fascinating to me because you know, I mean, obviously

15:27

you read read things like this and

15:29

then you're like, well, what would my role be. What

15:32

do you like to do together? Ye,

15:34

right now, it's nothing, But we

15:37

did like to do things together before we had

15:39

a one year old. But the

15:41

the no chess. I liked that role.

15:44

But if you can imagine something you

15:46

did used to do that, you don't have time to do anymore

15:49

if you started doing that thing with somebody

15:51

else. Even just like if

15:53

I, if I had thought of it, I would have done, like, no

15:55

reading the Sunday Times in

15:57

Central Part with anybody else,

16:00

because that's what we used to do. We used to

16:02

like bring a picnic to the park and the newspaper

16:04

and hang out all day. You know,

16:06

if he were to do that with someone else, I would

16:08

want to kill him totally.

16:10

Well, I mean that brings me to another question

16:13

that I have always had for

16:15

friends who have opened their marriages. And

16:18

I'm essentially living in the park slope of Philadelphia,

16:21

so.

16:23

Every neighborhood, every city has their park.

16:25

Slope, every city has their park slope.

16:27

And but you know, we are

16:29

seeing more of our friends opening

16:31

up their marriages and more

16:34

women that I know having affairs, And

16:37

when I've talked to them, I'm

16:39

like, you know, I am a jealous

16:41

bitch. And I

16:43

know this about myself so

16:46

well that I don't

16:49

know if I could personally handle

16:51

it, because I think I would seethe with rage

16:53

all the time.

16:54

Yeah I did. I did. Part

16:57

of the reason that I tolerated it

16:59

is because I did it first, you

17:02

know what I mean, with his permission. And

17:04

so then when he wanted

17:07

to see people too, I knew

17:09

that wasn't I knew I couldn't say no

17:12

because you know what I mean, that was I'm

17:14

not I'm not illogical.

17:17

So I was like, all right, if

17:20

I am seeing other people, I need to let him

17:22

see other people. But it has taken

17:24

a very long time for

17:27

us to get to the understanding

17:29

that it is still harder

17:31

for me than it is for him in

17:33

terms of jealousy. It never really

17:35

made him jealous in the same way

17:38

that it made me jealous.

17:40

But what I read this book

17:42

right away, not right away, but

17:44

early on, called The Ethical Slut, Yeah

17:48

yeah, the Bible of polyamory,

17:50

and it really is yeah yeah, yeah.

17:52

That was the first book that my friend read when

17:54

she opened her marriage.

17:55

It's also kind of when it was the only

17:58

book for quite some time. So now

18:00

there are a few more poly secure is a good one. I

18:02

hope my book will be helpful just as

18:04

an individual deep dive into

18:07

what it was like. But I

18:10

loved the line they had that jealousy is

18:12

just a mask for whatever you have going

18:15

on right now. And so

18:17

for me, when I dug underneath

18:20

the jealousy, you didn't have to go very far. There

18:22

was anger, and you said, seething with

18:24

rage. There was anger that I

18:26

didn't feel like I had enough freedom and he

18:29

did. And

18:31

there was insecurity that he

18:33

was going to love somebody else more

18:36

than me. But when

18:38

we dug under there, that led

18:40

to some real changes. Because if

18:44

he was staying at work, for example,

18:46

and I was home with the kids, that

18:49

felt like, well, that was just the decision we

18:51

made, right, he made more money. I

18:54

was a teacher. It makes sense

18:56

for me. You know. Eventually I did

18:58

go back to work, but I didn't have to. I was

19:00

a teacher, So I still picked the kids up from

19:02

school and had their vacations off and all

19:04

of that. You're still you're the primary parent,

19:06

like ye, right,

19:08

But once he started dating, I

19:10

could say, wait a minute, if

19:13

you're going out, I'm going

19:15

it, you know, as opposed

19:17

to my feeling like I was

19:20

supposed to stay at home with

19:22

the kids. It just it just changed

19:25

enough for me that I started giving myself

19:27

permission to do something

19:30

that wasn't kid centric. And

19:33

there was still a lot of guilt around it, but ultimately

19:36

I discovered this is better for me.

19:38

I am not walking around as an

19:41

angry, migrain riddled person.

19:46

As I started to feel better

19:49

in my own skin, I

19:51

started to realize this is actually good for my kids

19:53

too, and for my family and for my marriage. But

19:56

that wasn't like really the prime motive. The

19:58

primary motive was like I I felt

20:00

broken and I needed I

20:02

needed to reestablish some

20:05

time for myself however I

20:07

could. And in

20:09

New York, I think it's you know, it's probably the

20:11

same where you are. It's probably same for a lot of people.

20:15

If one partner is working all the time,

20:17

because it is expensive to raise kids

20:19

in the city, and you do need someone

20:21

to make some dough, it's

20:24

very hard to carve out time for anything. But

20:26

I think doing this shifted

20:28

both of our priorities a bit, and we started

20:30

realizing we need to realize them to live, started

20:34

giving each other, you know. Somehow,

20:37

the time materialized partly

20:40

we didn't sleep as much. That was one

20:42

thing. But I wasn't sleeping much anyway. It's

20:44

like, once you're down to five hours of sleep

20:46

a night, Hey, what's the difference

20:49

between for three

20:51

and a half and five?

20:52

You know what I mean?

20:52

It's like I had the adrenaline

20:55

at that point anyway. But

20:58

there were some things that started to become

21:00

more balanced in our relationship

21:04

that made me appreciate what

21:07

was happening for him. I started to see

21:09

some change too in him,

21:12

based on honestly, some of the women

21:14

he was dating too, some of

21:17

the understanding he was getting around

21:20

what it's like to be a mother because

21:22

a lot of the women he was dating were also

21:24

mothers. Oh right, Yeah, And

21:26

so my next book, actually Spoiler, is going

21:28

to be about the relationships with these other women.

21:32

In polyamory, there's a term called metamoor,

21:34

and it's your partner's partner. And

21:36

I haven't always met my partner's partner,

21:39

but I have a lot to thank them for in

21:41

terms of what they have taught

21:43

my husband. And my partner's

21:46

wives always tend to love me, whether they've met

21:48

me or not, because I am their biggest

21:50

advocate. I'm like, oh, no, you're not going

21:52

out tonight. Your kid is sick. Hell no,

21:55

go home, you know that kind

21:57

of thing. So we kind of have each other's

21:59

back to in this weird sister wife kind of way.

22:01

Oh I'm very into that. I'm

22:03

very into that. Well, because it does a marriage.

22:06

A marriage requires a village, and

22:08

I think that in America

22:10

we've lost that village. We've siloed ourselves

22:13

into these very small

22:15

nuclear units.

22:17

Absolutely, we no.

22:18

Longer have the brothers, the sisters,

22:20

the cousins, the aunties, the uncles giving

22:23

you advice, you know, pushing you in

22:25

the right direction. Like we think that we can

22:27

do this all ourselves, and the fact is we

22:29

can't. Yeah, I am so

22:31

appreciative. I didn't marry my husband

22:33

until he was I think he was forty two. Yeah, he was

22:35

forty two, because he's turning fifty

22:38

this year when I was thirty five. And I'm so

22:40

appreciative to all of the women that dated him

22:42

before. Yeah, because they

22:44

fixed him. I you

22:46

know, they did. I mean I still had

22:48

to do so much work, and there's still much

22:50

more to do, but

22:53

these women like already

22:56

did put in all of the work that I had been putting

22:58

in with these terrible men for years while I was

23:01

Yeah, so I got him as a

23:03

fully formed human in the

23:05

world. And the other

23:07

interesting thing I have to say about this is

23:11

we live in a society where I don't think

23:13

men have nearly enough space to have relationships

23:16

with women. If you had

23:18

more of like a council or

23:20

a coven of female friends,

23:23

then they would be telling you how

23:25

to better be a partner in the world.

23:28

But that is so good. I love that

23:30

idea.

23:31

Male female relationships are always only

23:33

sexual.

23:35

And that's actually kind of a joke in polyamory

23:38

that like people say swingers have

23:41

sex without talking, and polyamorous

23:43

people talk without having sex, And

23:46

like, I do have partners

23:48

now that like maybe we used to be sexual in

23:50

the past, but we're not anymore, but

23:52

like we still hang out because

23:55

there's also something lovely about the intimacy

23:57

that has been established. Early on,

24:01

five of my husband's ex girlfriends

24:03

were at our wedding, like he always

24:05

has stayed friends with his exes.

24:07

Stame, stame I had.

24:09

We had four of his exes at our wedding,

24:11

and we had three of mine.

24:13

Very nice. We had zero of mine because

24:15

I only had one ex and I no longer

24:17

could talk to him. So I

24:20

hadn't ever really dated widely. I got married.

24:22

I met my husband when I was twenty three, so

24:25

i'll you're a baby. I was,

24:27

and so he is five

24:29

years older. He had dated more, but was also

24:32

you know, he was thirty blond when you got married. So

24:36

I feel like you are so right

24:38

and and you know, you remember I think it was Mike

24:40

Pence who said in an interview, like you wouldn't

24:42

even have lunch with a female

24:45

colleague or something like that, Like, think

24:47

about when men

24:50

have no interaction with

24:52

women, what are they think

24:54

the world is?

24:56

Come on, come on, No, exactly

24:59

exactly, And it's so many of the women that I've interviewed

25:02

for she wants More say, it's

25:04

just been world opening for everyone.

25:07

The kinds of connections that you can make

25:10

are not just sexual. You are making

25:12

friends. I have friends that are like, you know,

25:14

I've made some really good business contact.

25:16

Yeah. Yeah, one of my partners

25:18

just got like a great apartment.

25:21

Yes. No, it's like you

25:23

just don't know, you just don't know.

25:26

It's a wonderful network.

25:27

Often, yeah, but usually,

25:30

I mean there is this paradigm that

25:32

when we get married, we shut ourselves

25:34

off to opening up like that in

25:36

that way except for a couple friends and things

25:39

like that. So I do. I think there is so

25:41

much that we can learn people

25:43

who don't even want to open up their marriages,

25:46

just from the model of polyamory

25:49

about what all of us are missing out

25:51

on as human beings.

25:53

Absolutely. And Yeah, a good friend of mine

25:55

who's monogamous but is still close

25:57

friends with one of her ex boyfriends, she

25:59

said, like reading my book actually

26:01

helped her talk to her husband a little, because like

26:04

she really wanted to go away for

26:06

a weekend trip with her ex boyfriend because

26:08

like they miss each other, and so they

26:11

did and it was just like it

26:13

was just like revelatory.

26:17

They have such a good time, and they came back more

26:19

kind of like juice to be with their partners

26:22

too, And she was like, and nothing sexual happened.

26:24

I'm not attracted to him anymore, but he's like my brother

26:27

and the fact that like I can't hang

26:29

out with him unchaperoned

26:31

anymore or something, it's like it's upsetting,

26:34

you know. So I

26:36

love this idea that we're gonnaproach

26:40

that kind of thing too. And my parents also,

26:42

who had an open marriage. They are still close

26:45

friends with some of their

26:47

former partners. And that's like what

26:50

my mother's main partner when

26:52

I was a kid, I knew him as her best friend.

26:54

I didn't know anything else was going on. I

26:57

didn't find out till my aunt told me when

26:59

I was twenty eight, and I was like, ooh.

27:01

Yeah, we'll tell the audience a little bit about

27:03

that moment. That, so you found out that your

27:05

parents had had an open marriage.

27:07

Yeah, and it was it was before we had opened

27:09

opened but after we had done some

27:11

of the like you know, a couple sex

27:13

clubs, threesome or two kind of

27:16

thing that I was like, oh, I'm not into it.

27:18

And then my aunt told me that my mother had had

27:20

an affair with

27:23

her best friend. It took me a year

27:25

to confront my mother about it, and

27:27

when I did, I asked her if my dad

27:29

knew, and she said, well, it was your father's

27:31

idea, but she never used the

27:34

term open marriage, and

27:36

so it wasn't then. We didn't

27:38

have another conversation about it until

27:40

after I had opened my marriage and

27:42

wanted to talk to her because it

27:45

took a while for me to realize what I was really

27:47

looking for was that kind of connection

27:50

that she had with

27:52

a guy, you know, I love.

27:55

I loved the friendship she had with

27:58

this guy who I called Jim and the story, and

28:01

I wanted that for myself. So

28:04

I feel like that is part of what I have gained.

28:06

But it took me a while to get there because I was also

28:08

so afraid of falling in love or

28:10

of my husband falling in love that I

28:12

was trying to keep my contact

28:15

with other men very superficial for a while.

28:18

So I feel like the first half

28:20

of the book is almost sad in

28:22

some ways because of I didn't quite

28:24

know what I was looking for. But

28:27

I wanted to show readers kind

28:29

of like what the trajectory really looked like for

28:31

me. So I wrote it in present tense to

28:33

really be in that place

28:36

and not look back with more

28:39

with a wiser eye. I

28:41

wanted to really show what

28:43

was happening for me during those years,

28:46

which was really from age thirty five to forty five,

28:49

which is how part of it was

28:51

looking for friendship, looking for connection.

28:54

Right, yeah, yeah, And in

28:57

the beginning, how was

28:59

the suck? Was it satisfying or

29:01

were you trying lots of different things and not

29:03

necessarily getting what you wanted, or

29:06

was your mind blown right away?

29:08

My mind was not blown right away. No,

29:11

my mind was blown occasionally

29:13

by things I discovered I liked, you

29:16

know what I mean, things that were you

29:18

know. I still consider myself pretty vanilla

29:21

overall, because once

29:23

you dip a toe into this world, like I don't know if anybody's

29:25

ever been on the field app but I went

29:27

on field when I was in London, partly because I

29:29

just wanted to see if there was an open marriage scene

29:31

there. Yeah, And seeing I was non

29:34

monogamous, everybody kept inviting me to like

29:36

dungeon parties and I was like, oh,

29:38

no, no, oh, I'm

29:40

not into I'm that. And

29:43

the assumption was if you're non monogamous,

29:45

you're like into BDSM, and I'm like,

29:48

well, that's not what I was into. So

29:51

I'm pretty vanilla, I think.

29:53

But one man's vanilla is another man's kink,

29:55

right, So.

29:56

I mean, I'm actually I'm working on an

29:59

essay right now. Uh as

30:01

I'm promoting my new my new novel, The

30:03

Sicilian Inheritance, because I put some some steamy

30:05

sex scenes in it. But I'm like, yeah,

30:07

I mean steamy enough, right, Like average person sex

30:10

and uh, but I'm writing and I say, how

30:12

do you write steamy sex scenes when you actually really

30:14

like vanilla sex? Like when I'm

30:16

just like, I'm like, whoa, I get

30:18

off on Missionary.

30:20

What's hilarious is people when people

30:23

have described my book as like steamy

30:25

or like raunchy, I'm like, are

30:27

you Jill.

30:28

It shocked me.

30:30

It shocked me because I don't think it's that

30:33

raunchy.

30:33

I don't think it is either. It's

30:36

just honest. It's honest about sex,

30:38

but it happens in the.

30:40

World and it's not it's

30:43

not painted over with some

30:45

sort of like gauzy

30:48

filter, you know what I mean. It's

30:50

not wort in sex, and it's not. It's

30:53

like there's

30:56

like fluids and sounds,

30:58

and you know, it's a gross

31:01

and sad in some places, but it

31:03

grows.

31:04

It has gross and sad in some places, and it's and

31:06

it's and it seems great and fun

31:09

in other places. I will tell you I think that

31:11

the Times really just wanted an excuse to write butt

31:13

Plug. They're

31:15

like, They're like, we are never going to get butt

31:17

Plug past the

31:20

standards department, except right now, so

31:22

we say right now, I mean, I.

31:25

Say butt plug whenever I can, and I'll be

31:27

honest, I haven't used a butt plug in many

31:30

years, but but plug,

31:33

I's a plug for butt plugs.

31:35

No, I but it like taught me something

31:38

about myself. It taught me to like look

31:40

at my anus, which I had not

31:42

done before, and like explore

31:45

a little bit and realize that sometimes

31:47

shit comes out during sex and yeah,

31:50

you know, nobody talks about that. And

31:53

the truth is, if you can't be comfortable with someone

31:56

if a little shit comes out during sex, that's

31:58

not going to be good. So oh and I

32:00

tried not to talk. I don't know if they're the

32:03

shit during sex scene might have gotten cut from my

32:05

book, but there's sometimes this shit.

32:07

There's sh there's shit and yeah, I mean the Bodley

32:09

fluids galore galore.

32:12

Yeah, yeah, and it's funny sometimes and if

32:14

so. Part of what I learned in this

32:16

exploration was I need someone I can laugh

32:19

with, and I need little one

32:21

who's not gonna take it all too seriously.

32:24

And I needed to not feel like a performance.

32:27

But that's partly because I felt like it was a

32:29

performance for a lot of years

32:32

now with my husband. But I

32:36

was, you know, I was exploring. I hadn't done the

32:38

whole dating thing in my twenties. Ever,

32:41

I hadn't really ever done it. And for friends

32:43

of mine who were single throughout their

32:45

twenties, they may not want

32:47

open relationships, but they still might want male

32:49

friends, or they still might want freedom in these

32:51

other ways. So I think it looks different

32:54

for different people what you're gonna want, But I

32:56

didn't ever get that. So it was something I

32:58

think I needed to do to

33:00

get in touch with my own body and my own

33:02

physicality and my own erraticism in

33:04

a way I never had.

33:06

Yeah, yeah, I hear that. It is

33:08

amazing how many similarities

33:10

I hear. And that's why, like so many of this does

33:12

feel universal to the female experience,

33:16

and yet we haven't talked about and

33:18

yet we haven't talked about it. But yes,

33:21

so many women, especially women that got married young, said

33:23

I didn't even know what I liked to do.

33:25

I just started having this kind of sex

33:28

because I thought that's the kind of sex I wanted to be having,

33:30

and I didn't know what turned me on. And

33:35

yeah, and you know, are like, this

33:37

is why exploring now in my thirties

33:40

and forties' that's part

33:42

of why I had to do it.

33:45

Yeah, and it doesn't. And it feels like, as

33:48

you were saying before, with mothers that were

33:51

I've used this line before, but you

33:53

know, it feels like we're we're meant

33:55

to put on this one size fits all mom

33:57

suit and we have to lap of

34:00

the parts of ourselves that don't fit inside.

34:03

And it's

34:05

just minimizing

34:08

for such a big swath of

34:10

the female population that

34:12

we are denying our society

34:15

the full vitality of like feminine

34:18

energy is. It feels

34:20

that vital to me. The more women

34:22

I've talked to, even in the few weeks since my book

34:24

came out, I've been feeling

34:27

it more stridently.

34:29

You know that you don't

34:31

know how much your story is going to resonate with other people

34:34

until people start responding to it. But

34:36

because of the responses I've been getting,

34:38

it seems really quite

34:40

critical to me now that this is

34:43

something that women's full

34:45

expression, whether that's through open marriage

34:47

or not. I don't have a vested interest in everybody

34:50

being polyamorous, so I haven't written a manifesto,

34:53

but I do think our society

34:55

has a vested interest in the full

34:58

expression of women and for

35:01

men to be exposed

35:04

to more that I led. So I love your idea about

35:06

more men having female friendships,

35:08

like more, more, more

35:11

women. That's not what I meant initially

35:13

when I have the word more in my book as

35:16

my title. But I think it's more

35:18

a lot of things, and more feminine

35:20

energy as one of them.

35:22

Yes, more feminine energy, more

35:24

conversation, you know, more, yes,

35:27

more and more and more. How did you come up with

35:29

the title for the book.

35:30

Yeah, well, my title was initially the Experiment

35:34

because it felt like this grand experiment,

35:37

but it sounded yeah that my my publisher didn't

35:39

like that, and so then we switched to Open. But

35:42

then Rachel Krantz wrote a book called

35:44

Open about her own open

35:46

relationship, which is very different from mine,

35:48

and I'm a big fan of having

35:51

lots of different takes. She was, you

35:53

know, single, not not

35:56

with kids, and so it was just an open relationship,

35:58

which led her down a very different road than it led

36:01

me down. So but

36:03

so we needed a new title, and I was like, oh, no,

36:06

I don't have a new title. I don't have another title.

36:08

And then it was during I Meditate.

36:11

I started meditating after

36:13

the period that the book takes place, and

36:15

the title came to me in a meditation, and I

36:17

was, like my mother says to me, more

36:20

than once in the book when

36:22

I was. The first time was when I was breaking

36:24

up with somebody, and I love

36:27

it that when I was breaking up with

36:29

someone, the two people who really consoled

36:31

me were my husband and my mother, usually

36:34

the two last people you could tell. But my

36:36

friends didn't really handle it at

36:38

the time. They couldn't wrap their heads around

36:40

what I was doing. Everybody gets it

36:42

now because they've seen that my life

36:44

didn't implode, and

36:47

now they actually seek advice

36:49

for me all the time because they think I'm actually pretty

36:51

good at this relationship thing. But

36:54

my mother said, oh, sweetie, don't worry, there

36:56

will be more, and

37:00

she had more than one partner. But

37:02

I think I come to understand

37:05

that there will be a lot more of

37:07

a lot of things when you open

37:11

yourself up to the

37:13

truest expression of yourself.

37:15

Yeah, and God

37:17

right, yes.

37:18

And how else are you going to grow if you don't

37:21

have some pain? Right? I think

37:23

in our society too, we think

37:25

and I get this question a lot,

37:28

like, well, it seems like you

37:30

were having a lot of difficulty in the early

37:32

stages of opening up your marriage, why

37:35

didn't you close it or why didn't you get

37:37

a divorce? And I'm like, well, I also had

37:39

a lot of difficulty in the early stages of

37:41

motherhood, but nobody says, why didn't you give

37:44

your children up for a duction?

37:47

Yes, like, we know.

37:49

That sometimes things are hard, even

37:51

when they're valuable, and maybe especially

37:54

because they're valuable. Maybe that's

37:57

where we learn and grow. So if we

37:59

only have void the things that are hard, not

38:02

a lot would happen, and we wouldn't,

38:04

I think, do what we're supposed to do on

38:06

this planet, which is learn

38:09

about ourselves through relationship.

38:11

I think that's a big part of

38:13

the human experience. So

38:17

I knew I could tell, and

38:19

therapy helped. Conversations

38:21

with my husband were essential, but

38:24

I could tell something important was happening,

38:26

both for me and between us,

38:29

and I didn't want to turn my back on that and

38:31

try to go back into some safe space

38:33

because I also knew I was

38:36

at a breaking point when this all

38:38

began, so recruiting

38:40

to something that also hadn't been working

38:42

for me didn't feel like a great idea. And

38:45

I loved my husband and I did not want to

38:47

divorce them. People

38:49

have a hard get that.

38:51

Yes, yes, I mean that's that

38:54

is the number one thing that I've heard

38:56

from people before they listened

38:59

to the podcast. They're like, if you're not happy

39:01

to get a divorce? Yeah, yeah,

39:04

And that feels like the most simplistic thing

39:07

ever. I mean, it's almost in you

39:09

know, I've compared it to if you're not

39:11

happy with your job, quit There's a lot

39:14

more to a job than your

39:16

happiness. There is supporting your family,

39:19

there is the fact that maybe maybe

39:21

you do enjoy some parts of what you do,

39:23

like it is not all black and white. But

39:25

people love that line. They do. Yeah.

39:28

And I've been accused, not a lot,

39:30

but a couple times of being anti divorce

39:34

because one of my partners was going through

39:36

a divorce and I said something to sparagic.

39:38

But it was also like I didn't want him to be in a divorce

39:41

because then he wanted me to be monogamous, so it was

39:43

like it was going to be complicated.

39:46

But I am not anti divorce.

39:48

I feel like the best marriage

39:51

is though in the best partnerships are those in

39:53

which both people are giving

39:55

each other freedom to grow throughout

39:58

their lives. I

40:00

can't still be the same person

40:02

I was when I was twenty three when I met

40:04

my husband. Now, if that were

40:06

the expectation, then I

40:09

would get a divorce. If he didn't want

40:11

me to ever become more than I

40:13

was at twenty three, I wouldn't be

40:15

able to stay in my marriage. But he was

40:17

encouraging me to do

40:19

things and to grow in ways

40:22

that I do think I needed to

40:24

grow. And I was also trying

40:26

to give him the space to do that, even though it

40:28

was really really hard for me, because

40:32

I feel like that's what a good marriage is. You

40:35

let each other grow. And if we had ended up growing

40:37

away from each other and not being

40:39

in love with each other anymore, then I think we would

40:41

have gotten a divorce. But that's not what happened.

40:44

So I think we have to redefine

40:46

what makes a good marriage too. We think

40:49

that monogamy

40:51

automatically makes a good marriage, and

40:54

I don't think that's true. Nor

40:56

do I think non monogamy makes a good marriage.

40:58

I've seen a lot of non monogamy as marriages

41:00

end, and for good reason. But

41:03

you know, we have to think about

41:05

what it is that we're trying to achieve

41:09

as human beings in these partnerships,

41:12

and can we change the container

41:15

as needed to make marriage

41:18

work for people, and

41:21

maybe by introducing some more flexibility

41:24

and some more conscious decision making

41:26

about what will our marriage look like, as opposed

41:28

to everybody adopting the same model

41:32

that they were handed by their parents.

41:35

Right right. I mean it is interesting because

41:37

we have, you know, blown

41:39

up so many other models and so

41:41

many other industries and evolved,

41:44

and yet marriage does remain

41:46

this kind of one institution that

41:48

people get very nervous

41:51

when you talk about doing anything

41:54

different.

41:54

I heard like Dan Savage talking about this on

41:57

the Savage Lovecast that like, I didn't

41:59

know this, that there

42:01

were like right wing conspiracies out there

42:03

that like all this talk about polyamory

42:07

was you know, some sort of like takedown

42:12

of the nuclear family. And

42:15

he was funny, so he mentioned my book and was like,

42:17

no, it's just like a really good pr campaign

42:20

vibe who wrote a book, you

42:22

know what I mean? And I'm like, thank you publicist

42:24

at Double Day. And it's true in some

42:26

ways, but I'm like, I

42:28

had no idea that people were like, it's

42:31

been crazy. People are like really upset,

42:33

and I'm like, I just told my story.

42:36

I didn't even it's how

42:38

too manual, it's not in anything

42:40

except my story, and it's so threatening to

42:42

people.

42:43

This is just your life, y

42:46

And yes, and I think that women's

42:48

stories are threatening to people. I

42:51

do. I saw that so much.

42:53

We had a lot of hate thrown at us

42:56

for even daring to publish

42:58

podcasts about women having affairs.

43:01

Yeah, we were told very similar things,

43:03

that we were undermining the institution of

43:06

marriage, that we were undermining the nuclear family,

43:08

that this was some kind of liberal agenda

43:11

as opposed to a woman

43:14

just talking about her life.

43:16

And crying for help sometimes too,

43:18

you know what I mean, like for help sometimes

43:20

in many ways, that my

43:23

opening my marriage was started out as a cry

43:25

for help, you know. And

43:28

it could have gone a number

43:30

of different ways. And I could have learned

43:33

everything that I needed to learn about myself and then

43:35

closed my marriage and that would have been fine

43:38

too, you know. Or I might have cried

43:40

for help in a different way. It turned out

43:42

that this was something that I changed

43:46

the way I was doing it many many times.

43:49

And the way it looks now is different

43:51

than it looked even at the end of

43:53

the book, which ends in twenty eighteen. But

43:56

that's because life is long, and I'm changing

43:58

as a person, and that to me

44:01

that I keep evolving and growing.

44:03

I love being fifty one. It's

44:06

way better than forty one, which was way

44:08

better than thirty one, which was way better than twenty

44:10

one. So I can't

44:12

like I'm loving my fifties. And I feel

44:15

like we also need to model for younger

44:17

women that life doesn't

44:19

end when you get married,

44:23

and life doesn't end again

44:25

when your kids leave. Like m h,

44:28

I cried for a

44:30

little while when I dropped my youngst at school

44:33

to college, but then it's

44:37

been kind of fantastic, I have

44:39

to say. And I feel like you're kind of not supposed to

44:41

say that either. But it's

44:43

better for my kid that I'm not like calling

44:46

him constantly and sobbing and

44:48

like where, well, well I do with myself, Like

44:51

why would we do? Why would I waste

44:54

all of this potential, all the things I've learned

44:57

by just sobbing over my empty nest

45:00

for the rest of my life, which is kind of what the

45:03

image that I wish show.

45:05

Yes, well, also just the way of do you just described

45:08

it an empty nest? You're empty now? Yes?

45:11

And empty? Right? You're the other one.

45:13

I love us, the selfless mother, the mother who has

45:15

no self mm hmm, rightm hmm.

45:18

You're just avoid you're just annoyed.

45:21

I mean about that too, with words like

45:23

stay at home mother. Yeah,

45:25

oh you're not. You're not You're not a work at

45:27

home mother. You're just staying, just staying,

45:30

not a last Yeah, yeah,

45:33

I know. The words we use to describe women

45:35

are terrible, and we could only break

45:37

it with stories. That is the only way we can

45:39

fix anything. Yeah, it is true,

45:42

It is so true. We are

45:44

going to take a quick break here, and when we

45:46

get back, I want to talk to Mollie about

45:48

when she first talked to her kids about

45:51

having an open marriage. When

45:54

did you first talk to your children

45:58

about having an open marriage?

46:00

Yeah? Well, I didn't handle

46:03

this great.

46:06

I I was trying

46:08

to hide it from my kids, just like my

46:10

mother hid it from me. Even

46:13

though I came to see that it was like I was

46:15

glad I knew, but I always had a little ambivalence,

46:17

like did I want to know when I was a kid? Did

46:19

I not want to know? You know? Am I

46:21

glad she didn't tell me? So I

46:24

hadn't really worked it out. But then, because

46:26

we're in a different era. My oldest

46:29

found my husband's okay Cupid profile

46:32

when he went to use his laptop, because

46:34

my husband is not, you

46:36

know, a good he's sloppy.

46:39

Shitty spy. You're a shitty spy, is

46:41

what you are? Yeah, you would not be

46:43

a good spy.

46:44

No, And we're both terrible liars too,

46:46

which is partly why one of our rules. At

46:49

one point I wanted like a don't ask, don't tell,

46:51

but then I ended up yelling at him, at

46:53

my husband because he wasn't lying well enough,

46:55

and I was like, Okay, this is not good. This is

46:58

not all fad. So we got rid of that one.

47:00

But my oldest, when

47:02

he was thirteen, found the okqpid profile

47:05

and thought that my husband was having an affair.

47:08

So that conversation

47:10

is the prologue for my book how

47:13

that went and it

47:17

wasn't. And then I still didn't want my

47:19

youngest to find out, but he found out in a similar

47:21

way when he was fourteen, so

47:23

now they both know. And

47:26

I think it's kind of a tricky thing because

47:29

where I've landed is that there

47:32

is a difference. You know, privacy is

47:34

important and boundaries

47:36

are important, but authenticity

47:39

is also important. And it's

47:41

kind of like the cocktail. It's kind

47:43

of also like if you're

47:45

married and living with your husband and you

47:48

don't you know, you don't necessarily

47:52

announce, hey, kids, we're

47:54

going upstairs to have sex. Although

47:56

there was an article about this, I think it was in The Atlantic

47:59

recently about like how do parents get it on?

48:02

I didn't read it yet. I should read it.

48:04

Yeah, it's pretty good, but it was like it

48:06

was an interesting kind of poll. They were like twenty

48:08

percent of parents said that

48:10

they tell their children that they need

48:13

time to be intimate or something,

48:15

but they use kind of like coach, you

48:17

know, couch it in I don't know,

48:19

vague language, right. But

48:22

that's also kind of like, you know, nobody

48:25

knows kind of how to talk about sex with their kids

48:27

period, or even just acknowledging

48:30

that you have sex with

48:33

your with your the father

48:35

of your children, you know what I mean, let alone

48:37

having sex with adults side of the

48:40

marriage. So I think there needs

48:42

to be more done collectively

48:45

to normalize this. I

48:49

feel like, now

48:51

that my kids are older, I'm glad

48:54

they know that I'm a sexual person

48:56

because they have told me about

48:58

some of the stuff that's going on in their own lives.

49:01

They don't want to tell me details. I

49:04

don't need them to tell me details, but

49:06

there have been some things that they've like

49:09

confronted that I'm

49:12

glad that they feel comfortable talking to both me

49:14

and to my husband about stuff.

49:16

And it's not a completely

49:19

sanitized, pearl clutching

49:22

household, and I think that's important. So

49:26

ultimately, I think it's it's good to

49:28

talk to your kids about what you're doing. It's

49:30

never easy, no matter if you're in

49:33

a monogamous or a non monogamous relationship.

49:36

One thing I did feel, though, was like I was

49:38

glad by the time my son found out, I was

49:40

in a slightly more stable,

49:42

balanced place with it where I was able

49:45

to talk about it, you

49:49

know, cogently, because I've been doing

49:51

enough therapy to understand kind of what this was

49:53

and what this wasn't. And

49:56

by the time my youngest felt found out

49:59

way more comfortable. Well, so

50:02

that's important. I don't know that I would

50:04

have told them everything

50:06

I was, you know, it wouldn't be appropriate

50:09

for them to know. No, well, of course everything

50:11

I was up to. So

50:14

what we landed on for both of them is like

50:16

that I have a right to privacy. Both of them

50:18

asked me to not tell them when I was going out

50:21

on a date. But at

50:23

this point, my oldest has met my current

50:25

main partner, who I've been dating for over three years,

50:28

and I wanted to invite him to my birthday party.

50:30

My husband was there too, and my son

50:32

was home, so I was like, are you

50:34

cool with that and would you like to meet him? He's like, sure,

50:36

I'll meet him, and then he introduced me to his girlfriend,

50:39

and I had never met her,

50:41

so he's kind of he's a much

50:43

more like keep it to himself kind of guy my oldest,

50:46

So it was kind of nice that we were able

50:48

to do that, and we're establishing

50:50

a more adult relationship now that he's in

50:53

his early twenties. Yeah, but he's

50:55

a grown up, right, He's grown up. And

50:58

if you think about it now, it's like, how how often

51:00

did you think about what your mother was up to when

51:03

you were like nineteen twenty twenty one?

51:05

Like not at all? Never?

51:07

Literally never. I thought about it more when I was

51:09

a kid, I think, ye, honest, exactly.

51:11

Yeah, So like once that kind of anxious

51:14

phase was over, I think it was

51:16

a little uncomfortable when they were going through puberty.

51:18

But it was a little uncomfortable anyway.

51:21

Yeah, life is uncomfortable. The idea

51:23

that anyone has sex, ever,

51:25

it's disgusting, yeah, and

51:28

also awesome. So like it's

51:30

very confusing to them.

51:32

Right, And we want a model for daughters

51:34

that you can still be a sexual person when

51:37

you're a mom. We want a model for sons

51:39

that their mothers are whole people and

51:42

they are not carbon cutouts there to serve

51:44

you. So

51:46

I feel like, ultimately, I'm

51:49

very happy with all of the

51:52

messiness that happened. I don't have regrets

51:54

about really anything that happened because it's all brought

51:56

me to this place and i have strong

51:59

relationships with my kids now and I'm

52:01

happy about.

52:02

That, which is great,

52:04

Which is great. The book

52:07

takes place over ten years, and as

52:09

you said, it ends, it's twenty

52:11

eighteen that it ends, right, Yeah, yeah,

52:14

where are you? Where is your marriage now?

52:17

How are how

52:20

are things? I guess is that the best question? How

52:22

are things?

52:23

Our marriage is the best it's ever been. And

52:27

you know, I'll be honest, the kids. For

52:30

some people, I think when the kids leave,

52:33

the marriage goes through some pressure

52:36

because maybe there's no triangulation

52:39

anymore, or there's no common

52:42

focal point. But because we've

52:44

had our own things going on, the kids

52:46

leaving has made it like awesome,

52:50

So we're like really enjoying time together

52:53

and time apart which we always have. The

52:56

sex is better with my husband than it's ever been.

53:00

I think, did the sex get

53:02

better when you opened up your marriage?

53:04

Yes, and not for the reason that everybody

53:07

assumes. I mean, in part, I think

53:09

it's because we were exploring

53:11

with other people and figuring out what we wanted.

53:14

But also, I write about this in the book,

53:16

there are some facets

53:19

of my husband's sexuality that

53:21

do not match with some facets

53:23

of my sexuality, and until

53:26

I started seeing other people,

53:28

I couldn't really put my finger on what that

53:31

was. But ultimately he is more

53:33

dominant than I prefer. I

53:36

need him to tone it down with me,

53:39

and so I now

53:41

though, don't feel like I have to compromise

53:44

with him. He can take He

53:47

doesn't need that all the time, but

53:49

you can get that elsewhere. So I don't

53:51

have to change my boundaries for him, and

53:54

he doesn't have to negate

53:57

this whole part of his sexuality

53:59

for me, And I think that's a really beautiful

54:02

thing that we're able to give each other. So

54:04

because of that, there's it's just so much less

54:07

fraught. We kind of know the kind

54:09

of sex we like to have and

54:11

it's awesome, and it's not the only

54:13

kind of sex we like to have, and so we have

54:16

that other kind with other people.

54:18

And so it's just taken all

54:21

the pressure off of us in

54:24

a way that's actually opened us up. We have

54:27

been a little more experimental with each other

54:29

because they're like, yeah, maybe we'll try it with the you know,

54:32

things that I didn't think I would like with him, but I

54:34

do like with other people sometimes does happen

54:37

stuff like that. So overall,

54:40

it's just kind of given a freedom

54:42

to our sex life that

54:45

that has benefited our

54:48

relationship as much as it has

54:50

our other partnerships.

54:52

Yeah, I you know, you're

54:55

talking about it with regards to sex, but I say

54:57

all the time, I'm like, your spouse cannot be your everything.

54:59

They are not gonna your soul and your best friend and

55:01

the person you played tennis with and the mind blowing sex,

55:03

right and so yeah, but there yet another

55:06

myth that deserves to be busted. Yeah,

55:09

is that they should satisfy every

55:11

single need. Absolutely, you're

55:13

happier when they satisfy the needs

55:16

that they're good at.

55:17

Yeah, Like it was so funny. I got

55:19

interviewed for the New York Times Food section because

55:21

they were talking about marriage and food and

55:24

I hadn't really thought about it so much before. But like,

55:26

I don't cook, or I don't like to cook. My husband

55:28

doesn't cook, so nobody cooks,

55:31

right. Yeah, my boyfriend is

55:33

in hospitality and cooks

55:35

and used to like but also would make these like amazing

55:38

shark uterie plates when we were first

55:40

dating, and reminding him of that now because

55:43

anytime you're with someone for a while, you get into a lull.

55:45

But like, he'll cook for me sometimes,

55:47

and my husband's girlfriend cooks for him

55:50

sometimes, and we both get

55:52

said in this way that we

55:54

weren't previously. Yeah,

55:57

we both love it getting cooked for but both

55:59

of us hate took cook So it's

56:01

this way we can just like get

56:04

something that we don't get from each other. That's

56:07

very lovely.

56:08

That's very lovely exactly because

56:10

not everyone can be all the thing right

56:13

right, that is

56:15

all that we have for today. The

56:17

Under the Influence podcast explores

56:20

the many, many facets of a

56:22

woman's very complicated life.

56:24

And if you enjoyed this episode, please

56:27

find us wherever you get your podcasts.

56:29

It is the Under the Influence podcast. And

56:32

as I said before, if you're looking

56:34

for your next great summer read my

56:36

new novel, The Sicilian Inheritance is

56:39

available for pre order now and

56:41

we'll be on bookshelves on April second. It

56:44

is fun, it is sexy, and it might just be the book

56:46

of the summer. I'm so glad

56:48

that I got to spend time with you today. Getting

56:50

to be back in your feed was a real treat.

56:53

Thank you guys. Have a wonderful day.

56:56

Go do something nice for yourselves.

57:07

Looking them talking