"More: a Memoir of Open Marriage" with author Molly Roden Winter

Molly Roden Winter talks with Karen about her bestselling memoir More, which honestly chronicles opening up her long-term marriage while being a mother and then caregiver to her parents.

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More: A Memoir of Open Marriage with Author Molly Roden Winter
Interview with Wild & Sublime host Karen Yates

Molly Winter 0:02
And that's partly why I wrote the book too to be honest, I everything I was seeing about polyamory was in one of two camps. It was either it does not work. And now we are divorced, or we close the marriage or I'm no longer poly or whatever it is. Or on the other side, people saying, I think I was born polyamorous. You know, I it's just so wonderful. And my husband and my boyfriend and I are just like hanging out all the time. And, and that's what made me feel very uninvolved. I was like, Oh, I had a really hard time. And, you know, it's interesting. Some of the people who wrote things like that I shall not name names have reached out to me and said, Wow, you have just uncovered a lot of what I've felt.

Karen Yates 0:46
Welcome to Wild & Sublime, a sexy spin on infotainment, no matter your preferences, orientation, or relationship style. Based on the popular live Chicago show, I chat about sex and relationships with citizens of the world at sex positivity and comedy. You'll hear meaningful conversations, dialogues that go deeper, and information that can help you become more free and your sexual expression and sex educator Karen Yates, our monthly patreon supporters pay for a large part of our operating expenses. Their contributions from $5 on up help us big time. Plus members get discounts on show tickets and merch and receive Wild & Sublime news before anyone else and more interested in helping us spread the message of sex positivity. Go to patreon.com forward slash Wild & Sublime. Hey folks, welcome. I hope you were able to listen to our first episode of 2024 on consensual non monogamy because today I'll be talking with someone who has written a very informative book on what it looks like. Exactly. To open up one's marriage, step by step, blow by blow. Well, not always with emotional blows, but occasionally, I feel quite lucky to have Molly Roden winter in the studio today, she has written more A Memoir of open marriage released last month by Doubleday and she is in Chicago currently on tour. And by the way, she grew up in Evanston, just north of Chicago. Molly, you have pulled off a hat trick of having more featured in The New York Times The New Yorker and New York Magazine. Congratulations on that.

Molly Winter 2:40
Thank you very much. It's pretty nutty.

Karen Yates 2:42
I can imagine. More has gotten great reviews. The Washington Post says very frank and very hot. This book will no doubt find its way into the hands of many people who wouldn't be caught dead with a copy of the ethical slut, but who are curious enough about open marriage to read the guidebook first, even if they're not quite ready to take the trip. The Financial Times says, Rodin, winter makes a strong case for open marriage as a crucible in which Love of self partner and others can be deepened. I really like that. More opens as winter. A 35 year old teacher, mother of two young boys and happily married for almost 10 years to her husband, Stewart goes with friends to a neighborhood bar and finds herself instantly attracted to another man. In a bit of a world they exchanged numbers. But when she comes home, Stewart sees a text from this guy and she then tells her husband what happened. He to her great surprise, encourages her to go after it. But once all the details as the scenario turns him on. So begins her open marriage as both Rhoden winter and her husband pursue other partners. In more we see Roden winter confront herself in therapy make sense of her parents open marriage and develop an even deeper relationship with her husband through the road of non monogamy. And before we begin the interview, I want to say that this recording today takes place on the tribal lands of the Council of three fires the Ojibwe, the Dawa, and the Potawatomi nations. Welcome Molly Roden winter.

Molly Winter 4:26
Thank you so much for having me.

Karen Yates 4:29
I'm excited to have you here. Yay. And I really enjoyed your book. Thank you. So as I was preparing for the interview, I saw that 51% of folks younger than 30 told Pew Research open marriages were acceptable. 20% of all Americans have explored non monogamy as well. Now this seems like the numbers have jumped since the last time I checked the stats last year so it's like continuing to get bigger and bigger as a movement. So as I mentioned, the book begins with the surprise of your husband being okay with you seeing someone else? Here's my question what can even simply discussing the potential of an open relationship due to long term monogamous heterosexual relationships? What in your estimation can get unearthed or rearranged? And was there anything you wished had happened in that opening conversation with your husband? That didn't?

Molly Winter 5:24
Hmm, good questions. I think it really depends on the person, there's, there's a word in the polyamorous lexicon, Compersion, which may have come up on this show in the past. And for some people, they talk about it as kind of like getting off sexually at the thought or watching your partner with somebody else. I think of it in a much more kind of emotional way, that feeling joy, that your partner is feeling joy, my husband is very compersive in a sexual way. I am not like full stop. And I've tried many times, and it's just not for me, it doesn't do a thing for me, I don't want to be there. When he's with someone, I don't really want to hear details. So one of the challenges for us was learning that was that he was into hearing about me, but I wasn't hearing interested in hearing about him.

Molly Winter 6:29
And the other thing that happened is my story tells as I go on, I ultimately decided this was really for me more than it was for him or for our marriage, even if you want to hear about it, he doesn't always get to hear about and you know, and that was a whole other set of kind of negotiation sounds too cold, but you know, just kind of learning where my own interest lies. When it comes to non monogamy. For some people, it's a really shared adventure, and they like to be with other couples are things of that nature. And for me, it's very individual. But I'm, I've reached a point now, and it's taken me about 15 years, the book takes place over the first 10 years of opening our marriage. And it's been six years since the place where the book ends. But in those early years, there was a lot we were figuring out. And I knew he was turned on by the idea of me with other men. There was nothing really in the conversation that I wish would have happened because everything happened in its in its right time. You know, you can't-- it's like when you're 12 and you're wishing you are 19. You know, it doesn't really work. You know, I don't think I could have been 19 when I was 12. And I couldn't have known what I know now back then when I was 35. Now I'm 51. And it's part of it. You gotta go through it to have the experience to learn. There's no, there's there are no shortcuts.

Karen Yates 8:06
Yeah, you know, to your point about what you were speaking about earlier, I admired the way you grappled with your jealousy or not wanting to know or wanting to know, and, and then finally, it was like, Yeah, this is, this is the thing gonna happen, like, like, you were comfortable with that. I think I myself just grew up, there was just, there's just been so much grappling with these things. And and I appreciate it, like you kind of knowing yourself. It took a while.

Molly Winter 8:35
Yeah.

Karen Yates 8:35
And I think that's one of the great part parts of the book, we see your internal shifts and awarenesses as things go on.

Molly Winter 8:43
And that's yeah, I felt like when I my first draft of the book was written, with a kind of all-knowing perspective, you know, as my as my current self looking back on this foolish young person who made all these mistakes, and my agent was like, No, this isn't gonna do it. And he was right. He said, You need to write this in a way that brings the reader along for the ride with you. And I'm so glad he had me do that, what, what I didn't know was how to do that, initially, but I started writing in present tense, and that helped a lot. And I was just trying to kind of embody who I was in those moments and and feel what I felt. But I think that's the value of memoir is that you're not just telling somebody Oh, yeah, I opened my marriage 15 years ago, and I was jealous at first, but now I'm fine. You know, I mean, that's not helpful now. What you'd have to do is get down into the trenches of your own emotional reality from that time and kind of show, and I had to think about it as I was writing to what were the turning points, what were those moments of understanding when I learned something new about myself? Or what did it look like when I was at a real low point? Because I couldn't accept something or didn't understand myself?

Karen Yates 10:16
Well, you know, I'll, I'll jump to a question. I was going to ask you later, but I'll ask it now, you know, on on this show, you know, there's a lot of folks who will... who are polyamorous or starting out in polyamory and and you know, when we do live shows, we get questions from people. And one of the things that I see a lot is that people are asking questions about these transition moments within the relationship. You might start out with a couple of rules or like some like this, this is like, the line is, is here, it shall not be breached. And like, then over time the way it usually happens in open relationships, people do cross the lines, or they're... they're bumped up against. And so my question to you is, what, for yourself and your husband separately, but then yourself together as a couple, what were some of these transition moments that you can recall that were really pretty important?

Molly Winter 11:10
Yeah...Well, rules, I'm thinking about specific, I had a lot of rules, and they were mostly my rules. The cardinal rule was no falling in love, which is not very polyamorous of me. And I didn't use the word polyamory for a long time. I barely could use the word like the term "open marriage", we called it kind of an "experiment" at the beginning. This is before these terms, I had never heard of consensual non monogamy, or ethical non monogamy, these were all pre my ever hearing those terms. And my rules initially, were all designed to prevent the cardinal rule of falling in love. So I had rules like no sleepovers, no dating the same woman twice in one week. Don't play chess with anybody but me, because that's our thing. You know, we were not supposed to see movies with someone else. We were not supposed to go on trips, anything that was going to promote intimacy, right, which is the whole point I now realize. But at the time, I foolishly thought it was all about sex. And so I thought I could get all the things I needed just through sex. And I could keep the marriage completely safe by never risking any real emotional intimacy. And all of that broke down as I realized, first of all, I didn't want to just have meaningless or casual sex. Some people do, I do not.

Molly Winter 12:46
But it took me a while--kind of an embarrassingly long amount of time. But you know, what can I say? It happens as it happens, for me to figure that out. And then I generally broke rules. First, I would say, oh, sorry, I went and saw a movie. And he was like, and to my husband's credit, he was pretty cool with it. But what would happen is I would break a rule and then get mad if he broke the rule.

Karen Yates 13:09
Yeah. super human, super.

Molly Winter 13:12
Yeah, right. Not superhuman in that like superhuman, like, above humanity, but like very, very, very human.

Karen Yates 13:12
Yes.

Molly Winter 13:18
No. And I wanted to show myself as a completely flawed individual, as I'm telling the story.

Karen Yates 13:25
I love that you did that, though. I mean, that I was really, you know, so funny, because of the reviews are like, this is a really brave book. And I'm like, Oh, they're saying it's brave because of the sexual parts. But honestly, I mean, I might be wrong, but I thought the bravery was around just really showing your warts.

Molly Winter 13:41
Yeah, maybe. Yeah. And that's a big line from the ethical slot. When you meet another partner, you get to see their warts, you know, which is not always true, I found, but I also think the bravery is just being honest. It's, it's, it's funny to me, because I don't think it's that brave or that shocking. It's just kind of what happened. And I'm over time I've become a pretty open book. So it's not a it's not, I didn't realize it was going to be such a big deal. So yes, I am. I am kind of blown away by the press. It's been getting. I'm delighted, but I'm also surprised. And yeah, you're asking about rules that what was that original question? Sorry. I feel like I got I got off track.

Karen Yates 14:29
Well, what were the most like difficult transition moments, right as together as husband and, and, and wife or separately?

Molly Winter 14:39
I think the hardest moments for me came when I had broken up with somebody and my husband was still in a happy relationship. Those... that happened a couple of times. And it was really hard and the first time it happened-- well, yeah, the first two times three times or two, I don't know, it all happened to kind of like two different levels, right? Different degrees. But initially, if I would have a breakup, I wanted to close the marriage, right? Cuz I was like, I --This hurts, yes, this hurts, I don't like hurting, I want this, I want to never hurt again. And so we need to close the marriage.

Molly Winter 15:26
At one point, and I write about this in the book, my husband was on to me by then and was like, I really think you're gonna meet somebody else. And then you're gonna want to open it again. And I kind of don't want to break up with my girlfriend. Because you're going to change your mind in three weeks, you know? So I gave the ultimatum that we had to go to couples therapy, or we would close the marriage. And it was the only way I could get them to go to couples therapy to be fair, so it was nice. It was nice. I mean, it's a little manipulative. But hey, marriage is a little manipulative. If we're being honest, everybody manipulates a little bit. If you don't want to go see your in laws for Thanksgiving, you're gonna like make your spouse think it was their idea to go somewhere else. Yeah, that's what we do. So I told him, We had to go to couples counseling. And it was really useful. We spent a year in in couples therapy and got some really important tools. But then the next time it happened, because of course, there was a next time, I had met somebody, I was with him for a year and a half. And then when that relationship ended, there was something in me that just knew I couldn't, I couldn't close the marriage, you know, and I didn't want to, I was, and I think there's a few parts to it.

Molly Winter 16:44
One is that was where that was my biggest moment of conversion first kind of hit me, when I was like, I know that this arrangement makes my husband happy. I love my husband, and I want him to be happy. And then the second part of it was my realization that I was learning really important things about myself through this process. And I was really I was I was getting increasingly curious about myself and curious about where what would be next, you know, and that possibility that there is going to be something next. There's a line in the book where my mother says my mother, spoiler alert, my parents also had an open marriage, which I did not know about till I was 28. But my mother said, when I broke up with someone, she said, Oh, sweetheart, don't worry, there will be more, you know. And I was like, Oh, I guess there were more for you, too. But it's also just that, that lovely aspect of knowing that you're, you're not done falling in love that you could fall in love again. And yeah, there'll be pain, but I don't think pain is our enemy. I think pain is generally an invitation to dig deeper and to learn something really profound.

Karen Yates 18:03
Yeah. You had mentioned just now, a little bit earlier about how when you began, it was really about the sex. And, and that was, that was something I was sort of tracking as you went along that, you know, you were making sense of sex outside of the roles of marriage, or the goals that people have around sex. And the beginning, you're having these really not optimal forays with people.

Molly Winter 18:30
I mean, that's very kind way of putting it. Very kind, thank you. Not optimal, sub optimal, indeed,

Karen Yates 18:39
Sub optimal hookups with men, and then you started moving into more emotionally satisfying relationships.

Molly Winter 18:45
Yeah.

Karen Yates 18:46
So you know, in talking about the, you know, what would you say about the sexual trajectory you went on? And, and if you're, if you're open to it, like, where are you with sex now?

Molly Winter 18:57
Sure. No, I'm open. Boundaries are loose. Anyway, early on, I think I was having really kind of like, my, not even a second adolescence, I was thinking I was having my first adolescence. I was very young. When I went to college in high school. I mean, I skipped a grade, I was already the youngest in my grade. So I was 12 when I went to high school. I was 16 when I went to college. I was naive capital. And so I had had one boyfriend in college, and then I met my husband. And that's partly why he he said to me, before we were even engaged, Molly, there is no way you're going to be cool with never sleeping with another person. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's not true. I love you. And he was like, yeah, just like give it 10 years and then 10 years later, boom. But anyway, part of what I was doing, I think, was just experimenting and behaviors that we usually do associate with crazy teenagers, right? Having sex in bar bathrooms and cars and

Karen Yates 20:05
WeWork spaces are shared, right?

Molly Winter 20:07
Yeah.

Karen Yates 20:09
That was laugh.

Molly Winter 20:11
Yeah. Yeah. It's not an easy moment when you get like, the email saying you're banned for life from the Wework space--it was Breather, actually--while you're leaving your child's PTA meeting, but yep, I had those moments. I was not necessarily thinking things through or operating from a conscious brain, it was more like my little reptilian brain was going wild, kind of like a teenager. But I think I needed to do that. I think there's a reason why kids go through a rebellious phase, and I just had skipped it. And I think if you skip it, you got to live it at some point. And maybe that's what midlife crises are actually about. And maybe it's not a crisis, after all, maybe it's just midlife, midlife, experience reckoning. Right?

Karen Yates 21:00
Right.

Molly Winter 21:01
And so that was part of it. But then through that is how I also figured out what I like and what I don't like, right? So you can't know through just from, you know, it doesn't just come to you from on high, like, Ah, you will enjoy G Spot stimulation, you know what I mean? You have to like experience it, or to know what kind of partner you want. And sometimes what you want is actually a little variety. And so I learned a lot about myself through those even suboptimal experiences. So I really don't actually have regrets about anything I've done. Partly because I did make it through unscathed. And maybe that's lucky. I know, there's, but you can also walk out of your house and get hit by a bus.

Molly Winter 21:49
So when people are like, Oh, you could have died! I'm like, Yeah, you could die, you could die. There's always gonna be those folks.

Karen Yates 21:57
Yeah, right. I know.

Molly Winter 21:58
And it's like, how could How could you risk it all! you know what I mean? It's like living living in a human body is a risk. Period. So you just it's all about risk management, and what your what your risk comfort levels are. And mine are, apparently, rather high. Well, compared to some... compared to others, not, you know what I mean? It's a continuum.

Karen Yates 22:26
So, so where are you with sex now?

Molly Winter 22:29
I have a partner outside of my marriage that I've been with for three years now. And he's in an open marriage too. And he's always been non monogamous, since he was a teenager, every girlfriend he's ever had. He's like, before, anything sexual happens, he's had the conversation, he's a man ahead of his time. But you know, my age, so very age appropriate, which is lovely. And we have a great relationship.

Molly Winter 22:58
I have a great relationship with my husband, a great sexual relationship. And they're different. In some ways, they're very similar. And in other ways, they're very different. And both of them are extremely confident, and also encouraging of me to have other experiences if and when opportunities arise. And they do arise sometimes. Sometimes it's a relationship I had a few years ago that ended for one reason or another, or just kind of cooled, or somebody had a kid and had to, you know, take a break. I'm not really on dating apps anymore. I feel as they say, polyunsaturated, but um, so I have two main partners, my husband and the person I do I do use the word boyfriend, I'm such a Gen Xer. And then I've got some other people who are just other lovely friend slash occasional partners. So answers, yeah, but they're more than that. They're they're friends. You know, they're people I have a deep connection with and in my own way, even if it's not--you know the labels sometimes stop fitting at at a certain point, you know, so I use boyfriend and then kind of other boyfriend, sometimes boys, you know what I mean? It's just that partner is such a better word. But because of how I grew up, I just always think of it as a business partner. I can't shake that association from my little GenX brain. So I'll work on it though. I have three partners and one of them is my husband.

Karen Yates 22:58
Okay. Yeah. So one of the things I really enjoyed reading about since I have issues with anger is how you came to grips with your anger in the book, and you know, a lot of the anger that's talked about stems from the obligations you... that are baked into typical roles that cis women take on like Mother--you have two boys-- Wife--you're married--and your husband is for the most part MIA when it comes to household--

Molly Winter 25:06
Which might be a little unfair, he would push back on that. But yes, that's how I depict him in the book.

Karen Yates 25:10
Exactly.

Molly Winter 25:11
That's credit. He's like, fine. Okay, my depiction but and

Karen Yates 25:14
then the caregiver, your mom is ill throughout the book. And so this gets rolled into an internalized character that you dubbed straight a molly, who leaps in when people need assistance and always does the right thing. But this role triggers a lot of migraines. But I was interested to see that there are really kind of like two angers that get addressed in the book there.

Molly Winter 25:38
Tell me about my angers. I didn't know there was more than one this

Karen Yates 25:41
in this anger, which doesn't get expressed, except through migraines. But then I found you, you there's this anger that's very expressive towards your husband. That's like a reactionary anger. It's like an automatic anger. That is like, doesn't think it's just erupts? And so like,

Molly Winter 25:59
oh, wow, I never thought of it this way. Tell me how much I owe you the end of this podcast? Because, yeah, this is good stuff. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Karen Yates 26:08
And so like, where are you now with anger? Like, I think, I mean, I look at myself, and I'm like, it's constantly a work in progress. You know, how much can I express my my displeasure, in general, throughout life, or to like, the most difficult is intimate partnerships, like, yeah, so I would just love for you to talk a little bit about all of that,

Molly Winter 26:32
I think I'm in a much better place, a big part of it is I started meditating in the year after the time that the book covers, so you'll never see me meditate. But it started before I began writing the book. And it's, it's helped me to access a lot of kind of tools that have no name, you know, what I mean, I don't know how to, it's helped me to metabolize a lot of things that I was having trouble just kind of sorting out in a, in a conscious way. I think now, my, my level of authenticity is pretty high. In other words, there are very few things that I think or feel that I don't at least express to myself, you know, sometimes you can't always express it to another person. But I'm very aware of my own feelings now. And so some and then I can measure, is this something I need to express to my partner or to my child or to my friend? Or is it something that I can just kind of work through on my own, and I've become a lot better about expressing those feelings when I feel like I need to. And as a result, all of my relationships are just so much smoother now. Yeah, I get angry sometimes. But it feels the other thing that starts to happen that for my husband, and I anyways, will congratulate each other, we practically end our fights now with a high five because we're like, that was a damn good fight! You know what I mean? Like we are, yeah, you're getting so efficient, right? As opposed to those spirals where like, you spent 48 hours and you still haven't even named the issue for either of you. Now you never, like you're doing the thing, where you are not taking care of your responsibility in this situation. And then he'll say to me, and you're doing the thing, where you think you know, everything, and you're telling me what to do? And I'm like, yeah, and then you know what I mean? And then we can just kind of move past it and say, like, Okay, I'll try to stop doing that thing. And he's like, I will try also to stop doing that thing. And then we actually do try, and then it's better. It's amazing. Well,

Karen Yates 28:50
This is really cool. Because, you know, I was I was looking at your Instagram account. And you--and I might be paraphrasing this, but I saw about something you posted recently about like, this book is really meant to show people like, like, you know, that it's it's it's not an easy path to do polyamory and what I love about you expressing what you're expressing right now is like this is exactly what they talk about. Like when you if you decide to do open marriages, you're really you have to have like, completely pristine communication--

Molly Winter 29:24
--or be willing to work on it for a long time. I don't think anybody goes into it right like and that's partly why I wrote the book too, to be honest. Everything I was seeing about polyamory was in one of two camps. It was either it does not work. And now we are divorced, or we closed the marriage or I'm no longer poly or whatever it is. Or on the other side, people saying I think I was born polyamorous, you know, it's just so wonderful! And my husband and my boyfriend and I are just like hanging out all the time and, and that's what made me feel very uninvolved. I was like, oh, I had a really hard time. And, you know, it's interesting, some of the people who wrote things like that I shall not name names have reached out to me and said, Wow, you have just unearthed a lot of what I felt. And I think it's also because once you've worked past it, you don't want to go back there, you don't want to remember how awful it was. So I don't think anybody was lying about where they are right now. But nobody was telling the story of how they got there. Really, you know, yes, especially a mother, because that's its own breed of complication. So I wasn't seeing anything that that expresses the kind of the guilt that goes into being non monogamous, and a mother.

Karen Yates 30:52
Right.

Molly Winter 30:53
So the ideal mother, in our culture is a woman who gives her life to her family. And there is nothing she needs. Outside of that role. She is just she lives for it. Right? She just want to pamper and care for and love and make the cookies and be and that's why so many women who work are having a really hard time, right, because you're kind of constantly in a state of guilt, that you're not doing enough for everybody. And it's a really--an so there's, it's one thing if you're working, right, and then you're you're actually contributing to the family. If you're working, if you're just going off having sex, that's really hard to justify, according to the model that we have drawn for women.

Molly Winter 30:53
And it was hard for my mother to that's why my mother didn't tell me, I think, and my mother had a lot of shame around being in an open marriage, even though she would be the first to acknowledge how good it was both for her personally, and for their marriage. But it was nothing she wanted to ever let anybody know, you know, it was still something that was very hush hush. And we've been talking about it all the way up until this morning. I'm staying with them right now for my Chicago events. And it's great because at 81, she's starting to like come to terms with the fact that she has a right to having needs and desires that aren't fulfilled by her role as a mother and she was also a teacher just like me apples and trees. Right? I was an eighth grade English teacher just like my mom. But yeah, I think I think it's a it's an important thing to allow mothers to be sexual beings, especially because all mothers had to be a sexual being at least once. Right? The child, and then we're supposed to be these kind of virginal two dimensional people, and it's just messed up.

Karen Yates 33:08
Yeah, it is. And there's so much so much prohibition against being a mother with a sexual life. That's alt. You know, and I can imagine, I mean, tell me, I wonder in your journey, as in on the tour, or like in feedback or comments, because those comments are doozies thing about, like, whenever I see a book on sexuality out in, you know, being covered in, in media, I always check the comments because I'm like, "Okay, how fucked up are these comments going to be?"

Molly Winter 33:39
They're all kind of one-note fucked up.

Karen Yates 33:41
But like, there's sort of this always this, how dare you? You know, you are a mother. And what, what you, you have fucked up the kids, right, right now, and it's so ludicrous, because it's pretty clear from this book, that the two of you, you and your husband, like really put into place good practices. And when the kids were old enough to be alone, they were alone, but they were completely fine. And yeah, I don't know. What do you have to say?

Molly Winter 34:11
Well, I think part of the reason I also felt quote, unquote, brave enough to write the book now is that my kids are adults, they're almost 22 and 19. And they're off having their own lives. And it's kind of like, you know, when you watch someone after, so it's gonna be a weird analogy. I was thinking about, like, the royal taster who like eats the food, and then you watch them to see if they die before you eat the food, or like--

Karen Yates 34:37
[laughing] Where are you going with this?

Molly Winter 34:38
I know, right? But it's kind of like people can watch me and be like, Did her kids get fucked? And they're actually lovely human beings. And I think they're really going to be fabulous life partners too, because they know that a woman can be and should be an entire person, not this two dimensional figure. And they talk to me about real things, and they are living very interesting, cool lives. And they don't really pay much attention to what I'm up to these days, they'll be like, how's the book mom? you know, like my youngest was very psyched that the book was not at the campus bookstore at his school. And he felt a little bad that he was psyched too. He's like, I'm sorry, mom. But I checked, and I was happy. And I was like, That is okay. You know, nobody wants to think about their mom's sex life, and that's fine. But I think it's important to be a whole person with your kids. They don't have to sanitize themselves for me, because they know I'm not going to clutch my pearls. And so that, to me, is better. You know, I don't want to say better, because it's not like I'm a better mom. But I don't think there's a one size fits all way to be a mother, I think what's important is to be your authentic self. And that's what you model for your kids authenticity.

Karen Yates 36:01
Yeah. So I'd like to switch gears for a second. I read The New Yorker piece that was about-- basically it was about polyamory in culture--

Molly Winter 36:11
yeah

Karen Yates 36:12
--And the arts and like how it's having its moment, and it's being covered a lot. And they, and you are brought into the conversation. And the author, Jennifer, Jennifer Wilson, she did a bit of a takedown of your book around the economics of polyamory, that it's a relationship style born born of privilege, meaning it takes money to go on dates, and get babysitters and hotel rooms and what have you. And this is a viewpoint that is shared by a number of people, not just her, and, you know, cultural commentators. And I wonder, you know, what is your what are your thoughts on all of them?

Molly Winter 36:49
First of all, I, I don't, I don't begrudge her her opinion and her right to take me down specifically, because I am pretty bougie. You know what I mean? And so that is fair. And I do have a nice house in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I did take a little issue with me getting lumped in with like Shiv from Succession, because, yes, I have a house. But I don't have 10 houses and a private jet. And I was a full-time teacher for half the book. And then you know what I mean, I'm not like silver spoon. My parents also, were both working teachers when they had their open marriage here in the suburbs of Chicago. So it's not just the playground of the rich. I do think because I have privilege--and I totally own my privilege to the extent I can--I'm so privileged that I don't even know how privileged I am. I mean, that's kind of the way privilege works, right? But I do know that I have nothing to fear by writing this book. And I do know that there are a lot of people who might have things they could lose. I do not worry about getting fired from a job. I don't worry about losing custody of my children. I don't worry about ostracizing my family who I rely on for childcare. And anybody who is living without this privilege, would not be able to write this story. And so if I can't talk about it, who can talk about? And I think the only part of the reason that I got discussed in that because not that many people are, you know, coming out for lack of a better term as poly because there's so much stigma around it. And so they are... they discussed a number of fictional characters, and me. And so I do think I am getting a lot of DMs on my Instagram from women all over the country. One was--they don't always say where they're from--but one was from Tennessee, and one was from Maine and were talking about how isolated they felt. They are moms, they are in happy open marriages. But they feel like they have to hide it. And they felt very grateful that I had written this story. So I know it's not just happening in Park Slope, Brooklyn, but I think also Park Slope, Brooklyn, is a real safe place to talk about it -- like nobody's batting an eye. Yeah, at the cafe or the gym. You know what I mean?

Molly Winter 39:22
They might battle a little eye but like barely so...

Karen Yates 39:26
Jealous?

Molly Winter 39:26
I yeah, I hope not. I hope there's there's plenty for everyone. It's abundance mindset, everyone. Yeah, she didn't like that I said abundance mindset either because I do have abundance. And I know that. So it's not it's not that it was an unfair critique of my life, but I think it's a misrepresentation of polyamory as a whole. That it's just this, you know, playground because I also know people-- there is a person who wrote a book, and they, their name is Alex Gilberto and and they wrote a book called Entwined, which is coming out in February.

Karen Yates 40:03
I saw you posting about it.

Molly Winter 40:04
Yeah. And I want to talk about it too, because I've been given this platform, but it's a great book. It's kind of a collection of essays about their experience as a nonbinary person in a polycule. And there's a lot of economic benefit to that to have, you know, three incomes instead of two. If they're children involved to have more people available for childcare, it's actually kind of make sense in this capitalist climate. So it's, I think it's really wrong to say you, you know, yes, have I gone to hotels? Yes, if you read the book, you'll see I'm not necessarily going to the Ritz Carlton. However, I think for a lot of people, there are other ways that they manage it. And it's not like you have to have a hotel account to to practice polyamory. I think that's not true.

Karen Yates 41:01
Yeah. And you know, there's the other side of polyamory or the other philosophy that it is a community endeavor. Yeah, that's pretty ancient, you know, and it comes springs from the indigenous traditions. So it's interesting, I think, I personally think that there are many ways you can, you can take aim at polyamory for many different reasons. And a lot of them. You can take look, take aim at it from a cultural perspective, you can take aim at it from a personal morality standpoint. But I am glad that you wrote the book. And I want to end with something I just found that you had published on Time.

Molly Winter 41:46
Yeah, thank you.

Karen Yates 41:46
And there is a this was in the final. One of the final paragraphs, and I was hoping that you could read it.

Molly Winter 41:55
Oh, okay. Glad I had my reading glasses.

Karen Yates 41:57
I am too.

Molly Winter 41:58
[reading] "What I didn't know, then, is that the terrain I explored was not sex, per se, but myself. The risk was not that either my husband or I would find passion or love with someone else. But that by giving up the freedom to explore, I'd condemn myself to a life of stagnation and resentment. I would be suffocated by my own sense of safety. I would wake up one morning and find myself tucked inside the Tupperware with the leftover chicken and carrot sticks I packed for everyone else's lunch, and there would be no way out. No entry point for air.

Karen Yates 42:37
So great.

Molly Winter 42:38
Thank you.

Karen Yates 42:39
So great.

Molly Winter 42:40
Thank you.

Karen Yates 42:42
Thank you, Molly Roden winter.

Molly Winter 42:44
Appreciate it. Thank you, Karen.

Karen Yates 42:46
The book we have been discussing is More: a Memoir of Open Marriage. Link to purchase through our affiliate Bookshop--which supports independent booksellers and Wild & Sublime-- is in the shownotes. You can follow Molly on Instagram at @Molly Rwinter and that link and the link to her website MollyRodenwinter.com is in the show notes as well.

Karen Yates 43:09
That's it, folks! Have a very pleasurable week. Wild & Sublime is supported in part by or Sublime Supporter, Full Color Life Therapy-- therapy for all of you at fullcolorlifetherapy.com Thank you for listening. Know someone who might like this episode? Send it to them. You can follow us on Facebook, Tik tok and Instagram @WildandSublime and sign up for newsletters at Wildandsublime.com. Got feedback or an inquiry? contact us at info@Wildandsublime.com And we'd love a review or a rating on your podcast player. I'd like to thank our design guru: Jean-François Gervais. Music by David Ben-Porat. This episode was produced and edited at the Lincoln Lodge podcast studio as part of the Lincoln Lodge Podcast Network.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Wild & Sublime

"More: a Memoir of Open Marriage" with author Molly Roden Winter

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