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A Memoir of Open Marriage
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The instant New York Times bestselling memoir that everyone is talking about
'This book about open marriage is going to blow up your group chat' The Washington Post
Molly Roden Winter was a mother of small children with a husband, Stewart, who often worked late. One night when Stewart missed the kids’ bedtime—again—she stormed out of the house to clear her head. At a bar, she met Matt, a flirtatious younger man. When Molly told her husband that Matt had asked her out, she was surprised that Stewart encouraged her to accept.
So began Molly’s unexpected open marriage and, with it, a life-changing journey of self-discovery. Molly signs up for dating sites, enters into passionate flings, and has sex in hotels and public places around New York City. For Molly it’s a mystery why she wants what she wants. In therapy sessions, fuelled by the discovery that her parents had an open marriage, too, she grapples with her past and what it means to be a mother and a whole person.
Molly and Stewart, who also begins to see other people, set ground rules: Don’t date an ex. Don’t date someone in the neighbourhood. Don’t go to anyone’s home. And above all, don’t fall in love. In the years that follow, they break most of their rules, even the most important one. They grapple with jealousy, insecurity, and doubts, all the while wondering: Can they love others and stay true to their love for each other? Can they make the impossible work?
More is an electric debut that offers both steamy fun and poignant reflections on motherhood, daughterhood, marriage, and self-fulfilment. With warmth, humour, and style, Molly Roden Winter delivers an unputdownable journey of a woman becoming her most authentic self.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Essayist and musician Winter wrestles with provocative questions of desire and self-discovery in her intimate debut account of navigating marital nonmonogamy. After meeting an attractive younger man named Matt at a bar near her home in Brooklyn, Winter mentioned the encounter to her husband, Stewart, who—true to a promise he'd made years ago, before the couple was engaged—encouraged her to pursue the connection further. From there, Winter and Stewart laid the groundwork for an open marriage that allowed both to date other people, with rules about sex and communication in place to ensure "nobody hurt"—most of which they eventually broke. Winter catalogs her sexual encounters, her and Stewart's trips to couples therapy, the ever-shifting boundaries of their arrangement, and their awkward conversations with others about it, including, most memorably, their 13-year-old son. She writes about the benefits of the situation ("When I know I'll see Matt soon, I'm more patient with the kids, more eager to have sex with Stewart") as often as its complications ("On the one hand, if Stew is dating lots of women, he's unlikely to fall in love with any one of them. But on the other hand, I'm jealous of how easy it all seems for him"). It adds up to an illuminating and balanced account of a nontraditional relationship. For those curious about polyamory, this is a spicy, stimulating treat.
