For anyone prone to experiencing secondhand embarrassment, there’s a scene in Molly Rhoden Winter’s debut, More: A Memoir of an Open Marriage, that should come with a warning.
Winter at her home in Brooklyn. She had just had sex with her boyfriend while her two kids were sleeping upstairs. Her husband, Stuart, agreed to meet her, but feeling guilty, she rushed into the kitchen naked to text him: Don’t worry, “he doesn’t have anything on you as a boyfriend.” But instead of texting her husband, she accidentally sent the message to her boyfriend, who left her angry and later broke up with her. A distressed Winter begs her husband to come home to comfort her.
“I still feel a little nauseous thinking about it,” said Winter, 51, as she sipped tea in the living room of her bright and airy home in Park Slope, Brooklyn. “Talk about the most horrific, horrific, horrific thing that could happen.”
It’s not the only painful and startlingly honest scene in “More,” which documents Winter’s often turbulent experience of open marriage — the resentment and jealousy she felt toward her husband’s girlfriends, the flashes of guilt and shame, and the challenges of juggling her commitments. As a wife and mother with her pursuit of sexual and romantic fulfillment.
Winter is keenly aware that people might judge her for the behavior she describes in “More.” But she also said she felt compelled to write about her experience, in part because she feels that non-monogamy is often portrayed as something that happens on the fringes, rather than as a lifestyle followed by married mothers.
“I felt like there were no mainstream stories about it, and I felt very closed off,” Winter said. “It often feels like mothers aren’t supposed to be sexual beings.”
“More,” which Doubleday will release on January 16, comes at a time when polyamory is drifting from the margins into the mainstream. About a third of Americans surveyed in a February 2023 YouGov poll said they preferred some form of non-monogamy in relationships.
Besides novels, television shows, and films depicting polyamory, polyamory, and other permutations of open relationships, there is a growing body of nonfiction literature that explores the ethics and logistical obstacles of polygamy. Recent titles include memoirs like journalist Rachel Krantz’s 2022 book Open: An Uncensored Memoir About Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy, and self-help and inspirational books like The Anxious Person’s Guide to Non-Monogamy and Polyamory. Paradox” and “A Polyamory Devotional,” which contains 365 daily meditations on polyamory.
Jessica Fearn, a psychotherapist who counsels people in open relationships, said Winter’s novel adds a new layer to the growing list of non-fiction books about polyamory.
“Her story, which is about what it means to be a mother, is sexually charged, I haven’t seen enough of that yet,” said Verne, author of Polysecure and Polywise.
Fern noted that there may be a dearth of books written by mothers in open marriages because they are simply too busy: “When you’re a single parent and you’re polyamorous, who has time to write?”
Winter admits that polygamy can be stressful — especially when she has to balance it with marriage, childcare, and a job as an eighth-grade English teacher.
“I didn’t sleep much,” she said.
She said that opening a marriage was not just about doing whatever and whoever she wanted. She had to unlearn internalized sexism and her tendency to put the needs of others before her own, issues she dealt with in therapy. What began as a search for sexual excitement led unexpectedly to self-discovery.
“I thought non-monogamy would be about sex,” she said. “I thought I was going to have a big sexual adventure, and it was going to be very exciting. And it was until it wasn’t.”
To be clear: “more” is also about sex. Winter recounts her experiences with plugging, fisting, and anal intercourse, and catalogs her extramarital affairs—which range from brief encounters in seedy hotel rooms to romantic partnerships lasting for years—in meticulous detail. She changed her and her partners’ names to protect their privacy, but often left little to the imagination.
There’s Karl, the generous German lover who seems intent on pleasing her in bed, then goads her into having a threesome with him, his fiancée, and then her ghost. There’s Laurent, a French-Argentine lover who refuses to wear a condom and loves to have sex in public bathrooms and shared workspaces—a fetish that results in Winter being banned for life from working in a shared office space.
And there’s Jay, a 29-year-old with a shockingly large penis. After having unsatisfying sex, Jay tells Winter that he normally cannot orgasm from intercourse, but he plans to masturbate in her memory. “You’re cute,” she told him.
Winter grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and was in her early 20s when she met Stuart Winter, the man she would marry. He made her laugh and was passionate about his work composing music for TV shows and movies.
In 2008, they had been married for nearly a decade and had two young sons when Winter met someone else. Frustrated after a stressful day caring for their children while he worked late, she took a walk one evening. A friend invited her out for drinks, and at the bar she got into a flirtatious conversation with a man.
When she later told her husband, to her surprise, he was not angry. Instead, he urged her to sleep with her new acquaintance and share the details.
After Winter started dating, it wasn’t long before Stewart also started seeing other women. Although she agreed that this was only fair, she was consumed by jealousy and was sometimes asked to end the marriage.
Stewart confirmed that an open marriage was easier for him in the beginning.
“Molly was probably more discerning than I was at that point,” he said, comparing his dating experience to being “at a salad bar.”
In the early years, many of her sexual exploits proved unsatisfactory. At the time, most online dating sites didn’t cater to polyamorous people, so I sometimes resorted to dating men who were cheating on their wives and girlfriends. “Not my finest hour,” she said.
Some of her close friends were worried that she was sabotaging her marriage and that she would be hurt.
Rebecca Morrissey, a friend of more than 25 years, said: “I was concerned that she was so drawn to the sexual aspect that she wasn’t really thinking about the emotional component.” She added that her fears faded when Winter began to form healthier relationships with her partner. Her mistresses.
Eventually, Winter swore off men who were cheating and started seeing people who were also in open relationships, a demographic that became easier to find when online dating services added non-monogamy to their menus. Even then, options were limited.
“There were so few people that I kept being paired with Stuart,” she said.
Winter and her husband struggled with deciding when and how to tell their children about their arrangement, and wanted to wait until their children were mature enough to handle it. This plan failed when their eldest son, then 13, saw his father’s online dating profile on his laptop and texted his mother in a panic, asking her if they were in an open marriage. She said her younger son found out in a similar way a few years ago, when he was 14.
So far, her two sons, ages 19 and 21, are uninterested in their parents’ sex lives. She said her oldest read her book, telling Winter he skipped some of the “nitty-gritty” sex scenes, while her youngest chose not to read it.
It took a few years before Winter felt comfortable revealing the details of her open marriage to a larger circle of friends and family.
As she told her mother about her adventures in non-monogamy, she learned more about how her parents, who had been married for nearly 60 years, also had an open marriage.
Her parents, Mary and Philip Roden, were a little uncomfortable with the intimate details their daughter shared in her memoir, but they ultimately supported the book, they said in a video interview.
“For the most part, I completely agreed with what she was saying,” Mary Roden said, though she noted she was put off by the “raw, detailed sexual descriptions.”
For his part, Stewart was enthusiastic about the memoir, but feared people would think he manipulated his wife into starting their marriage.
“All my reservations, to be completely honest, are because I’m selfish, and I’m like, ‘How is this going to make me look?’ He said.
“More” ends in 2018, when Winter’s boyfriend, recently divorced by his wife, breaks up with her after she rejects his ultimatum to end her marriage. Winter was sad, but moved on, and has had other serious romantic relationships since.
She became more confident that her 24-year marriage had benefited from their outside relationships. She’s considering another book about her open marriage — one that will, in part, explore the surprising connections she formed with “the other women” in her life, including Stewart’s girlfriends and the wives of the men she dated.
For now, Winter is bracing for the impact the book will have on her and those around her, but she seems brave.
“I spent a lot of my time calming everyone down,” she said. “This doesn’t sound like something I should be afraid of.”