‘I wanted sexual adventures, I didn’t want to fall in love’: Molly Roden Winter on her astonishing memoir of an open marriage
An open marriage, dating sites, sex with strangers – now the writer’s fearsomely frank and funny memoir about the joys of polyamory has become an instant bestseller
Molly Roden Winter wasn’t planning an extramarital affair. Certainly not a string of sexual encounters with multiple partners, each liaison now intricately catalogued in the public domain. When she stormed out of her Brooklyn home one evening in 2008 – kids crashed out upstairs, husband barely through the front door – it was space, not sex, she desperately craved. “The night this all started,” she tells me, “my husband, Stew, had worked late. And I was pissed off. He’d promised to be home early.” Once again, he’d returned early enough for her to still be awake (for dinner, TV and sex, maybe), but too late to help put the children to bed.
She was 35 then, a middle-school English teacher with two young sons, aged six and three. “I’d taken some time out of work to raise the kids and soon felt lost. I forgot who I was outside motherhood. I felt so devoted to my children. I loved being a parent. I was also angry that my husband got to continue having this whole other life while I did not.” Her husband, a successful writer of music for television, had become the family’s breadwinner; her teacher’s income would hardly have covered the cost of childcare. “It would have made no sense for him to stay home and one of us needed to. But something was bubbling up.” She’d started to suffer migraines, occasionally hives – “a physical expression of my bottled up angst. That night, I’d had enough.” She had no predetermined destination. “I was so out of sorts I didn’t even take my phone or wallet. The second he walked in, I went out.”
Continue reading...Date: |
Filter
-
Tiny Love Stories: ‘The Schoolhouse Taught Me What Marriage Didn’t’
Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.The New York Times - Lifestyle
More from The Guardian
-
Hope Hicks tells hush-money jury of Trump’s control over 2016 campaign
Ex-president’s former communications director says Access Hollywood tape ‘was a crisis’ for his campaign. Hope Hicks, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary, broke into tears on Friday while testifying in the ex-president’s New York criminal ...The Guardian - World - Donald Trump -
Israelis voice sadness and defiance over Gaza protests on US campuses
People in Jerusalem express little sympathy with anti-war demonstrators, with some accusing them of hatred for Israel. At the Jerusalem theatre on Thursday night, concertgoers and staff expressed a mixture of anger, sadness and defiance as weeks ...The Guardian - World - Israel -
Canadian police charge three over killing of Sikh activist
Prime minister said there were ‘credible allegations’ that India was behind killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Canadian police have charged three members of an alleged hit team for their role in the assassination of the Sikh activist Hardeep Singh ...The Guardian - World -
Star Wars’ Mark Hamill hails ‘Joe-B-Wan Kenobi’ after White House meeting
Actor brings force of Hollywood to trumpet Biden’s legislative record in briefing that both delighted and bemused journalists. “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” But enough about Washington. The Star Wars actor Mark ...The Guardian - World -
Ukraine unveils AI-generated foreign ministry spokesperson
Victoria Shi is modelled on Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine’s version of the reality show The Bachelor. Ukraine on Wednesday presented an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on ...The Guardian - World - Ukraine