Again, it has been a while since I read this book but here is my takeaway: the issue here is that the main character, Molly Winter, pursues an open marriage without fully understanding the fundamental reasons for which she wants said open marriage. Each relationship that she embarks upon seems to exacerbate an issue she’s having within her own marriage, as opposed to being additive to it.
To back up a bit: there are no end of books, well known ones, about this seemingly newfangled relationship dynamic we loosely define as ethical non-monogamy. This, despite the fact that there are books on this topic (published by real publishing houses and everything) going back decades and many, many historical records of relationship structures that aren’t monogamy–whether you’re talking about the widespread practice of polygamy, the underrated polyandry (perhaps we should learn more from our animal brethren), the ever-present stories of Spartan soldiers encouraged to try some D while on the road, the list continues. However, every so often there seems to be a book that breaks through to more traditional media sources, and then everyone is like oOoOh wHaT iS tHiS???
And then, imo, they are disappointed when there is not enough/too much description of the sexy bits.
So in any case, here we have a character familiar to the typical NYT reader–mother of two (?), raised in Evanston/lives in Park Slope/has written for The Cut, Time, disaffected in a vague way with her marriage that if had been summarized to one of the Advice columnists at Slate would have been encouraged to pick up a Fair Play deck. Her husband works too much, she households too much, and she’s unsatisfied. And since a memoir of couples therapy would be boring, we instead have a memoir of her opening her marriage!
I don’t mean to be blithe, and I do think this book is worth reading if only to get a sense of what ENM can and can’t do (answer, quite a lot, sometimes the same thing shows up on both lists?). Winter is a good writer, and I applaud her bravery to show her situation warts and all. I really hope that these two kiddos keep it together, because there’s nothing more dispiriting than a couple who are willing to be creative and try end up falling short because of the steady march of time and differences and resentments…except in this case there’s also a book out detailing part of it (the Ali Wong conundrum).