Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Could Open Marriage Be Better For Women?

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Hello EICrew! In last week's In Conversation ep we discussed polyamory via the lens of one fairly public relationship- that of author Lindy West and her romantic triad. This week we're continuing the conversation (with more of your help) and discussing the idea of open marriage as a way to free up the time of new mums. Plus: "cool girl" relationship dynamics, our experience with the polyamorous lifestyle and a few cautionary tales. Let us know in the comments what you thought and if we missed anything out.Thanks so much! We *love* being in a poddycule with you all. O, R, B xCould Opening Your Marriage Lighten Your Mental Load? - The Cut How Does Her Divorce Make Us Feel - Everything Is Content Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Richero. And I'm anoni. And this is Everything in Conversation. The Discourse Appetiser before Friday's main course. We'd love for you to take part in these conversations. Whether you're agreeing or disagreeing, we want to hear from you. And you can share your takes by following us on Instagram at Everything is Content Pod. And that's where we decide on topics and get you involved. So last week, we dove into the first half of this discussion about polyamory. By talking about Lindy West's memoir Adult Braces, which is about her unconventional and controversial journey into a romantic triad. We left off with a message from Louisa, who argued that polyamory, while in theory a great idea, ends up skewing in favour of structural imbalances that

exist in society and favour men. Before we resume this conversation, the three of us are going to give you a condensed reminder of who Lindy West is and what her situation looks like. Enjoy. So Lindy West is an American writer, comedian, feminist and actor. A few weeks ago I actually discussed a show called Shrill, which is about a fat woman discovering her confidence and power in a fat-phobic world. And this was based on Lindy's book of the same name. And adult braces is a kind of follow-up to shrill. In 2015, Lindy married musician Aham A. A. Fulet J. Oluo. And as she explains, she already knew that Aham was polyamorous and that they felt possessiveness and jealousy had led to their

earlier marriages breaking down. But, as Lindy explained, in a recent conversation for the New York Times modern love podcast, she was in a bit of denial that they would actually need to open up their marriage. But then in 2019, someone spotted Aham kissing somebody else at a bar. Lindy was hurt, but she acknowledges that she had technically agreed to be non-monogamous. Gradually, though, she learned more about Aham's other partner who's called Roya. Lindy talked to her and began this kind of flirtation and then they met. After they met, the three of them slept together and Roya became Lindy's girlfriend as well. And they announced in 2022 that they were in a romantic triad. So this is all explored much more fully in adult races, which is her new book

that came out on the 10th of March. And it has sparked many comments, a lot of which are skeptical about how healthy this relationship dynamic is, whether she was coerced into it and whether polyamory is actually the open-minded and liberal relationship model that it's been sold as. I'm not one of the people who's like, I think this is bullshit. But I also think the problem is in the last few years. It's almost like the branding of Pollyamory is that this was the answer to liberalism and having a relationship in the most empowered sense. And I also don't think it's necessarily that. I don't think anything can be that. In the same way that people say that marriage is the least empowered thing, or it's the most empowered

thing, or this is the answer. Having a boyfriend is embarrassing. I don't think any of these things are the answers. I think relationships are relationships under the patriarchy. And as a result, every single iteration of that, regardless of what you do, is going to face all of the issues that we have in society, including polyamory, and polyamory specifically will come with all of its own specific problems, much as the things that we've been discussing. But also the thing that I really wanted to talk about that you brought up an only was the racial element of polyamory. The fact that Lindy West discusses, you know, their version of polyamory as resistance to colonisation of a partner. and I just, I find that so grim, to be honest, and I'm going to stick my neck out here.

I think that is a symptom of her being part of this like personal essay industrial complex and how in the 2010s we were all like saying nonsense, quite frankly, and just writing a thousand words for it for any place that would take it, such as, you know, me wearing this dress is my resistance to trauma of my childhood, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it was almost like the lottery cards of using all of these woke language terms. I don't think polyamory is resistance to colonization of a partner. I don't think you can colonize a partner in a relationship in the way that she's talking about. And I think that is using racial terms that have meaning and kind of misusing them in this context.

And I really do think that I don't think, and I think having that viewpoint of ownership and really, you know, breaking it down into granular, granular things. like, I don't know, using public water to swim in is colonization of the land, for example, or having a best friend is colonizing a person from the friendship group. I think it just means that these terms become redundant and a bit ridiculous, quite frankly, and they have weighty terms, they have historical terms. I don't think it is right to use them in this context. I don't think that makes sense. So let me read this part of the book for anyone who hasn't read it and is curious.

quote, at the time, being cool about polyamory felt like a growing imperative in progressive circles. It made me defensive, particularly coming from thin people. Are you saying there's something different about me? Some reason why I specifically should be obliged to seek alternative lifestyleslesles. Might and I be happier as a lesbian separatist or a polyamorous ballast dancer or an anarchic catwoman? Maybe so, but that's beside the point. The point is why should I? Why not you? You go be alternative. I wanted to be the teenage girl having her first kiss and her first boyfriend, and her first heartbreak like everyone else. All the things I missed out the first time around. I wanted to be someone's burning

obsession. I had no interest in reinventing the wheel. I was still trying for my driver's license. And she goes on to explain this further that she had so long craved monogamous heterosexual love, but it had been withheld, and now she was craving it. She was craving being loved, getting married, having babies, the way so many other people had been able to do it. And then she writes of her and Aham's discussing polyamory, quote. Aham said that he wasn't seeing anyone else and this wasn't about me. It was just a fundamental part of his ethos. He believed that monogamy was at its root a system of ownership.

I had to admit that perhaps I didn't feel it as keenly as a white person. This whole framing of kind of polyamory as an extension of her liberal views is such an interesting kind of like brain. insalady situation because it's almost like she's put herself into a bind where she's like, I identify with being this progressive forward thinking person. I have all of these ideals. So by that extension, I will conform to this thing. And it's like sometimes you're doing yourself a disservice by not everything fits neatly into a box. And I think we can all get hemmed in by these things so much. It's like we live, everything you said, sorry, I need to condense my thoughts because there's so much to react to what you said Ritura, but this idea that even that message I read out from what

Eleanor Bridges wrote on Substack, whether or not we are evolutionary-wise monogamous is kind of been blurred so much by ideology and religion and cultural norms over the years that it's really hard to get away from monogamy. But what we have recognized is that obviously monogamy doesn't work. People have affairs. And so like we spoke about in the episode where we spoke about Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater, we were saying, oh, okay, so maybe, you know, we got quite confused and we were actually being quite positive about open relationships then. But I think what we've done is maybe misidentified or misunderstood the fact that monogamy, by definition, actually kind of does include infidelity. The answer isn't then bringing infidelity out into the open through

polyamory. It's just like you said, which are all relationships under patriarchy are really complicated and I don't think we can just, I think it felt like for a minute, maybe we have a fix, but like you said, Beth, this isn't for everyone. And I think maybe via it coming so mainstream, via it being maybe wrongly misidentified as an exclusively liberal thing, people go, oh, I'm in a monogamous relationship, but I have a crush on my friend at work. So maybe I'll open up my relationship. And it's like, no, you just find someone attractive. That's okay. You're allowed to do that in a relationship. That is going to happen. You don't have to act on it. And we I had a message from an anonymous message that was said, I was so scared of coming across

as being too intense on dating apps that I thought I needed to say I was open to Polly in order to be able to date. I'm glad when I met my now partner, he said it wasn't really for him, which forced me to admit I was just trying to convince myself into it. I do have some honestly great models around me and my friendships for healthy Pollyammous relationships, but it's not for me. I think often about the cool girl monologue in Gong Girl in 2006, the cool girl would be Polly. And I think it's such a good point.

I do think that polyamory is maybe even if you could make it work, it's probably actually only suited to a very small subset of people, purely because no matter how radical your ideas are, no matter how liberal you think you are, we've all been conditioned quite heavily in ways that we probably will find it very hard to extricate ourselves from. And I think trying to identify with every new liberal thing that comes out in the name of sort of living by your values might not always be the best tactic.

Yeah, I do. I remember kind of on the more straight lace. dating apps, I found quite a few times I'd match with a man who would wait until we were halfway to planning a date before you would say, oh, by the way, I'm ethely non-monogamous, I've got a girlfriend, and I'm like, brother, you are pissing me off. That is the least ethical. You're not being very ethical towards me right now. And it's that thing, not to be like, kind of no true Scotsman about it, but when I talk to my poly friends, they are like, oh, that is such a bad representation, but those people are poly as well. Like, it's like if I was like looked at cheaters or people,

serial cheaters and terrible partners and went, that's not what monogamy's about, guys. In fact, it is, it's the whole thing. There are fantastic monogamous people who are really good at it and really ethical about it. And there are the absolute drags of society. Same in the poly community. And I think the messaging or the thing that I'm taking away from this is just as when I see a real, a really dreadful person, ruin someone else's life via their monogamous relationship and use all of the trappings to hurt abuse and, you know, force that person to suffer, I will not go.

every monogamous person is dreadful. I'm trying to apply the same here. This situation seems to be full of red flags and just the worst way to go about it. I'm trying to not go the whole thing's bunk. We've got to throw it out. But I do remember all of those times being like, get on field. And these men would very often kind of frame it as if they were being discriminated against. And that's why they had to be a little, they couldn't put it on their profile. They couldn't do this. It's simply someone not wanting to have a relationship under the same terms. You are a minority. you're not a minority group and kind of like it's not a sexual orientation it is on a semantic level it's simply is how you pursue relationships you have them with multiple people it's not about

you know sexual orientation is kind of who you love this is like how many people you love I find it first I find the conduct of certain poly people has been very frustrating in my life as much as I appreciate I'm sure it is it's difficult to find another person but like you don't lie to me about it I remember finding that so frustrating and again you said earlier it's these men getting well it's always the men at the center of the nonsense like every polywoman I've met is really clear-eyed about it the men are up to some fuck shit I just quickly because I had a silly thing last time I was single and I spoke to a guy and he was in a five-year relationship where they lived in different countries and she had a different secondary partner and

I was like I don't think you're together I think another aspect of it is some polyamous relationships are just avoidance on heat I had another friend who had a similar thing where the guy like lived in a separate country. They both had other partners. They were seeing each other like every couple of months. It's like, I don't think you are primary partners with each other. I think also we have a massive avoidance problem just generally across the world. And this is given people where they feel like actually have got multiple partners, you kind of actually have none. That's so interesting. Yeah, you need the like, you need the timelines to work out who's actually a primary partner. And then we can we can actually figure out what's going on here.

We actually got a really good message from Leandra, which I know that you, Ritchera, had say. I think the same issues that plague monogamous straight relationships also plague polyamorous relationships involving a straight couple or couples. I think too often the people asking for these don't consider that they actually need to be more emotionally intelligent, communicative, etc., in a polydynamic, than they would need to be in a monogamous relationship. So I sort of on the other side of this, I read a piece for the cut called could opening your marriage lighten your mental load? For some mum's non-monogamy is a way to reclaim more than just their sex drive. And in the piece, Erica Swiger-Schausen writes about heterosexual couples who found their domestic lives a lot easier after opening up their marriages.

And she says, quote, the more Polly parents I meet, the more I hear E&M framed as a co-parenting hack. These moms aren't venting about being stuck at home with the kids while their husbands woo other women. They don't seem to be stuck keeping score of who handles the grocery shopping and takes the most days off when the kids are sick. And they don't feel guilty about taking time for themselves. For these moms, non-monogamy seems to offer more than just a way to recover. claim their libido. Could it also be the secret to raising kids without completely resenting one's husband? Which I think is a really interesting idea of all the E&M people I know and was imagining, sort of new mums and married couples who are in the throes of parenting weren't really on my

list. But it got me thinking about whether this model, for everything that we have said about it can be coercive and it can not really serve a woman. Is there a world? in which this really done a certain way is the ideal for women and really sets a mum free or a wife free from the quote-unquote shackles of what history has expected her to be sexually and romantically? Or is that, or is this a cope? Am I reaching? It's interesting.

And it just, again, it reminds me of all fours. When she has the, when she's at the point with her husband where her husband has just started dating another woman and they're kind of living this like village lifestyle before she and her husband kind of separate. I was like that that seems like a dream. I just feel like the idea of having multiple people to be parents to a child seems so beyond amazing. And that's when Pollyamory feels like the most enticing thing to me at this stage of my life. I would love to parent a child with multiple people and for all of us to be a family.

Yeah, I can totally see that. And I think essentially it just boils down to the village thing that we've spoken about, which obviously is it takes a village to raise a child. And that's the way it should and has always been historically. And whether that also opens up the road sexually, emotionally for, you know, a woman in today's age to be able to not get so bogged down in all of the kind of trappings of a patriarchal setup with a husband who, you know, we've spoken about it before. essentially women become the default parent quite often and that's become a bit of a trope and then the man is more exclusively spending time away from the family lifestyle and that set up regardless of how you feel tends to still be one that is fallen into time and time again I guess because of the nature of paternity leave maternity care childcare costs in the UK are horrendous right now

obviously it's very difficult to escape that trapping and I think I can understand how this could be one solution to it because it means that you just have other avenues, I guess, for your emotional life and your sexual life so that you don't feel like your immediate partnership is the one that faces all of the frustrations and the resentment. But I just, I don't think this necessarily is the one answer. I just, again, maybe I'm, maybe I'm just being annoying about it. I just feel like we need to break the core problems and then people have choice. At the minute, it feels like you're in a prison, so then you make the choices you have, which this could be an amazing avenue, but I don't think it's the avenue for everyone. I think people need to be

empowered to make choices. We need to have the village community structure. And I also think then it would be interesting to see if this is where women landed. Retweet all of that and then watch me do a full 180 on what I said at the top in the first half because I loved this piece and it gave me such a different perspective because what I thought about was the interesting thing is when you talk about it being people with kids. And like you Beth, I never really think about it people with children. I always think of people pre-children. But post-kids, this makes so much sense to me. Often people talk about the seven-year itch and people love to hypothesize that what that is actually about is that like kids need both parents up until around like the age of four. And then at

that point, your relationship starts to break down because you don't really need like the man wanders off whatever. I can't really remember. It's all pseudoscience, but it's like a common theory that there's a certain age where when kids get to a certain point, parents are no longer like as bonded. So at that point, and there's so much writing as well about women just kind of getting the total it with their husbands because they just find them so unhelpful and useless, your sex life dries up. There's loads of evidence to say that introducing like a third party, knowing your partner is sexually active with someone else, makes you more attracted to them, can bring back your spark. At this point, I'm like, actually it does kind of make sense to open it up at that point

because you guys, you're not fucking anyway, you're exhausted. Like you said, Ritura, it's great to have another pair of hands. It seems like everybody needs a wife. The wife needs a wife. Everyone just wants another wife. This like really made me change my mind because all of these moms sounded so happy, like the inverse to kind of the jaded newborn moms that we hear about who are just complaining about their husbands with their like dirty boxes on the floor. These wives were like I couldn't wait to get out and, you know, see my girlfriend. It was really fun and interesting to read about. And maybe it is because the power balance is flit. It's at a time when a woman is normally feeling like she's housebound. Like her husband's out doing stuff and she can't. You know, that's the common thread of the story. And actually she's feeling invigorated by having another pair of hands, a sexual awakening, whatever it might be. Whereas prior to kids, the power dynamic often feels like the woman doesn't want to do this. I think your relationship is probably a bit more tender and a bit more fragile before kids or if you never have kids because you really are each other's only thing.

Whereas once you have children, I remember even my sister saying this to me, my elder sister when she had children, she was like, just make sure when you have kids, you kind of exhausted the relationship with your partner. It's at a point where you're ready to lose that because it does change and it will change, probably. until you're much older and your kids have grown up enough to home. Or maybe you'll never, like, get back to what it was. So this actually, for me, I was like, fine. I get it now. Be polyamorous, but only do it once you've had kids. Or if you're never going to have kids. I think there does just seem to be a drive in people to do something and to experiment and play and just see. And if you do have, if you are kind of shoring up your primary partnership with

your husband, you don't want to leave each other, but it does just seem, life is very long. why discourage people from trying this? And like a lot of the women, so she talks to a one called, who goes by the pseudonym of Maya, who says being able to step away from domestic roles when she was with her partner was really key. And she writes, the time Maya spent away from home felt like a fantasy version of her life,

one where she didn't have to worry about who was going to cook dinner or clean the bathroom. She got to escape the role of mother. When she was with her partner, they could just focus on each other, which I'm not a wife or a mother. My domestic duties are low. my obligations to other people are solid, but they are not children people, so they are not,

you know, emotional terrorists by design. My life is very easy. I really had to step into, imagine that this, you've been doing this for years and years, the same thing. You are, by default, taken for granted, to be able to step out, even briefly, into another life. I think when we have these non-normative ways of having relationships, these alternatives to strictly traditional roles, monogamy, it can offer a world of hope to people. And that's not to say it's only okay. We're pro-Poly, only if it's a tired mother. But I do, I feel that's the easiest way for me to understand the magic in this.

And I guess that's what people do feel about monogamy, that it is drudgery, that it's not made for them, that it's really restrictive. That's not what it feels like for me. And anyone who feels like that, it's obviously not monogamous, but forcing themselves to be monogamous. That is how you end up resenting your partner. I think, maybe I need some more conversations with poly people. I find it fascinating. I feel comfortable that it's not for me. but maybe a more welcoming society means that women are able to say to their husbands or couples

are able to come together and say, is there another? Is there a third way for us to be? And far be it for me to judge. Also, my last thing is we keep talking about Polly Amory, but I think there is the difference between opening up your relationship, e.g., you've got two young kids, you're 40 and you go, we haven't had six to six months. I'm going on a girl's trip. Would you mind if I slept with a Spanish waiter? Versus I'm going to be dating someone. else and be in a relationship with them because I think that that is like a different thing and I think it is complicated because there are examples obviously where it works I think that the poly I find opening up e.g having a threesome having one sexual encounter knowing that maybe if you've got an

arrangement where like if your partner goes abroad for work they can sleep with someone you don't mind like 20 years into your relationship I find that really easy to get my head around I do find it much harder understanding only because of my own ignorance and lack of exposure to it, you know, living in a triad as Lindy is, even though she makes a really good case for it, I think, you know, at the end of it rather than how it came about. But there's, I guess there's so many ways to define this and do this. But I do find it interesting, the men on the dating app saying that they're polyamorous when I bet they've probably never dated two people at the same time. And it's like, that is actually a massive lifestyle thing. You just want to

have your cake and eat it too. Not all of them, I guess. Some of them probably don't. But I do think it's like, it's a bit of a naughty loophole for some naughty people. It's exactly what you said, Beth, where it's like in any group there are terrible people. And unfortunately, some of the loudest and most present terrible people in the poly community, unfortunately, have just been screaming the worst things about it. So I even felt defensive for them, to be fair,

reading the Lindy West piece and just knowing what some of the backlash and the criticism would be, I remember texting my friend and I was like, my God, poly people need to get better PR. It's just thing after thing after thing, for them. And I do think it's interesting. I'm glad about having this conversation, but it is, I don't know, it's difficult when therapy speak just seems so associated with that group as well. And I wonder why that is. I think because it's probably not, it's, you know, non-traditional.

I think, unfortunately, it has become victim to a lot of the worst people using the worst language to just get away with nonsense things. Yeah, maybe that's that inherent understanding. Like, you grow up understanding monogamy, like you play with dolls, you, everyone's getting married, man, woman, eventually, then you go man, man, but it's just two people. Whereas coming to something much later, there is, I guess, a sense of needing to learn the rules, especially open relationships, like you say, open relationships, polyamory, there's like open relationships as an umbrella term and then there's many different things that come from that. And it's being like almost over-explaining. And I think that makes it is, makes it so easy to fall prey to some people

who do want to weaponise the terminology for their own gain and this is problematic and this is not and this is emotional abuse and this is not versus let's just make this as clear as possible for everyone so no one gets that. It's tough. Thank you so much for listening and for all of your opinions and takes on this topic. We genuinely read all of them and they guide our discussions and if we could read them all out we would. So please do keep sending them in. Please also give us a follow on Instagram and TikTok at Everything's ContentPod and I ask all every week but please give us a you wherever you listen if you haven't already we'll see you as always on friday bye bye