A millionaire Park Slope mother in an open marriage has laid bare her emotional turmoil – from raging jealously as her husband frolicked with his ex to enduring bad sex in seedy pay-hourly motels.
Molly Roden Winter, 51, opened up her marriage with her husband of ten years Stewart, with whom she had two children, in 2008.
Now the English teacher turned best-selling author has chronicled the highs and many lows of her polyamorous marriage in agonizing detail in a new bestseller ‘More: A Memoir of Open Marriage’.
But rather than a carefree journey of sexual discovery, some reviews have branded the memoir ‘sad’, with Roden Winter spending much of the book in floods of tears as she struggled to cope with the idea of her husband sleeping with other women.
Molly Roden Winter has chronicled the highs and many lows of her polyamorous marriage in a new memoir
The English teacher opened up her marriage to her husband Stewart, to whom she had been married for nearly a decade
Roden Winter, who lives in Brooklyn with her family, recalls how she was the first to have an affair within the marriage after meeting a younger man when she felt weighed down by raising two young children.
In her mid-thirties, she describes herself as ‘the Wiper of Noses, the Doer of Dishes, the Nag in Residence’.
After an exhausting day of childcare at home and frustrated by her husband working late Roden Winter went out for a walk and ended up having drinks with a friend.
At a bar she meets a younger man and enters into a flirtatious conversation.
When she recounts the interaction to her husband Stewart, 56, later that evening he is not angry but instead encourages her to sleep with the new acquaintance.
However, while she enjoys the excitement of taking a new lover at first, when her husband asks if he can now sleep with his ex-girlfriend Lena, Roden Winter becomes tormented.
‘The thought of them together makes me feel like I’ve fallen to the bottom of a well’ she writes.
”I’m not sure,’ I say, still not looking at him. I’m afraid I’ll start to cry if I do.’
She reluctantly consents but asks, ”doesn’t he know I’m lying?’ Doesn’t he?”
‘Roden Winter sobs in hotel rooms on work trips, she sobs in hotel rooms on sex trips, she sobs in her own Park Slope home’ one review of the memoir notes
The couple’s $4.3 million Park Slope brownstone in Brooklyn, New York
The English teacher turned best-selling author has chronicled the highs and many lows of her polyamorous marriage in a new memoir: ‘More’
One of the author’s lover’s ‘forgets’ to use a condom, while another insists on meeting at a pay-hourly motel
Stewart soon begins seeing a string of other women, leaving Roden Winter consumed with jealousy and occasionally asking to close the marriage again.
‘Molly might have been more discerning than I was at that point,’ Stewart told the New York Times, describing his early polyamorous dating experience to being ‘at a salad bar.’
Her own sexual exploits, meanwhile, often leave her feeling used and unhappy as she browses various online dating websites seeking out new partners.
One of the author’s lovers ‘forgets’ to use a condom, while another insists on meeting at a pay-hourly motel.
Other interactions are more meaningful, but later end badly, with one ‘ghosting’ her and another dumping her when he discovers she has her husband’s permission to see other men.
‘The bad sex taught me a lot more about what makes sex good,’ she told the Times.
‘I also wanted to tell the truth about how hard it was.’
The mother-of-two eventually begins therapy and diagnoses herself as a ‘people pleaser’ with low self-esteem.
‘It’s like I’m just reacting to what men want’ she tells the therapist.
The memoir ends in 2018, when Roden Winter’s boyfriend, whose wife had recently divorced him, broke up with her after she refused to end her own marriage
‘From my vantage point, it seems like Stewart is having nothing but fun as he jaunts along the open-marriage path’ she explains.
‘We’re here because I don’t want to be in an open marriage anymore. But Stewart does,’ Roden Winter later tells their couples therapist.
At one point she confronts Stewart: ‘If you want to protect me,’ I scream, ‘don’t keep making me do this!
‘Stop dating Kiwi and whoever else and just be with me! Don’t you understand! I can’t do this anymore!’
After she is convinced to keep going with polyamory, Roden Winter has two threesomes, with two separate boyfriends, but confesses to enjoying neither.
The memoir ends in 2018, when Roden Winter’s boyfriend, whose wife had recently divorced him, broke up with her after she refused to end her own marriage.
Winter was heartbroken, and described crying in Stewart’s arms.
Roden Winter eventually begins seeing a therapist and discovers she has low self-esteem
Stewart Winter enjoyed having sex with his ex-girlfriend during his open marriage
One review of the memoir notes: ‘Roden Winter sobs in hotel rooms on work trips, she sobs in hotel rooms on sex trips, she sobs in her own Park Slope home’.
It concludes: ‘For every one orgasm scene, there are three of sobbing fits.’
Other reviews have been more generous, with the New York Times describing the book as ‘breathtakingly candid’ as she ‘cast off internalized sexism and her tendency to put others’ needs before her own.’
Roden Winter herself maintains that being polyamorous has allowed her to feel seen as something other than a wife and mother.
‘We expect mothers to be selfless. And ‘selfless’ is often thought of as the opposite of selfish, but I want to make a new word: ‘self-full’,’ she told The Times of London.
‘You should have a full self, you shouldn’t have to give up yourself to be a mother. I don’t think that’s helpful to children either.’
She added that her marriage was ‘strong’ and said ‘we’re having the best sex we’ve ever had in 24 years of marriage, so that’s encouraging.’
Jessica Fearn a psychotherapist for people in open relationships, noted how books by mothers in open marriages are still very rare – perhaps because they are so busy.
Speaking to the New York Times, she said: ‘Her story, which is about what it means for a mother to be erotically charged, that story I haven’t seen enough yet’.
Roden Winter has also been discussing her experience in an open marriage on social media platform TikTok.
In one candid video she discusses how she deals with jealousy towards her husband’s girlfriends and partners.
‘There was a lot of years where I was not handling it very gracefully’ she admits.
‘It was really, really hard, but it’s got much easier for me.’
‘There’s a type of jealousy and possessiveness within romantic relationships that we assume as natural and correct.
‘But we do not extend that to friendships that are not romantic.
‘I’d never say to one of my friends, ‘It’s really important to me that you’re only friends with me.’
‘It’s not exactly the same, but that’s the way it feels to me now.’
Roden Winter is still polyamorous with a long-term restaurateur boyfriend, who has a wife who herself has a girlfriend, the Times reported.
Her husband Stewart has a girlfriend of eight years.