Yesterday, months earlier than we were expecting, Steph and I were interviewed for the documentary we were asked to be in on modern marriage, that will air on CBC’s Doc Zone hopefully sometime early next year.
Not the usual décor for our living room!
Saying that it’s a little nervewracking to have a large camera in your face while you speak to intimate details about your marriage is a bit of an understatement but Steph and I held our own. The woman that we were being interviewed by, Sue, was lovely and calm and just let us talk when we wanted to keep going. If there’s one thing that Steph and I can do well, it’s talk. And talk. And talk some more. I like to think that’s one of the reasons our relationship, and open part of it, is so successful.
We talked about our relationship before we got married, why we ended up getting married, my time as a wedding planner and our open marriage as it works today. It was a bit difficult sometimes when talking about current relationships knowing that the show wouldn’t be aired for months and having no prediction on how the next year might pan out. Of course, this past year with the Drapers has been much more consistent than any relationships we’ve ever had since opening up, so I highly doubt / don’t plan on anything changing – unless for the better, if possible, but still we had to think in the future which was a bit weird when answering questions.
I also wanted to be careful to not say anything too strongly about swinging and polyamory and the lifestyles that other people choose. If there’s one thing I cannot stand it’s the polyamory police that like to believe there’s only one way of doing things and so I tried to stay away from that, saying more that this is what works for Steph and I, not other people. I think it’s best that people have their own takes on their own relationships as no one is living your life for you, but you.
It was important for us to show people that polyamory / swinging isn’t really always as alternative as you might think it is. That we still deal with normal things like bills and groceries and going to IKEA and Home Depot; though admittedly nowhere near as much as we used to.
So while we talked about sex with other people, we actually seemed to speak more about practicality. How time management works within our open relationship. How the little logistical details can sometimes get in the way of sexy fun times and how they often mean the most. We realized after the camera stopped rolling just how boring* we’ve become in 3 and half years of being open. In the beginning it was all genitals and more genitals, and then with experience it’s just become another aspect of our lives that we have to manage well to be happy.
At the end of the day, that’s what we wanted to get out of this filming experience. We wanted to show that “normal people” (normal on the surface anyway) can take the traditional institution of marriage, combine it with an un-traditional lifestyle such as swinging or polyamory and be successful at it, with a little elbow grease. Or sometimes a lot of elbow grease. Fucking other people and knowing how to handle it is something that we’ve learned to deal with, just like we’ve learned how to do our finances together.
Don’t get me wrong as I’m not trying to take the sexy out of the situation. For those that know me well, they know I’m one of the perviest people on the planet and would be getting into as much sexy trouble as I could if my current relationships were set up that way. Dirty should have been my middle name. (I guess Leigh was prettier?) Over the years of being in this situation though we’ve learned that being open isn’t just a fad to us, it’s a part of who we are and talking about the practical side of how we make fucking other people work is exactly how we like to look at our modern marriage.
*Just kidding, I don’t really think we’re boring. Steph and I just like to say that as a joke.
