"The Secrets to an Open Marriage" - NY Times interview with Mo'Nique

nycindie

Active member
From http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/fashion/weddings/open-marriage-monique.html, dated Mar. 13, 2016:

From the outside at least, the actress Mo’Nique and her husband of 11 years, Sidney Hicks, would seem to be in the middle of a rocky marriage. Both have had sexual relationships with other partners for years — and continue to do so. And each is well aware of the other’s escapades.

But, the couple insist, the relationship is actually quite stable and they are quite happy. In fact, it has been a decade since Mo’Nique revealed in an Essence magazine article that she and Mr. Hicks, an actor and producer, were in an open marriage.

Now they have begun a podcast that plays on their unusual partnership. In “Mo’Nique and Sidney’s Open Relationship,” which is on Play.It, the CBS podcast network, the couple explains how the so-called polyamorous lifestyle works for them.

The open-marriage concept has been around for a long time, but some marital experts (though not all) say that couples interested in reaching a golden anniversary, or maybe even a first one, should be wary of following the example of Mo’Nique and Mr. Hicks, who are both 48.

The ferocity of the reaction to that Essence article surprised Mo’Nique, who won an Oscar as best supporting actress for her performance in the 2009 film “Precious.”

“People didn’t understand,” she said. “They thought it was about swinging and orgies, and then there were individuals who are vehement about God, and they were bringing God into their opinions.”

“People lost their minds,” she said, “and the criticism has never let up.”

Since actors Mo’Nique and Sidney Hicks revealed they have an open marriage “the criticism has never let up,” Mo’Nique said.

Mo’Nique and Mr. Hicks bumped into a learning curve right away when establishing rules for their open marriage.

“Sidney had this one thing he had to teach me, and that was reciprocity,” she said. “He said, ‘If you can have that, it’s only fair that I can have that, too.’” The arrangement, which they agreed to before their twin sons were born (they are now 10), was her idea.

“I wanted to continue to see the gentlemen that I was seeing, and I felt comfortable telling my best friend,” she said, meaning Mr. Hicks. “I’m grateful he taught me I had to play fair.”

The couple met as high school sophomores in Baltimore, and they stayed friends through Mo’Nique’s first two marriages, as well as relationships that Mr. Hicks was involved in. (When they were married in 2006, Mo’Nique already had a son from a previous marriage and Mr. Hicks had a son from an earlier relationship, and they had the twins together.)

Mr. Hicks said that his long friendship with Mo’Nique gave them “a level of flexibility” in their relationship.

“Before she was my wife, she was my sister,” he said. “And there have been moments when she was like my little girl. When you go through all these dynamics with someone, you understand them.”

“We got into this knowing that we both wanted to be with someone who’s going to allow you to be who you are,” he said. “I think one of the most romantic things you can do as a couple is be honest with each other. And we are.”

Other Hollywood couples have been in open marriages, though few have been as open — or successful — as Mo’Nique and her husband have been. The comedian and actress Margaret Cho, for example, spoke about her open marriage in 2013, but she filed for separation last year, after 11 years of marriage. (Through her publicist, Ms. Cho declined to comment for this article.)

Douglas LaBier, a psychologist and the director of the Center for Progressive Development, a Washington-based organization that focuses on the changing forms of relationships, said that from a psychological perspective, people shouldn’t assume that openness in a sexual relationship is bad.

“What’s at the core of it is a desire to form a healthy relationship,” he said.

He said that people want relationships in which they feel emotionally fulfilled and connected, and for some couples that means being transparent about outside partners.

In marriage, the motto of the future may be “live and let live,” he said.

“I see a much more tolerant, nonjudgmental openness emerging,” Dr. LaBier said. “Everyone is different. You figure out what works for you, and if it’s not imposing something on someone else or hurting someone else, it’s acceptable.”

If that is the new future, it may take a good while to get here. Dr. Deborah Carr, a sociology professor at Rutgers, said that while society may have become more tolerant of some aspects of sexuality, like same-sex relationships and premarital sex, views on sexual affairs by spouses remain essentially unchanged.

“As much as attitudes have liberalized over the past 30 years, this is one that really doesn’t budge,” she said.

And straying eyes, hearts and so on, as any divorce lawyer can tell you, are normally not ingredients of a lasting union.

Among the critics of open marriages is Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at the Kinsey Institute and the author of “Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage and Why We Stray,” which was updated and reissued in February.

“People have had open marriages forever, because a lot of us would prefer to have more than one relationship,” she said. “But they never end up working long-term.” (Dr. Carr said it may be impossible to quantify just how many couples are in open marriages; people answering survey questions on such a topic may be inclined to lie or avoid answering, because of the stigma attached.)

The reasons open marriages don’t work are biological, Dr. Fisher said: The parts of the brain involved in romantic love are next to areas that help orchestrate thirst and hunger, she said.

“Thirst and hunger aren’t going to change anytime soon,” she said, and neither is the pair-bonding instinct we recognize as romantic love. “It evolved so our forebears could focus on one person and begin the mating process.”

Dr. Fisher said that couples in open marriages establish all kinds of rules for what is and isn’t allowed. “They may say you can’t have dates on Friday nights, or you can’t have someone call at the dinner hour, when the children are around,” she said. “They’re people who want it all: to preserve their deep attachment to one partner and have romance with others. And they want to be honest about it. But what they don’t tell you is that our brains don’t do that very well.”

Dr. Fisher is unconvinced that what goes on behind closed doors is quite so rational.

“If you could get her to talk about how she feels or how her husband really feels,” she said of Mo’Nique, “you might find that beneath all this talk about how, intellectually and cognitively, they understand what they’re doing and it seems to make sense, emotionally the human animal has a very hard time with it. My guess is that they’re not terribly different.”

But Mo’Nique and Mr. Hicks believe they have the foundation for a union that will last. “Defining what makes a marriage work is like asking one’s interpretation of success,” Mr. Hicks said. “It’s defined a different way by every person you ask.”

Mo’Nique said: “For us, it’s defined by openness and not fear. If one of us feels jealous, we talk our way through it. What we have is real and honest. It’s changed my life and saved my life.”​
 
Last edited:
Poly has "changed and saved" Mo'nique's life, but Dr Helen is here to tell her she is actually miserable. *slow clap*

That bs about how the position in the brains for "romantic love (her code for MF monogamy)" is next to the parts of the brain that rule hunger and thirst, and is therefore unchangeable and necessary for the continuation of the human race! Pffft.

We need only go back 100-1000ish years to see marriages were not based on romantic love, but economics.

We need only go back to the early AD years to see how many people were practicing polygyny. And the human race didn't die out.

We can go back further to the evidence from early civilization (and some groups living today) to see that the job of raising children is not the job of just the biological parents, but the job of the entire tribe. And to this day, we admit it "takes a village" to raise children, and we have institutions of early childcare and schools and CPS and WIC to aid in that job.

That Dr Fisher sounds like a celibate priest advising sexual people on how to love and live. One man one woman forever and ever! Amen!
 
Back
Top