Speaking about her 17 year marriage in a candid conversation with Sirius XM radio host Howard Stern, the actor also admitted she got married too young at the age of 25 — and advises her kids against it.

“Heck yeah! No, don’t do it,” she said.

“It did work out, but let me tell you: It worked out in a way that thank God I had a husband who’s a gangster partner. Taking that road from 25 to 44.

“Here’s the deal, Howard. You’ve gotta trust who you’re with. And at the end of the day, right, I’m not here to be anybody’s watcher. I’m not his watcher. He’s a grown man.”

The 43-year-old then gave her key piece of advice for making her marriage work.

“Here’s what I trust: The man that Will is … is a man of integrity. He’s got all the freedom in the world,” she said.
“As long as Will can look himself in the mirror and be okay — I’m good.

“Here’s what’s real: I’m not the kind of woman that believes a man is not going to be attracted to another woman.”

Source: news.com.au

Have you ever played in an open relationship? Would you like to? Let us know below!

Rach Wilson and her husband Kerry are in a successful open relationship. They’ve been married for 11 years and seeing other people for eight years.

The Melbourne couple, both 38, have a 9-year-old daughter together and Rach has a 16-year-old from a previous relationship.

Rach says infidelity and divorce rates could be slashed if people were more open-minded about different types of relationships.

I would call myself ‘biflexible’ or ‘heteroflexible’. I believe that some people are naturally not monogamous. It’s like the bell curve. You’ve got the extremes, and then every other person lands in different places.

There are some people that are absolutely suited to monogamy. They need consistency and routine, but there are a bunch of people that need variety.

They can love more than one person at a time. But our arrangement is that my husband is my primary lover.

There is not one box that all of us can fit into. A lot of society in terms of religion and the media, propagate the idea that monogamy is the way it should be. It creates a struggle for some people.

I think infidelity and divorce rates could be reduced significantly if education and communication about different styles of relationships, and how to make them work successfully, was made more available.

When I got into this relationship, I said, ‘I’m not going to be who you want me to be, I’m going to be who I want to be’.

I’ve been married once before and one of the things that I wish I had done was been myself more. I completely lost who I was because I picked up all of his interests and hobbies.

When Kerry and I first got together, I said to him, ‘I’m a flirtatious, social kind of person and I want to be able to be that person. If you can’t handle that, then there’s going to be an issue.’

And he was relieved, because he was exactly the same.

Both of us in our previous relationships had very jealous partners, and we’d shut that part of us down because we didn’t want to cause pain to our partners.

But in doing that, the second you start to repress or hide who you are, a part of you dies.

Because we were so open and honest in those first few weeks of dating, when the opportunity [to see other people] came up, it was easier to have that conversation and explore the idea.

But it was still a very hard question to put out there. It was me that wanted to open up our relationship. Initially Kerry wasn’t 100 per cent comfortable with it.

I was away at a personal development workshop and I felt a real attraction to one of the other people I was in the group with.

I said, ‘I’d really love us to talk about opening up our relationship because I’d like to be able to experience these things, and I’d like you to be able to experience them too’.

We sat down and said, ‘How are we going to do this?’

We’re only human. We had all the usual fears.

We discussed boundaries and we would do a little debrief after each experience — to share what we liked and what we didn’t like and to be able to discuss that further so that both of us were comfortable.

Clearly an open relationship requires a bit more emotional intelligence for it to be a success. It really does hinge on how good you are at communicating.

If one of us is feeling not right about something, then it’s up to us to bring it up and talk about it. You have to speak up if you’re not feeling comfortable.

When impromptu opportunities come up, we just say, ‘Hey babe, I’d really love to do this. It this OK?’

If the other person is OK with it, then great. If not, we have a discussion.

We could work out a compromise — ‘Could you please be home by a certain hour?’, or ‘Could you please do this nice thing for me?’

Both of us want each other to do what makes them happy, but not at the expense of our own happiness.

It’s a delicate balance. The whole thing is about collaborating with your partner and being flexible with what you want and what they want to do.”

The most difficult time is when both of us are feeling a bit precious and our ability to communicate isn’t as good.

Because we’re human and we don’t get it right all the time. Sometimes we overreact like any normal couple, but most of the time we get it pretty right.

Sometimes we go to parties, or other people’s houses, or swinger’s events. We’ll go to those types of events and end up at an after party.

It depends. There have been times where we’ve had a dinner party, we get the kids baby sat away from the house, and we have the whole house to ourselves.

People think it’s this sordid thing, but it’s just like going back onto the singles dating scene, but this time you’re going it as a couple.

I’m always saying things like, ‘Oh no babe, you can’t wear that shirt! Make sure you put the sexy underwear on. Make sure you put the cologne on. You want to smell good’.

Life doesn’t have to be so serious.

We told my oldest daughter [about our open relationship] a few years ago. We had a great conversation. Now that she’s 16 she’s making choices for herself.

We told her knowing full well she was starting to form her own opinions and we wanted to explain things to her before people’s negative opinions got to her first.

She thanked me for telling her about different kinds of relationships because she feels like now she can make a really conscious choice for herself. And she’s not weirded-out if she wants something different in life.

She loves that she can see we’re extremely happy and we’re extremely connected. What she’s getting to experience is a very happy and healthy relationship.

Some people can be a bit judgmental. Most of the time it’s people questioning the values I’m teaching my child. It’s all a bit too much for some people.

But most people are curious more than anything.

They ask questions like, ‘How does that work? How do you negotiate things as a couple?’. Because I’ve been so open about my life, it’s opened up the door for a lot of other people to explore different types of relationships.

Have you experienced an open relationship? Would you like to try it? Let us know what you think below!

Source: news.com.au

She was even happier to learn that she had that hard-to-find thing with both Matt and Rachel — chemistry. They talked about life and love and learned that they had the same ideas when it came to dating.

“I was really excited to meet people that felt the same way,” she says of her ongoing relationship with the married couple, both 34-year-old self-employed artists, who declined to use their last names because of privacy reasons.

Ezzo, also an artist, is polyamorous. Loosely speaking, she seriously dates more than one person at a time, and has an emotional, as well as a sexual connection, with her partners.

She sees Matt and Rachel separately and together, and also occasionally dates other people.

“One of the wonderful aspects of polyamory is that you do get different things from different partners, both emotionally and physically,” says Ezzo, who is in what’s known as a “triad” with Matt and Rachel.

“There are three very different dynamics, all of which are personally valuable.”

And while the arrangement may seem unusual, Ezzo insists it’s really no different than run-of-the-mill monogamy. Communication and compromise are key — for instance, when it comes to picking a flick to watch for the evening.

“They have very different styles in movies,” says Ezzo, who splits her time between New York and Boston, where she is going to school for photography at the Art Institute of Boston. “When I’m with Rachel we might [watch] a silly, fun ’80s movie, but I won’t do that silly ’80s movie with Matt. He likes strange horror flicks.”

Luckily, she says, “I like both of those things.”

Ezzo is part of a growing movement of people who are practicing consensual non-monogamy — or, in plain English, open relationships.

According to Gette Levy of Open Love NY, a local support group with more than 1,000 members, the organization has seen a steady increase in membership since forming in 2009.

“Dating has changed over the past 50 years,” says Levy. “Many adults of all ages are finding that monogamy does not suit them and is no longer a fiscal and social requirement.”

Shortly after she started seeing Matt and Rachel, Ezzo met her future husband.

“I had told him [about my lifestyle] on our first date,” she says. “He was excited to explore it.”

Her open marriage eventually fizzled for reasons not related to polyamory, but her relationship with Matt and Rachel is still going strong.

“I’ve always inherently had this notion of or had this blurred line between friendship and lovers … to me there is a huge overlap. It’s easier for me to simultaneously love multiple people,” says Ezzo.

“As a bi-sexual person, choosing is not necessarily something that I personally like to do,” she adds.

Pop-culture is having a poly moment too: TV shows like “Sister Wives” (Sundays on TLC) and “Polyamory: Married & Dating” (Thursdays on Showtime) are giving people a glimpse into the complicated sex lives of multi-partnered couples.

“The interest and the visibility around open relationships has just skyrocketed,” says sexpert Tristan Taormino, who wrote a book about the subject, “Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships.”

“We’re having these discussions in really mainstream media that just weren’t even possible two years ago,” adds Taormino, who points out that her book actually sold more copies last year than it did during its 2008 debut.

Open relationships are becoming so common that when singer Robin Thicke gripped Lana Scolaro’s barely covered butt at a VMA afterparty at 1OAK last month, his indiscretion reportedly didn’t get him into trouble with his actress wife Paula Patton.

“We’ve done just about everything,” Thicke said of his unconventional relationship to Howard Stern in July. Still, he stopped short of saying he and his wife were in an open marriage: “Out of respect for her, we just won’t answer that one.”

Will and Jada Smith, Mo’Nique, Tilda Swinton and even Dolly Parton and her husband have all been rumored to be in open relationships too.

But perhaps the lifestyle’s most visible celebrity moment came in January 2012, when Marianne Gingrich told ABC News that her ex-husband, the politician Newt Gingrich, had asked for an “open marriage” while having an affair with his soon-to-be third wife Callista. (Newt Gingrich has given several extensive denials regarding his ex-wife’s claims.)

It’s not just horny men with insecure wives looking the other way who are in non-monogamous relationships — often, women are the ones who instigate the practice.

Several studies by sex researchers in Germany and in the University of Wisconsin have shown that it is often women who become bored romantically after several years in a monogamous relationship.

Violet, a New York City higher education teacher, 49, would only speak to The Post under a pseudonym. (She says her friends know about her life style but some of her adult students might be shocked.)

“The way I describe it on my dating profile is about the best I can do: I just didn’t get the memo about not dating,” she says.

Violet’s love life is the stuff of telenovelas: She has been in a marriage with a man for 10 years. Her husband has a girlfriend of three years. Violet is also dating a man and a woman who date each other but, unlike Ezzo, she only sees each person in the couple separately, never together. And she goes on dates outside of her regular relationships.

In a twist, her husband’s family knows about his girlfriend and the trio often go to family functions together.

Violet focuses on her two other partners when her husband is traveling; when he is home, “I will usually spend maybe one or two nights with somebody else.” Her husband’s long-term girlfriend lives out of state, she explains, so he’ll go spend a week with her at a time.

“It all comes out in the wash,” she says.

Violet, for whom sex is a “big priority,” prefers three lovers because the arrangement “keeps me from becoming a burden on any single one of them.”

“There is crazy, wild sex and lots of it, and that’s important to me, but it’s not all there is to my love affairs — not by a long shot,” says Violet.

Unexpectedly, the biggest difficulty people in non-monogamous relationships encounter isn’t jealousy, but something way less dramatic.

“Time is the real thing,” says Taormino, who is in an open marriage herself.

Ezzo’s partner Matt agrees: “The biggest misconception people have about open relationships is that it’s a nonstop party. We only have 24 hours in a day and most of that is taken up with work, sleep and responsibilities to the home and each other. To see someone else takes a lot of planning. We live by the calendar more than the bedroom.”

Another misconception? That there are no rules.

But when an open relationship involves long-term emotional connections with multiple partners, there are frequently more, not fewer, rules.

The marriage contract of the San Diego family featured in “Polyamory: Married & Dating” is nearly five pages long. Posted online, it has extremely specific codes of conduct ranging from when to talk about relationship problems (“No relationship processing after 9:30.”) to guidelines around dates (“Do not postpone or cancel a date with one partner to see someone else.”).

Even with all the complications of having multiple relationships, proponents believe it’s better than the alternative.

“I feel like monogamy sets us up to fail in so many ways….that this one person is going to meet all of our needs — emotional, sexual, physical, spiritual, financial, physical — and that’s impossible,” says Taormino.

“I think polyamorous people acknowledge that up front.”
Violet agrees — and counsels her female friends who are going through the trials of dating in New York to be more open-minded.

“They would go on a first date and they would hold some guy up to this ridiculous standard and I would tell them, ‘Look, just have fun. Date a bunch of people. Don’t have these expectations.’ ”

Looking to break free of monotonous monogamy?

Here’s a key to some of the most popular open-relationship styles. And remember, all are consensual — cheating is not kosher!

Open relationship: Umbrella term for any consensual non-monogamous relationship

Polygamy: Think “Big Love.” One spouse, many wives. Illegal.

Monogamish: Don’t-ask-don’t-tell sanctioned cheating in a monogamous relationship

Polyamory: Having a loving relationship — emotional and physical — with multiple people

Swinging: Hook-ups with no-strings attached

Have you ever been in an open relationship? How has it worked for you? Are you curious to try it? Let us know below!

Source: nypost.com

The story begins when Hill meets Dino, a single man with rock-star looks, a fetish for shiny clothing and terrible mood swings. The two begin a tumultuous relationship where they decide to try negotiated fidelity for the first time i.e. both partners are allowed to have sexual relationships with others that they negotiate as a couple, with full disclosure but no emotional connections (for example, spending the night cuddling) allowed.

While in theory it sounds perfect – they both can have their cake and eat it too – the reality of the emotional repercussions that such an arrangement has, leads Hill to discover many new truths about herself, as well as about her lover.

At times, I found the story very relatable, and it was comforting to hear an intelligent 40-something year-old woman grappling with many of the emotional issues that I had experienced myself in past relationships (and present). On the other hand, I found Holly’s inability to stand up for herself and allowing herself to be treated as a doormat at times frustrating. Again though, this was relatable, because what woman hasn’t let her judgment by clouded by love at one time or another?

As well as the exploration of her relationship with Dino, there are a few side stories that give the memoir depth and help to remind you that this isn’t just a sordid tale of sexy adventures, but a real person’s life, with all that that entails – including dealing with morality and even euthanasia.

Having not yet read the other two stories – you can be sure I’ll now be rushing to the bookstore to get my hands on a copy on them – in the trilogy of Holly Hill’s memoirs, I can’t say how they stack up. I can, however, safely say that The Velvet Pouch is a worthwhile read purely on its own merits.

Personally, not only could I agree with and relate to the principles that Hill expressed, but I wanted to stand up and applaud her for her forward-thinking ways. Some have criticized her and labeled her an anti-feminist for saying that to keep their men women must be willing to let them stray. From where I sit, Hill does the opposite: she empowers women to take back control by “taking back the fucking,” and to feel proud of not denying their baser urges by crossing their legs and ignoring what is – arguably –basic human nature and biologically natural. Bravo, Holly Hill!

Interview with Holly Hill – Author of The Velvet Pouch

Given what you have learnt about negotiated fidelity, how would you go about entering into that kind of relationship again?

Now that I have perfected the negotiated fidelity recipe, I wouldn’t enter a relationship WITHOUT negotiated fidelity. It is simply risk management. If I really loved my partner, a relationship without negotiated fidelity would be like buying a Ferrari and not insuring it.

Sexual Health Australia estimates that 70% of marriages experience an affair. And the University of Washington says if you are under 30, that statistic increases by 20% for wives and 45% for husbands.

The Men’s Rights Agency claim up to 30% of men in Australia are living with a child they mistakenly believe is their biological offspring.

That means putting up your hand and saying to your wife or your boyfriend or your same sex partner or WHOEVER you have a substantial investment in and saying, “Darling, I’m not getting enough” or “Sweetie, I’ve got this weird fetish that needs to be scratched” or “Honey, sometimes I need to have sex merely for sex’s sake.”

If we love our partners and we want to keep them, we need to start negotiating our fidelity, defining our weaknesses and posing solutions BEFORE things go pear-shaped.

You say in The Velvet Pouch that “Women have to take the fucking back…Then we can have anything we want.” Do you think that this will ever happen, or are men and women too rooted in their traditional gender and sexual roles?

The progression to our type of lifestyle follows models of social change. In times gone by, swingers and the fetish community might have been regarded as “those freaks who thought the world was round”, yet social change models would merely describe us as innovators or early adopters and we make up about 16% of the world’s population. Celebrities, many highly successful business people and the well educated are also there. Behind us comes the early majority (34%) with the remaining 50% being the late majority and laggards. Right now the early majority are reading 50 Shades. The late majority might think it should be kept under the counter and the laggards are probably praying to God that He directs His wrath upon the demonic temptress author and evil booksellers that are subverting poor innocents.

Part of that social progression is women becoming more risqué. It is now becoming okay for women – the innovators and early adopters we spoke about above – plus teenagers and 20-something’s – to be high sexed and not caged by exclusivity. As I say in The Velvet Pouch, if women were (proudly!) promiscuous, we would rule a world full of happy men.

What is the most valuable lesson that you’ve taken away from your experiences over the course of your three memoirs?

That both men and women are hardwired to be multifarious and if we don’t risk manage those primordial inclinations, our marriages will continue to fail and our families will continue to be ripped apart.

The Velvet Pouch was the third in a trilogy of very personal memoirs for you, what’s next for Holly Hill?

I’m becoming more generalized, instead of advocating for sexual freedoms, same sex marriage, euthanasia, surrogacy rights, and so on, I’m going to start fighting for the human right to full self ownership. As long as we are of legal age and sound mind and it doesn’t hurt anybody else, people ought to be able to do what they like with their own bodies. It’s my new passion – stay tuned!

Interested in winning yourself a copy of The Velvet Pouch?

We’ve got 3 copies to give away! Enter here!

Polyamory is often misconstrued as a form of swinging but true polyamorists would certainly argue that this is not the case at all. Whereas the focus of swinging is recreational sex between couples who are otherwise in committed, monogamous relationships, the focus of polyamory is developing a deep and committed relationship with more than one person. Also, unlike in an open relationship, a polyamorist does not generally have a primary partner and treats each significant other equally. Polyamory requires an environment of trust and honesty where all parties are fully aware of the existence of the others. For example, if a person cannot attend a social function with both partners, then that person is not in a polyamorous relationship.

So what is the advantage of being in a polyamory relationship over being a swinger or being in an open relationship? Firstly, as mentioned previously, polyamory is not just about sex. For people who have felt that they could have a strong emotional attachment to more than one person, this form of human connection can provide an avenue to spread the love further. In turn, you would have more than one significant other that loves and cares for you which may satisfy the sort of personality that thrives on affection. Whereas swinging and open relationships highlight the physical need for people to play outside the boundary of their otherwise monogamous relationship, polyamory caters to the emotional need, or desire, to accept multiple partners. In a polyamorous relationship, whether sex is had by all parties is immaterial.On the other hand, even the most seasoned swinger would probably balk at the idea of allowing an emotional connection to transpire between his or her partner and another person.

In the world of swinging, anything goes sexually but the slightest hint of misguided intimacy can cause major rifts between couples. Polyamorous couples experience no such problems with intimacy provided all parties are honest with one another. Therefore, perhaps polyamory is the ultimate level of sharing, giving love freely and existing without jealousy.Is polyamory for you though? If you’re currently in a traditional, monogamous relationship and cannot imagine forming an intimate relationship with another person, and allow your partner to do the same, then probably not. While most people can grasp the concept of separating love and sex, and many can happily engage in the swinging lifestyle, polyamory does require a completely different mindset.

Our society does still view monogamy, at least on the emotional level, as being the norm, and indeed some people may perceive polyamory as being too radical or ’hippy’ to contemplate as a mainstream lifestyle choice. In fact though, polyamory is practiced by people from all walks of life. Some may view polyamory as irresponsible and merely an attempt at having your cake and eating it. In fact, being polyamorous requires an extraordinary ability to be selfless, which is probably the main reason why our increasingly ’me’ oriented society can’t readily grasp this concept. It’s certainly food for thought.