Texas couple Kenya and Carl Stevens had been married for a dozen years, when he confessed to his wife that he had feelings for a co-worker.
But moderately than being indignant together with her husband, Kenya proposed they exit for dinner as a trio.
“My husband wanted several wives. He actually talked to me about this before we got married, and I laughed, like, ‘Whatever!’ I used to be open to the thought, but when he has the privilege, I’d absolutely want the identical privilege, which is just fair,” Kenya, 48, told The Post.
They decided to see a wedding counselor, who told Kenya and Carl to remain monogamous, work on their relationship and “just ignore it” after they noticed other people.
“And we didn’t want to try this anymore,” Kenya said.
They decided to grow to be non-monogamous and now their marriage also includes Kenya’s other husband, Tiger.
Their unconventional family is one among the themes of the brand new TLC reality series “In search of Brother Husband.” Premiering March 26 at 10 p.m., the show follows a wide range of couples during which the girl is either dating other men — together with her husband’s knowledge and blessing — or, in Stevens’ case, has got two “brother husbands,” essentially a gender-flipped version of “Sister Wives.” (Though a lot of the guys are also dating, the show focuses on the ladies.)
Married for 26 years, Kenya and Carl, 52, are each Houston entrepreneurs and authors who preach about their lifestyle as a part of their Progressive Love Academy. While Kenya’s only legally wed to Carl, she’s been “married” to her second husband, Tiger Moonstone, 40, an investor, for a decade.
After many years sharing the identical bed, Kenya said she and her first husband were “not excited by sharing a bedroom any longer.” And so Carl has his own room of their house, while Kenya shares hers with Tiger.
Carl and Tiger also date other women — but amongst their trio, Kenya is the just one who has multiple live-in partners whom she considers spouses.
And he or she told The Post she’s open to adding more.
“What is just too many?” she said. “We like community. We don’t imagine that the family unit is sustainable, and we expect community is more sustainable than a family unit.”
While they’ve rules about learn how to navigate jealousy — Kenya wouldn’t go into detail for fear of unveiling “spoilers” — she said her two “brother husbands” have a superb relationship with one another.
“I believe they became so close because each time I had a difficulty with Tiger, I’d have Carl check with him,” she said.
“So, he became like an enormous brother. [Tiger] started off as a foreigner, any person who’s latest to this family. But my other husband, Carl, became his confidante — any person who had experience coping with me.”
When Kenya and Carl first decided to open up their marriage, they sat down with their three kids, who were teens on the time, and shared the news.
“Most of their friends’ parents are divorced,” said Kenya. “So my children were excited that we still love one another and weren’t coming to have the divorce talk, like nearly all of their other friends. They’d questions — they wondered how wouldn’t it work, would they’ve one other father? Those kinds of logistical questions. But overall, there was excitement, because they’ve a community to boost them, as an alternative of two very drained parents.”
There have been other learning curves along the way in which, Kenya said.
“We had to elucidate to Tiger’s ex-wife why his son should stay in a house with a married woman and her husband, and what that was like. I needed to befriend his ex-wife and really explain the logistics of polyamory to them. That took years. Currently, everyone is admittedly great together.
“If you’re an ex-wife, you continue to love your husband. I made it clear that they may still love one another [whether platonically or romantically] — that may be wonderful! She’s a superb friend of ours, now. There are a whole lot of relationships involved in our marriage.”
As for naysayers, she said she counters them with statistics.
“We’ve had people going, ‘Why are you doing this? That is mistaken,’ ” she said. “We ask them, ‘Have you ever checked out the divorce rate? It’s 55%. Have you ever checked out the cheating rate? It’s 66% within the US and 75% within the UK. Forty percent of couples currently married are sexless.’ So, we direct them back to the stats, and ask, ‘Have we beat the stats?’ And the reply is yes.”
Elisa Alpizar, 32, an LA bridal stylist who can also be featured on “In search of Brother Husband,” has only one hubby, mechanical engineer Mike Onorato.
But with Onorato’s blessing, she’s dating other men, too. She and Onorato, 35, were monogamous at the start of their eight-year relationship, until she cheated on him two and a half years in.
When she anxiously confessed, she assumed they might break up.
“This was the primary time I had ever cheated on a partner, but it surely wasn’t the primary time I had experienced having feelings for any person else while being in love with a partner,” she said.
“And I used to be all the time confused, because I used to be all the time like, ‘If I actually love my boyfriend, why am I feeling this fashion about any person else?’ Once I explained that to Mike, he was like, ‘It seems like you ought to have the ability to see multiple people, and be in love with multiple people at one time.’ ”
The couple decided to remain together and grow to be non-monogamous.
But they still took two years to speak it through, do research and “work on our foundation” before dating other people, she said.
“I had met individuals who were like, ‘I’m in an open relationship.’ But for essentially the most part, it was guys, and sometimes it appeared like they weren’t being fully honest. So, my initial perception of any form of situation with multiple relationships was not good,” she said.
But after her husband Mike floated the thought of dating other people while staying married to one another, “I began doing research, and I spotted, ‘Oh wow, this can be a very viable option.’ ”
Surprisingly, her family and friends reacted to the news positively.
“My friends are all like, ‘Do whatever makes you glad — so long as everybody is glad, that’s all that matters.’
“My parents were actually very supportive. My dad likes to joke, ‘This shouldn’t be a latest thing — back within the ’70s, people were doing this on a regular basis!’ ”
