By Timothy T. Tater, Editor & Chief Spud
The Sweet Potato
(GILBERTSVILLE, Ky.) — A local couple who won’t shut up about their open marriage is now finding out that having a bunch of rules doesn’t actually stop people from getting mad, sources say.
The couple has spent the last year and a half making sure everyone knows about their “modern relationship” and how they’re “not stuck in old-fashioned thinking like everyone else.” Turns out feelings still exist, even when you pretend they don’t.
“We wrote everything down,” the unnamed husband said, pointing at a laptop like it betrayed them. “Twenty-three pages. We covered who could do what, when people could go out, what nights were just for us, a color-coded calendar. We had notes at the bottom and everything.”
Things went bad last Tuesday when the wife got upset that her husband’s new girlfriend borrowed some fancy hot sauce without asking.
“Then it just blew up,” the wife said, mentioning about seven times that they’re “totally fine,” which everyone knows means you’re not fine. “Next thing you know we’re fighting about whether leaving a yoga mat in the living room means someone doesn’t respect the marriage, or if bringing up the yoga mat means someone’s avoiding their real feelings.”
Friends say the couple used to brag about how good they were at talking things out. They’d corner people at dinner parties inviting them to “hang out for the night” and explain their whole setup even when nobody asked.
“They acted like their’s was a set-up that was totally normal, like my husband and I were so ‘old-fashioned’ in our monogamy,” said one acquaintance, pulling up her phone. “They texted us at least 10 times trying to get us to join them. Of course we said no, h-e-double hockey sticks, NO! Now we are hearing that one of them is sleeping on the couch because the other one said they were being ‘possessive’ for asking about the hot sauce.”
Their therapist, who works with couples like this, put it pretty simple: “Some people think if they write enough rules about love, it’ll work like following directions to build furniture. Then they get confused when ‘Rule 4B: Who Does What Around The House’ doesn’t help when your husband’s girlfriend ate your expensive cheese.”
Right now the couple is planning a big meeting to “go over the rules again,” which sounds way less exciting than it did when they first decided to open things up after reading one book and watching one show on Netflix.
When asked if maybe they should just, you know, talk to each other like normal people without scheduling it, they looked confused.
“We have a rule for that,” the husband said, grabbing their phone. “It’s in the back section.”
The couple wants everyone to respect their privacy, except they’re still posting about their relationship on Instagram, which they say is “totally different.”
