On this week’s episode of Global News’ original podcast, This is Why, we take a closer look at how alternative relationships are reshaping love in Canada.
Over the past week, Global News reporters Marilisa Racco, Arti Patel and Monique Scotti have been exploring different relationship models, from sexless and arranged marriages to mixed orientation and polyamory, as part of their new series, called State of the Union. They shared their findings with This is Why host Niki Reitmayer:
Living Apart Together
They’ve been in a committed relationship for 24 years, yet Marilyn Bronstein, 70, and David Scribner, 63, have never lived in the same city, let alone house. She’s in Montreal and he lives in a small community in Vermont.
“Two weekends of the month, from Saturday to Tuesday, he comes here, one weekend I go there and the other weekend we’re on our own,” Bronstein says. “When David comes here or I go there, I find it’s a very focused time where I can really make him my first priority and pay attention to him.”
Bronstein and Scribner are a couple “living apart together” (LAT), which is a relatively new relationship model in the eyes of Statistics Canada. The 2011 General Social Survey estimated that 1.9 million Canadians were couples living apart together. These are people who are in committed relationships but who choose to live in different homes, whether that’s in the same city or a different one.
But what’s most notable is that LAT is a growing model among people 60 and over. In fact, over 80 per cent of the young couples planned on living together one day, while only 30 per cent of those over 60 said the same.
When asked how they felt their living arrangement affected their union, 40 per cent believed that living apart makes their relationship stronger.
Polyamory
Darren Ruckle spent the first half of his life convinced he was a jerk. For reasons that he couldn’t comprehend, the 44-year-old Victoria, B.C. resident could not stay faithful to one woman.
“I got married at 21 and had an affair. I couldn’t understand how I loved my wife but I also loved this other person. I thought I was horrible,” he says. “You’re not brought up that way.”
He was racked with guilt and even attempted suicide, but eventually, he realized that he wasn’t an incorrigible philanderer. Quite the opposite — he was polyamorous.
Today, Ruckle is divorced from his wife and lives with his partner of two years, Donna Harrington, 33. She’s his nesting partner, which means they live together and consider one another their primary partner.
Until recently, the couple was in a triad with another woman, but they broke up and now he and Harrington are pursuing other relationships. At the moment, Ruckle has a new girlfriend, Laura, who’s going through a divorce, and she has a boyfriend who’s married. Harrington is also in the early stages of a new relationship with a woman who, coincidentally, Ruckle has known since they were six. She’s also married and has a boyfriend.
Brandie Weikle, founder of The New Family, a website and podcast about family diversity, says that polyamory is negotiated respectfully and with openness, “which means there’s no sneaking around or cheating.”
It sounds awfully complicated and like a lot of extra responsibility — after all, relationships require work. Surely, the more people you add to the mix, the more effort needs to be poured into maintaining each relationship.
Sexless Marriage
Seven years ago, Mike took a staycation with his wife. They booked a Seattle hotel and explored their city’s best restaurants and outdoor scene.
That was the last time the couple had sex and Mike says he’s completely fine with it.
“I had no sexual experience prior to meeting my wife and she is the only intimate partner I’ve ever had,” he says. “We get along really well and I love her.”
Mike, who Global News agreed to identify only by his first name, is one of many North Americans who chooses to stay in a sexless marriage. He doesn’t weigh his marriage’s happiness on how many times he has sexual intercourse.
Married for 19 years, Mike says he stopped trying to initiate sex after that trip, even though the sex was enjoyable.
Sexless or celibate marriages are unions in which couples mutually agree to not have sex. Sometimes they consent to an open relationship, where one partner has the freedom to have sex with other people; others remain faithful and committed to a sexless union. In other cases, one or both members of the couple identifies as asexual — someone who isn’t sexually attracted to anyone — and they mutually decide not to engage in intercourse.
Although there is no concrete Canadian data, sexless marriages have been estimated to comprise 15 per cent of all marriages in the U.S.
However, a new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found 19 per cent of Canadians said that they and their partner rarely, if ever, have sex. This was highest in Alberta (27 per cent) and lowest in Quebec (10 per cent). The poll also found that 22 per cent of men were more likely to say this, compared with 16 per cent of women.
Arranged Marriage
It was April Fool’s Day 1984 when Dave Singh Gill stepped off a plane in the U.K.
His flight from Edmonton, Alta., was two hours late, and it was no joking matter. The then-24-year-old was determined to get to his destination to meet his potential wife.
Dave wanted an arranged marriage.
When he finally arrived wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and cowboy boots, Loveleen Kaur Gill says her first impression was “absolutely not.”
But then something changed.
The couple, now based in London, Ont., has been in a happy arranged marriage for 34 years. Although arranged marriages are a tradition usually associated with Asian and Middle Eastern countries, the same customs have also trickled down to communities in the U.K., Canada and the U.S.
On the surface, arranged marriages look just like any other marriage: two people in a loving, committed union sealed with a legally binding contract. But behind the scenes, they often start with introductions by family members or relatives and are finalized by the two individuals involved, giving them the ultimate choice to pick their spouse.
A recent Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News found one in 50 Canadians (two per cent) said they were in an arranged marriage, and five per cent of those poll respondents were between the ages of 18 and 34.
Mixed Orientation Marriage
Four years ago, Jill — acting on not much more than a hunch — accessed her husband’s text messages. What she found changed their marriage forever.
Don had been unfaithful. His texts proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, Jill recalls, but there was a painful layer of complexity: he’d been cheating on her with a man.
Until that moment, Jill had assumed her husband and best friend of nearly 30 years was as straight as she was.
“We’ve always been in a mixed-orientation marriage,” she says. “I just didn’t know.”
Today, the Florida-based couple looks back on that discovery as a pivotal point in their union. After years of repression and confusion, Don finally admitted to himself, and to Jill, that he is bisexual. Jill had to learn to trust him again, and together, they began working toward what they call their “new normal” as husband and wife.
“You think you’re the only person, or the only couple, in the entire world who’s going through this,” says Don, who asked that the couple’s full names not be used for privacy reasons.
“There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of couples who are in this process. You realize, ‘Oh, we’re not such freaks.’”
The U.S.-based Straight Spouse Network estimates there are, at a minimum, two million straight Americans who have been or who are married to people identifying as LGBTQ. There are no comparable statistics available in Canada, but anecdotal evidence suggests mixed-orientation unions are definitely present north of the border.
In many of the cases, one spouse or partner identifies as bisexual, like Don, and may have had same-sex partners in the past. But they have ultimately chosen to enter a relationship (or stay in one) with a straight person of the opposite sex.
Enya, a young woman who identifies as pansexual, told Global News that she and her boyfriend Casper, a transgender man, have encountered the same issues. While gender identity and sexual orientation are two very different things, the couple does consider their relationship to be mixed orientation.
“People have come up and asked us about things that are kind of personal,” says Enya, 19.
“You wouldn’t ask someone in a straight relationship how they have sex. That’s not appropriate. I dunno, Google it.”
Casper, who began his transition in high school, agrees. He says the couple is mostly content to let strangers believe they’re straight.
Watch: learn more about the This is Why podcast
You can hear all of their stories in this week’s episode of Global News’ original podcast, This is Why.
John O’Dowd is a co-producer of This is Why. This story contains files from Marilisa Racco, Arti Patel, and Monique Scotti.