Modern Love Podcast: When Two Open Marriages Collide

They had agreed to see other romantic partners on the side. A tragic accident put their arrangement front and center.

What are the boundaries of an open marriage? And what are the boundaries of an open marriage when your wife’s boyfriend has an accident that puts him in a coma? Do you introduce yourself to the hospital workers as the patient’s girlfriend’s husband? Wayne Scott and his wife, Elizabeth Thielman, have a “creative arrangement,” as Wayne puts it in his Modern Love essay. They share the children, the cats and the mortgage, but they have permission to see other people romantically. On today’s episode, we hear Wayne’s story about an accident that tested the parameters of their marriage, and we talk to Wayne and Elizabeth about how they have navigated their relationship in the years since.