Throuple Double

I have to come clean…

 A couple weeks ago I made a post about how all guys wanted was to watch football and that females could stick to shows like The Bachelor. If Maury Povich read that blog and subsequently had me on his show he’d look down at his card, then look me straight in the eyes, and say Alex…the lie detector test determined that was a lie. It’s time for me to admit that though I do not choose to watch the shows my wife watches, I do get sucked into almost every single one.

This all started during COVID lockdowns so at least I have a built-in excuse and therefore can still look at myself in the mirror and not be completely embarrassed. My wife asked if we could watch one of her shows together for once.  There were no sports on, there was nowhere to go, and we had absolutely nothing to do. I said of course we can. I’m not an animal. My wife chose Love Island and my life has not been the same since. Every weekday at five she’d call me on her way home from work and ask me, “Are we going on the island?” It was my cue to make a couple cocktails and to prepare for the madness that would ensue on Love Island. On weekends we’d start day drinking, order in gross amounts of food (to keep the local restaurants afloat, duh), and go on seven-hour Love Island binges. This was pre-kids of course. I hate to admit that I loved these times and that show, but I did truly believe it was a momentary phenomenon. I thought it was just a phase. I thought that when the lockdowns stopped and sports returned I would go back to being a male. That never happened.

To this day every time my wife puts on one of these shows (my favorites are Married at First Sight, Love is Blind, Joe Millionaire, Farmer Wants A Wife) I pretend like I don’t want to watch them. I try to ignore them. And then twenty minutes in I’m asking questions about who’s dating who, who’s getting fucked over, I hate these two, I love those two, and then next thing you know I’m up until eleven (very, very late for me) fully intrenched in yet another show of my wife’s. The real issue is that the drama keeps me up. My heart starts racing when someone’s cheating or an awkward confrontation is about to happen and it’s during those moments when I really understand what the ladies are feeling watching these shows. It's the same thing that happens to guys during a last-minute drive-in football or a buzzer beater in basketball. Pure adrenaline courses through their (and my) veins.

But this past week I had to stop the madness. The wife and I got into bed, I cracked open a book, she put on a show, and I said that I wouldn’t be distracted. This is another one of those lies I tell myself. I start to read but inevitably get sucked in to the show. I keep the book on my lap to pretend that I’m not doing what I’m actually doing, which is watching another reality show and enjoying the shit out of it. The show my wife put on this time was called Couple to Throuple. For those of you who don’t know what this show entails or what a throuple is, let me educate you. A throuple is a three-person couple. Whatever that combination is, be it two men and a woman, or two women and a man, or three non-binaries, doesn’t matter. It’s three people in one relationship. The point of the show is that there are a bunch of couples looking for a third person to introduce into their relationship. The couples and the “thirds” all live in one house and the goal is to find a third person that you actually love and to leave the house happy as a throuple.

By all metrics I should enjoy this show. But I don’t. I can’t fucking stand it. It’s gross. There, I said it. I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking. I don’t care what generation you’re from, as long as you’re not Mormon a three-person couple makes no sense. I thought my least favorite reality show was going to be MILF Manor (where a group of hot moms live in a house with their hot sons and start dating each other – yuck) but Couple to Throuple makes MILF Manor look like Sesame Street. I refuse to watch it.

Now I could go with your run of the mill take about why I hate the show and why a three-person relationship just wouldn’t work. It’s hard enough trying to find one person to love for the rest of your life and it’s even harder to make that person happy for a lifetime, imagine having to do it with two, and yada yada yada. But I’m not going to do that. I’m going to take a left turn here and imagine the wife and I decided to add a third to our relationship. We’re going to ignore the elephant in the room and not imagine three-way sex with any of these people – we are going to go deeper than the physical and look at what adding someone as a third would do to my wife and I’s marriage.

So here are my top 4 throuple draft picks:

1 – Bill Burr

Guys, imagine waking up with this pasty white, red head knowing you have an immediate ally. If there is any comedian who gets the male experience it’s Bill Burr. He’s made a career out of calling women out on their bullshit but he does it in such a funny way you find yourself cackling in agreement with everything he says. Instead of having a fight with my wife I would tap in Mr. Burr to handle it for me. He can tell her that she’s overfilled the garbage for the thousandth time and that all she has to do is either A) push the garbage down or B) tell me to throw it out before it overflows from the bag and starts dropping into the can itself. He’d do it much funnier than I can or he’d just have one of his angry fits and blow up on her. They can duke it out, have a drag out fight, and I’ll come in to clean up the mess (no pun intended). If Bill Burr fought my battles with my wife he might actually win some, right? (Bill Burr voice).

2 – Lizzo

Hear me out. Forget the whole making her backup dancers stuff bananas into stripper’s nether regions. Get that image of sex with Lizzo out of your head and just hear me out. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here when I say whoever you’ve decided to spend the rest of your life with probably looks better than Lizzo. It’s just a hunch I have. And this is why adding Lizzo as a third is a diabolical move. I’m playing chess here, not checkers.

Play this scenario in your head. Your wife is getting dressed and is on outfit choice number seven. You were supposed to be somewhere thirty minutes ago. Your wife walks out in a sexy number that you find insanely attractive, you tell her just that, but by the way your left eye twitched she deduced that you actually think she looks fat in it. This is female logic at it’s finest. She goes back upstairs and sees a naked Lizzo getting dressed. All of a sudden she realizes she looks damn good compared to that. By adding Lizzo as a third your wife would finally stop asking you ‘do I look fat in this?’ because all she would have to do is get dressed next to Lizzo and the question would answer itself. And don’t come at me for fat shaming. Lizzo is a burger away from a heart attack and all of you people with good intentions are enabling her. Go to the gym, get healthy, it’s science. Don’t shoot the messenger. So while the girls get ready I’ll be downstairs having my own personal pre-game singing the lyrics to Lizzo’s hit “About Damn Time” with no worries about being late. I’m going out tonight.

3 – Rihanna  Denzel Washington

This one is easy. Denzel is probably the most standup human being we have on this planet and he should be treasured. Not only would I welcome Denzel to our marriage with open arms, I feel like he would teach the wife and I lessons we could only dream of knowing. The man is so filled with wisdom that our couple turned throuple would thrive. He would be our own personal Pastor Cal (Married At First Sight for the uninitiated). If there was ever a disagreement with the wife and I (there never is though, 😉) Denzel would come in and help us talk through it. He’d point out where we were right, where we were wrong, hold our hands in prayer, and we would all go on our merry way.  But most importantly - if anything were to ever happen to my babies I know he would go full John Q and hold a hospital fucking hostage to get the care we need (God fahbid – as my mother-in-law says).

4 – My Wife

At the time of this writing my wife is three days away from giving birth. Which means I am technically in a throuple already. My wife, myself, and our little baby girl in her stomach. There is no better throuple than this one. The excitement and the fear are palpable. I could probably say I’m in a quadruple with our two-year-old running around the house like a lunatic. I didn’t think anything would be so hard as having one kid and here we are days away from two. But life is good and I’m going to say something a little cheesy and cliché because it’s true – one wife is more than enough. Add two baby girls on top of that and I’ve got enough to keep me occupied for the remainder of my life.

So, if you are a couple and want to add a third, how about trying the old fashion way. Have some kids. You’ll be better for it. You’ll be happier for it. You’ll be tired as all hell but you’ll have a responsibility that outweighs all of the hardship you run into. You’ll be fulfilled in ways you couldn’t imagine. If you want to really explore something different, if you want to really see what kind of person you are under strange circumstances, if you want to get the full life experience, have children – don’t add a third.