- How would the throuple work
if one of you would want to break up
with another person in the party, but not the third?
- She's starting drama.
- I'm just curious.
- Get a lawyer.
- Oh no!
(laughs)
- [Producer] If you were alone in a room
with a throuple who are co-dads, what would you ask?
- Do y'all sleep in the same bed?
- What is the hardest part being in a throuple?
- Do you ever vent to one partner about the other?
(laughs)
(fierce music)
- What are you guys' names?
- I'm Mitch.
- I'm Ben.
- And Benjamin
- Being in a throuple, is that something
that happened to you guys spontaneously or...?
- We met on a gay cruise,
there was 5,000 gay men.
Mitch and I had been talking about wanting
to be in throuple for a very long time.
In my mind, I never thought it was gonna happen.
I was very skeptical, so when I met Benjamin
I remember having a very insightful conversation
and all the right questions were being asked.
That experience to me was just reassuring
that this actually was gonna possibly work.
- Are you all married?
- For Benjamin, the third that joined last,
me and Mitch are both legally married.
- I never really believed in marriage,
so it didn't matter to me like who got married to who.
Cuz I feel like marriage is just a label
and it's a legal protection.
- Do y'all sleep in the same bed?
- Yes, we have an Alaskan king bed
which is the size of like almost
two king beds put together.
- How sick.
- What is your favorite sexual position
that involves all three of you?
- We don't have sex.
(everyone laughing)
- It depends on which mood we're in.
- Is there like two bottoms?
- One top and two verse.
- Okay.
- Do all three of y'all have
to be present during sexy times?
- In the beginning, yes.
- But as our schedules evolved
it was like, alright, if we're gonna get some
we gotta take what we can get at this point.
- Fair.
- Who's better?
No one?
- We all have our off days.
Okay.
(laughs)
- Some, some of us overthink things.
- In terms of like cheating,
like what boundaries do you all set for each other
and for your other partners as well?
- We are a closed triad,
so we we would be I guess Trinagamous.
- I think we have rules in place
that would also kind of prevent that from happening.
You know, don't want dates with other people,
don't have Grindr,
you're not gonna put yourself in that situation.
- This one's a little spicy.
How would the throuple work
if one of you would want to break up
with another person in the party, but not the third?
- She's starting drama.
- I'm just curious.
- Get a lawyer.
- Oh no!
(laughs)
- We would?
- Like, Ben and I have been dating 17 years
and almost four of those years have been with Benjamin
and we kind of had an agreement
that if something went wrong in the throuple relationship
and the third like didn't want to be there anymore
that we would still stay together.
But now that it's evolved into this
I don't know if one of us wanted out,
I think we'd all leave cuz we kind of hold each other up.
- Do you ever vent to one partner about the other?
(laughs)
Or is there a rule that y'all have that restricts that?
- No, we definitely vent. - Absolutely yes.
- Just like that scene from Mean Girls
where everybody's talking to each other on the phone,
it's kind like that.
- But we have Nest cameras in the house
so if I'm gone, I know how to listen.
(everyone laughing)
- Is there ever any moments where one feels left out?
- There was jealousy in the beginning between those two.
Just saying.
(laughs)
- I feel like it was more the feeling of being left out.
Like every time I was at work
I was like, "What are they doing?
"Why is he washing the sheets again?"
- "Why are you washing the sheets again?"
- In the chance that, you know, there's an argument
or some kind of like, you know, issue
is one of y'all like the preferred mediator
is like one of you guys the counselor of the group,
like how does that work?
- So we all exchange roles.
- I will go to Mitch for different reasons
than I go to Benjamin for.
So if I need help with like, I don't know
advice with work or finances or the business
I will go straight to Mitch
and if I need help with technical things
or my computer's crashing...
- Thanks.
(everyone laughs)
- If it's a serious issue, I think
we always come together and discuss it.
- There have been moments where I go to one
to tell them not to tell the other
and they of course go to the other
and then it turns into a huge argument
that didn't have to be.
- It's a triad argument.
(laughs)
- I think I've learned my lesson.
- I'm just starting to be in a throuple myself.
- Oh nice.
- And last night actually they,
two of them got into a fight
and I literally was standing in the hallway going,
"What do I do?"
- You jump in girl.
(laughs)
- Well, I'm like, "Who do I go talk to?"
- Whatever they're arguing about,
you definitely need to make sure that you don't take a side
without knowing the full story.
- I would just like to add that
when Benjamin first came in of course Mitch
and I would have a lot of arguments
and it was actually very interesting
because he helped us figure out a resolution
faster than we would've done it just by ourselves.
- What is the hardest part being in a throuple?
- They can both tell me no and then I'm wrong.
(everyone laughs)
- That's the easiest part of our relationship
when it's like, oh two people say you're wrong, done.
- Yeah, it's like two of you won.
Anybody else?
- I would say juggling expectations at first.
Normally you just have to worry about like,
"Oh what does my partner expect from me?"
Doing it for two people, you're just tracking
two sets of expectations.
- If you have a child, do you worry it'll be hard
for all your three to bond with the baby?
- So we have a child.
- Oh!
- Surprise.
- She's almost six months old
- And we have two more coming through surrogacy.
And I must say that so far the baby
like reacts equally to all of us.
So we're actually in the process
of all three of us being added
to the birth certificate of Tegan, which is our daughter.
And we would be the second throuple
in the United States to be recognized
as legal parents of one child.
- Yes.
- Any of y'all have like a concern about your child
not having a quote like "traditional mother?"
- So when we started the journey for adoption
it was a long time ago, we started with an agency
then we moved to a private adoption with an attorney
and our own website and the first thing
that our team said to us was like,
"The adoptive mom is just gonna be
"so excited about three dads."
And it did, we got so much hits
on our website and so many matches.
We never saw any pushback with that.
- But we also have a lot of friends
like really close friends that would play
a motherly figure if we needed to.
You know, we talked about like when she goes
through puberty, like what are we gonna do?
Like, you know, I freaked out
when I first had to change her diaper.
- Yeah, I was just like interested to hear,
especially in this society
where things are still way too labeled like that
and boxed up like that.
If that has been maybe like a hurdle
y'all have had to go through.
- Yeah I would I would just maybe use an experience...
So when we first came out as gay,
Mitch and I as gay, we used to get the question a lot
like also who's the woman in the relationship?
You know who's the man in the relationship.
And that, you know, at first you kind of
had to understand where the question was coming from.
- Yeah.
- Because that's the only way we're gonna educate someone.
But from us we don't look at it
one of us like you're the mother,
you're the father and I'm the nanny.
Like none of that like it's...
- You, the nanny.
(laughs)
- Mexican nanny.
- What would you give as advice
for someone who's possibly looking into polyamory
or just also joining a throuple?
- I think you just have to be open.
There's so many different ways to love
than just being in a relationship and it's very similar.
It's just we've been told by society
for so long that only two people should be together.
- A lot of people go in with a set of rules
and when they don't align or they don't work out
the way you think they did,
they just kind of run away from it.
That's an opportunity for you to sit down
and really have a conversation about why it didn't work.
How can we tweak them
so that it actually works the next time.
- Those rules are gonna adjust,
they're gonna change based on like
what your living situation is.
- I mean, cost of living is so high, it helps.
(everyone laughs) - Facts.
- Can I give y'all a hug?
- [Throuple] Yeah.
- So you want to meet?
- Yeah, I'd love to meet y'all.
- Hello.
- Look at the matching shirts.
- That's right,
- You guys are matching.
- I love your outfit.
- Oh, thank you.