By Tyne O’Connell

Oscar Wilde said “in married life three is company, and two is none” yet more than one hundred years later when I mention that I live with my partners – as in plural – even the most sophisticated jaws drop. I live with two men, the fathers of my children. No I am not a spin doctor with a Utopian Philosophy to sell, nor are we a liaison dangereuse for the nineties. Basically, I am just like thousands of women who have remarried – the exception being that I decided not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Or in this case, the first husband out with the marriage.

Forget nannies and au pairs with attitude, forget juggling career and kids – the key to family bliss in the fin de millennium is not a vacation in Mauritius, but finding another spouse to share the load. Preferably young and gorgeous, and with an artistic flair for compromise.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but ah, where do you all, er, sleep?” people ask, uncomfortably looking around as if we were stuck for space in our huge converted factory. Watching them on the edge of their seats, their expressions suffused with anticipated titillation, we all feel slightly guilty as we admit that we are not actually a ménage a trois.

In fact, what is scandalous about our triumvirate is not sex but the symbiotic rhythm of our lives together – the way there is always someone on hand to buy milk, to read a story to one of the kids, or to do up my zipper. As three parents with busy and frequently separate social agendas, it is not a grand passion that drives us, but a quotidian pragmatism. We are liberated by our commitment.

When my first husband and I separated ten years ago we had two young sons. It wasn’t an acrimonious divorce. Still, it was traumatic, and we spent the next two years juggling access and custody arrangements, made all the harder because my career as a gemmologist frequently took me abroad. Finally we decided that for practical reasons it would be easier if I moved back into the house.

A lot of people thought it was incredibly big and brace of us to attempt a rapprochement. We pointed out that only a few years before we’d been exchanging body fluids like there was no tomorrow – a little bit of bill sharing wasn’t going to kill us. So we thought. As it happened, the ensuing arguments were far worse than anything we had encountered in our marriage. The disputes centred around our sex lives. SP, my ex, who claims not to believe in jealousy, didn’t see why I had a problem with him bringing women home. On the other hand, my boyfriends got on so well with SP, they’d drop round for a drink with him!

Some of the women he dated were less than enamoured with me. If we were divorced, why didn’t I just take the kids and leave? They all took different approaches. There was the vegetarian who threw out my venison steaks. The woman who hated kids and asked me to keep them out of her way, but most of them wanted my advice on how to make their relationship with SP work. As if I would know! They’d take me to lavish lunches to beg me to put in a good word for them. Then there was the woman on a business trip who kept ringing me to make sure SP was being faithful to her. He wasn’t.

When the relationships ended, as they inevitably did, I often felt like I was the cause. Basically, I was – not because of anything I said or did, but just because I was there. In the end we agreed that unless we fell inexorably in love with someone, we wouldn’t introduce our lovers to the home.

We had hardly made our pact when I met Eric. I was living in Cairo when this artist with looks to die for ran onto an elevator I was entering and proposed. Just like that. That same audacity is probably what carried him through when I gave him a run down of my living arrangements. Thankfully, neither my ex-husband nor my sons could resist his charms nor he theirs. When he landed on the doorstep a few months later and turned our lives upside down.

By this time the thought of being apart from our children was anathema to both SP and me. When I told my mother that Eric and I were getting married and that we were thinking of all living together, she said, “Poor Eric! At least give him a six month honeymoon first.” She was right – privacy is not part of the structure of a three parent family.

There were bound to be problems, and the determination to stay together for the sake of the children buckled more than once under the sheer weight of compromise. The first year was the hardest – not helped by my pregnancy. At various stages we all threatened to leave; eventually I was the one who walked out.

My two husbands found where I’d gone and turned up in the middle of the night. SP sent Eric up a ladder to talk to me with a silver tray and smoked salmon sandwiches while he stood outside, supporting the ladder and urging Eric on, prompting him, and promising us both it could work.

I realised I was matrix for our togetherness, but I was also central to most of the problems. I had a shared history with one man and a fledging relationship with the other; this would have been a juggling act without wanting to live together. I had to learn to let go and put my faith in our future together rather than in my ability to control it. We had to discover a new way of living because, apart from a few eccentric exceptions like Madame De Stael, the French intellectual, there were no precedents for what we were attempting. We had to invent a new lifestyle.

In the early stages we had no backup from society, family, or friends. Everyone was open minded about what we were trying to do, but they all expected us to fail. Perversely, this drove us on. As time went on, our loyalty grew; we clashed less and laughed more.

What finally forged our triumvirate was the birth of Cordelia. From the moment I felt the first twinge Eric went into one of those first time father comas, and started panicking about all the wrong things; champagne toasts, cigar distribution etiquette etc. Husband number one, the veteran, organised the hot towels, the breathing, and the ice chips. Our lesbian separatist midwife found herself beguiled by the two husband set up. On the balcony afterwards, smoking her cigar, she conceded that fathers could be of benefit after all – the trick was to get them in pairs.

Having an extra father on board certainly revolutionised the concept of motherhood for me. Two men falling over one another to co-parent took the sting out of my stitches. I lay back and breastfed while they debated diaper changing methods and boasted to one another about sleepless nights.

I started proselytizing to my married girlfriends: get another husband before you have children. One isn’t enough, I said. With one you bicker and niggle, with two you rejoice. My girlfriends were dubious. Surely two men were twice the trouble? But what actually happens when you get two men together is that their innate competitiveness comes to the fore. And then there is that bonding thing men do. People ask whether the men get jealous of one another. Come off it, I’m the one who get’s jealous of them! They give one another the sort of moral support no Prozac, beta blocker, or annalist can offer. It’s called having your cake and eating it, actually. All the jealousy came from the girls SP dated who saw me as the reason he wasn’t committing to them. He saw our family as his shield against further commitment and used our family as his cover all excuse for not delivering his girlfriends what they wanted……

 

The Telegraph, November 1996

'Three in a house: Eric, Simon and me.' By Cassandra Jardine

Tyne swans in last. Clad in a little black suit her hair piled high, she drips Vivienne Westwood jewellery, red lipstick and charm. She is the queen bee incarnate. A vast bed, draped in red velvet, dominates the top floor of Tyne O'Connell's home. "Okay yaaah, this is where we congregate," Tyne announces in deadpan drawl, watching for a reaction. She is used to getting one.

For eight years now, she has lived with two husbands: Eric Hewitson, her current one, and Simon Peter (SP for short) the former. "No one who comes across our set-up considers it absolutely normal," she says, perching demurely on the edge of the bed, crossing her fish-net clad legs and throwing back her head in laughter.

 Tyne is used to encountering raised eyebrows, embarrassment and other people's imaginations working overtime on the sexual permutations and tensions involved in such a household. And the house does little to put fevered speculation to rest. 

As you ascend the stairs to the bedroom, a sumptuous bath greets the eye. It is surrounded by open space - presumably so that both men can tickle her toes simultaneously while she soaps herself. Then past a screen is the bed; large enough for three of more, and splattered in gold cushions. I settle nervously on the chaise longue opposite, imagining that if a latter day Elinor Gyn wanted to sin, she would choose such a setting.

Before I arrived at this East London ladin's cave of unbridled sensuality, I read Tyne O'Connell's first novel, Sex, Lies & Litigation. Set in the stuffy world of the Bar, the book's heroine, Evelyn, is a twentysomething who lives with a lesbian couple in a flat decorated with chairs that resemble female genitalia.

The plot revolves around he lesbians' hunt for a sperm donor. Evelyn becomes the bait in their bid to attract a potent male, and her progress through the world of parties - where little is worn except tassles and G-strings - is, er, colourful. The jokes are what Tyne describes in her writing as "Salome humour - some poor bloke's head always ends up on th comedy platter".

So which of the two men in Tyne's exotic life is John the Baptist? Is her first husband an emotional victim, crippled by jealous t watching his ex canoodle with her new man? "Hello, I'm SP and I'm part of the set-up," he says as he answers the door, dressed in a pin-stripe suit, his hair slicked back. The perfect butler, he takes coat and orders for refreshment. "Cappuccino or macchiato?" he asks in an Australian accent. 

Behind him hovers a younger, jeans-clad good-looker. Could he be the one who suffers? After all, it must pain him to observe the longer, stronger tiesbetween his wifeand her former spouse. "Hi, I'm Eric and I'm part of the set-up too," he announces in tones of purest Sussex, his works of art, and little else, adorning the walls of their living room.

 Tyne swans in last. Clad in a little black suit, her hair piled high, she drips Vivienne Westwood jewellery, red lipstick and charm. She is the queen bee incarnate; busily instructing SP not to forget where he puts my coat. and granting Eric permissin to carry on with his work while she tkes me upstairs. "Don't ask to see the kitchin," she begs, in a voice somewhere between Sydney and Sussex. "We don't have one."

This absence of cooking facilities is the household's most decadent aspect. The way Tyne tells it, their menage is not designed to humiliate the men, but as a solution to a common problem. When a marriage ends and children are involved there is no conventional way for both parents to continue living with their offspring.  Tyne and her husbands have worked out an unconventional one.

Tyne says her early life was "totally conventional". The youngest child of a Catholic home in Australia, her father was a civil servant, her mother was an anthropologist. She was 19 and studying gemmology whn she met SP, a 20-year-old medical student. Two years later, they married - "too young" - and, on their wedding night, Tyne asked SP if he would be faithful. Ominously, he replied: "I'd have problems staying faithful to a harem."

They had two sons, now 12 and 14, but the marriage foundered. "SP is not hugely romantic," says Tyne. "He's more interested in God, his work and the children. The relationship broke up, but the friendship didn't."

At that point, they took the usual, pain-laden route of splitting up, juggling access and custody arrangements. Then SP developed cancer and Tyne moved back in with the children to look after him. "I asked him if we should try again, but he said, 'Don't be daft'. We had both been involved with other people."

By the time SP recovered, they had been through the jealous phase and had discovered that living together platonically worked well. It allowed Tyne to travel without having to shuttle the children from one home to another.

Sex was a problem, but not in the predictable way. "My boyfriends invariably got on so well with SP," she says, "that they would drop round for a drink - with him. Some of his girlfriends would ask me for advice on how to make things work with my ex - as if I would know. Others treated me as the enemy.

One vegetarian threw her venison steaks out of the fridge; another, who hated children, "requested that I keep them out of her way - in the nicest possible manner". 

 They agreed not to not to introduce third parties into the relationship, unless they fell hopelessly in love. Then Tyne went to Cairo on a business trip and found Eric, a painter, five and a half years her junior. "I met Eric in a lift. He proposed immediately and I rang SP because I was so insecure about the age difference." His response was encouragement and a huge bouquet of flower. Eric saw the bouquet and wondered whether to replace SP's card with his own, but resisted. The affair raged and Tyne invited her new man home.

"SP was putting the children in the car when Eric arrived. The first thing Eric said was, 'Why didn't you tell me he was good-looking?' A few days later, Eric lent SP a jacket and I found SP in front of a mirror muttering, 'Why does Eric look so bloody good in everything?'"

On her mother's advice, Tyne and Eric took a three month honeymoon alone, followed by a further three months with the children in Portugal. Seperation from the children proved unbearable for both Tyne and SP, so they agreed to try living as a threesome in London. 

Within a year, it was Tye who walked out. Her two husbands came to fetch her from the friend's house where she had sought refuge. She heard scufflings outside her window. "SP was helping Eric to scale a trellis with a tray of hot tea and smoked salmon sandwiches. He was urging Eric on, pleading with me and promising us both that we could make it work."

That was seven years ago. A year later, Tyne was pregnant. To the amazment of the militant lesbian midwife, both men made themselves useful at the birth. SP massaged Tyne's back and reassured  a nervous Eric.

The reactions of outsiders have been the biggest problem. "When relations come to stay they find it hell," says Tyne "My parents always remember something important they have to do and leave early." It is the restlessness., not the dynamics of the houshold, that makes it hard for others. "We haven't had much luck keeping nannies and cleaners," says Tyne. So they throw posesions into cupboards and take turns to babysit Cordelia while the boys are at boarding school. "When we are invited to dinner, people get which ever man they are given. On weekends and holiday, we come as an army."

Over the years they have grown sick of questioners' veiled prurience. "No one ever asks us about sex. Women want to know about the emotional side; men are curious about the practicalities - who does the cooking." The answe is no one. They eat out or draft visitors in to help. "Everytime SP has a girlfriend," says Tyne, "te first question I ask is, 'Does she cook?'"

They slit up only for visits to schools - not because the children are embarrassed but out of practicality. All decisions go to a tribunal although, Tyne says: "I suppose I am titular head of the household."

The menage works because, "Eric and I are an uncouply couple and we are all workaholics. Most of the time, Eric sleeps downstairs in his studio. As for SP, he's married and he's allowed to have affairs. He's happy."

So what did she mean by congregating in her bedroom? "We try like most parents, to to keep our sexual lives out of the way of the children. We are quite prudish really."

So that's her version. What do the men think? "Tyne would be a hard act to follow," says SP, looking up from the book he and Cordelia are reading. "I'm happy working and not many women think a man with children is a catch."

And Eric? "A lot of men say I should get rid of the other guy, but it's fun having him around. SP is brilliant with children. We call ourselves the co-parents," says Eric, slapping SP affectionately. With that he picks up Cordelia and waves goodbye to his wife as she goes out for the evening with her ex.

 

Style Magazine (The Sunday Times), 1997

By Lucas Holweg

O'Connell herself is every bit as glam as her fictional heroines - blond hair, red lipstick, John Richmond outfit and Vivienne Westwood earings"

O'Connell writes in the second-floor bedroom - which she describes as "the gathering point" of the house. Here, the open spaces and wooden floors are contrasted with a collection of furniture that is quirkily ecclesiastical in feel. "It's a kind of gothic modernism," says O'Connell…..
 

At one end of the room is a huge 19th century French bed (9ft wide by 7ft long) with an ornate wooden headboard. Draped with a deep crimson bedspread it looked as if it were designed for a large and self indulgent bishop…similarly there is a larger than life gilt candlestick, which originally graced a French alter ("I think it must be my Catholic background that attracted me to it.") says O'Connell…The ground floor picks up on the churchy theme of the bedroom with a pair of throne-like eighteenth century chairs upholstered in vivid red fabric. There are inventive modern touches, too, such as a mobile side table, designed by O'Connell, using a hospital washstand found at Brick Lane market, or the "skylight" in the floor, made of glass shelves salvaged from a hospital dispensary, which funnels light into the basement studio. Dinners sound particularly bizarre. On such occasions, a stuffed chimpanzee is moved from the shelf where he lives to the dinner table. "We sit him opposite one of our guests and watch their reaction," says O'Connell. I for one, can't wait for an invitation.

 

Vogue Australia February 1999

'My husbands and I' - Feature article by Tyne O'Connell 

One woman, three children, two husbands. Family life is never boring for Australian author Tyne O'Connell. Here she comes clean about the joys of living in a full house. 

I was in an LA hotel when the phone call came that NBC wanted me to turn the story of my life into a television sitcom. I had no time to prepare. I was wearing black fur cat's ears that matched my seven year old daughter's and I forgot to take hem off before the meeting. Mydaughter thought the ears looked cute, but would the NBC execs shareher view? They must have because by the time we got back to our hotel, we'd made a sale. NBC had bought our story - Living With Two Husbands. They wanted me to co-write the pilot. 

I had to phone the two men in my life to tell them the news. I was born in Australia but we all live together in London and although it was 2am there I just couldn't help myself. I rang and woke them up. Both husbands jumped on the phone: SP (as we call Simon Peter) has been my ex-husband for 14 years and Eric has been my husband for 10. I share two sons wih SP, a daughter with Eric ad we all share family life.

When people hear our story, a thousand questions run through their minds. Are we involved in a cult? Does everyone sleep together? How does it work? Are the kids in therepy? The answers: no; Eric and I sleep together; who knows; and no - have them even more confused. We are a three-parent household rather than three in a bed.

We' all started the living together thing when I was pregnant with Cordelia, my daughter by Eric. We decided that it would simply be a hell of a lot easier. It was one of those seemed-like-the-right-thing-to-do-at-the-time decisions rather than one we gave a lot of thought to.

People always ask me in hushed tones what others think of our family set-up. The reactions vary, but most people's reaction is along the lines of "how the hell did you swing it, girl?" Guy's are in awe of SP's situation, given that he gets to enjoy his family whil technically free to persue an independent sex life. Our amilies accept it and have been pretty supportive. Our kids take it as normal, as do their friends. In an age of divorce and custody battles, at least ours is a family in which all parents are on board.

If there is anyone who is less than impressed with how our family works, it is the women my ex-husband dates. Some of them fail to see how his commitment to his children and their mother can possibly benefit them. And I can see their point. I know he uses us, and especialy me, to his advantage when a relationship gets too cloying. But hey, he is a single guy. For us, though, the three parent family has been a ball.  

Anyway, back to the NBC deal. So there I was jumping up and down in my hotel room. SP and Eric were in London, whooping it up. "We're having a hug," Eric told me, his laughter echoing across the 8.000-kilometer divide. "A male bonding hug," SP added dryly. Cordelia and I celebrated by watching Friends in our hotel room, and it was hard not to dwell on the irony that the very cement that held our family together was the cause of our seperation.

It had all started with an article I wrote two years ago. I had just published my first novel, and the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph decided they wanted to do a feature on me. The frenzy the article inspired absolutely overwhelmed us. My phone line was swamped with calls from producers and magazines, talk shows and newspapers from all over the world. Wanting to interview me, wanting to option me, wanting me to appear with my two husbands on their talk show like circus exhibits.

The question we asked ourselves was, "what's the big deal?" I mean, it wasn't as if I was sleeping with two men or anything avant-garde like that. It was merely a case of staying together for the sake of the children. Okay, we had put a more appealing spin on it, but why the media frenzy?

Then it hit me. Our lifestyle had struck a chord with parents who want the best for their kids even after the marriage has gone bad. And there we were having it all. Doing the best for our children - and having the time of our lives. No wonder the world was enthralled.

"I miss SP," Cordelia told me as I tucked her in bed that night with Friends. "I do too," I agreed. This guy I had divorced 14 years ago - because he was a selfish creature of unimaginable evil (or so I thought at the time) - was the best possible father our two sons could ever have and the best ex-husband I could have wished for. Our sons are 14 and 16 now, and boy is it a relief to have three parents now they are adolescents.

SP was with Eric and me at the birth of our daughter, Cordelia. He shared the night feeds, the teething and the general chaos that make any family, well, a family. Okay, so he is a womanising, totally un New-Age man whom I divorced without regret, but who else would ever care as much about our eldest son's first lost tooth or our youngest son's hatred of peas? During the years after our divorce, SP and I had slowly discovered a shared bond. The sex was gone, the romantic love was gone but we still had our two sons. Our mutual love of them was the last card we had, so we played it for all it was worth.  Kids are forever and no decree absolute can take that away.

Parenting is all about being there and so we allowed one another the gift without a structured court visit timetable. Even back then, the people we dated found our shared commitment to our sons a troubling concept. His girlfriends wanted me to disappear - with the burden of the children - and my dates didn't appreciate that SP was around.

I think many imagined we would patch up our marriage but that was never on the cards. I met Eric, and everything changed. This was different. This was the man of my dreams. My happily-ever-after guy. SP's wedding gift to us was our honeymoon. The guys got on from the word go. They were both stunned by how good-looking the other was, and there was a grudging respect between them for the position the other held in my life. They were competitive, the way men are. From clothes, to income to IQ, everything became a good-natured arm wrestle. Eric had never met anyone like SP before and SP thought Eric was fun to hang out with which, by the way, I did too.

For the first two years with Eric we juggled our lives according to the kids' needs. There was a lot of toing-and-froing, though generally we spent weekends together. Then I unexpectedly fell pregnant with Eric's daughter. SP was with me when I did the pregnancy test. In fact, he was the one who bought me the test. In fact, he was the one who bought me the test. He was the first one to hug me and say congratulations. I was carrying his sons' sister or brother.

By the time Cordelia was born we had all moved into a bigger house. But it was post-partum that the real benefit of having two fathers kicked in. The guys did what guys do best and competed. Competed over the best ways to burp, hold, pat, feed and walk a baby. Okay, SP still used me as an excuse for keeping his girlfriends at arm's length - "I can't stay over Saturday night, Tyne needs me at home" - when it suited him. But for Cordelia it was wonderful. SP was always there as a sort of extra father, a co-co-parent.

There is certainly more compromising in a three-parent family simply because there are three strong-minded adults involved instead of two. But then again, having three parents makes it a whole lot easier. In the end it all comes down to the children, their happiness, and the benefit they derive from having three parents rooting for them, so to speak.

Our life is fun. It's a typical family life - exhausting, exhilarating and expensive. A total riot at times. So now I start writing it. I can't wait to see the sitcom.