Through the vast majority of content society markets to us daily, falling in love and being committed to one person is an idea most of us can easily subscribe to but, to be honest, doesn't seem all that attainable. Tabloids and Top 40 hits constantly boast allegations of cheating scandals, and on almost every reality shows and scripted series, there are extramarital temptations being discussed, and unfortunately, celebrated.
So, is monogamy possible? Of course. But, according to The Urban Movie Channel's new series Craig Ross Jr.'s Monogamy, it damn sure isn't easy.
Husband and wife producing team Craig Ross Jr. and Caryn Ward Ross have created this new drama series to challenge how we view the practice. Each episode follows four married couples who resort to a spouse-swapping experiment as a last ditch effort to save their relationships. Starring Caryn Ward Ross, Jill Marie Jones, Vanessa Simmons, Chrystee Pharris, Blue Kimble, Brian White, Wesley Jonathan, and Darius McCrary, the show may bend your previous perspective on marriage, what you'll do to maintain love and discuss your views on commitment honestly. "I love [this show] because it's something that I'd never seen before in television and film," says Jones.
Monogamy/UMC
Jones plays Maggie, an emotionally guarded, type-A woman, who is married to Wesley's Carson, a Christian man who's kind but is hard pressed to loosen up. The couple experienced a horrible tragedy but struggle to share more than hollow pleasantries day to day. By the first episode's end, Maggie is paired with Sawyer (Kimble) and Carson is with Simmons' Caroline.
xoNecole got Jones and Jonathan on three-way to chat about their personal feelings on monogamy, how healthy relationships can best be achieved in a social media climate, and what they hope audiences learn about black love from the series.
As I watched the first three episodes, there are a lot of personal obstacles it seems every character is facing. The overarching theme is everyone's relationship is in need of dire help, but it's apparent that each person is having some individual struggle. Which character do you feel has the hardest personal obstacles to face?
Jill Marie Jones: I think everybody. The d-word is looming, and every character is at their wit's end because they're looking at the cliff and saying, "Am I jumping or am I not jumping?" For every single character, the stakes are very high.
If you found yourself in the same dire marital situation, would you try an experiment like this?
Wesley Jonathan: Absolutely not. You're playing with fire. You're tapping into the possibility of actually liking the experiment to the degree to where you end up crossing those lines with the person. I don't think that is the answer. It's a desperation move. To me, it's a major no-no, especially if the person is attractive. You [are] asking for problems.
Right, and out the gate in the show you can see the chemistry between the newly swapped coupled. So, what is your advice for couples having relationship struggles IRL?
WJ: Oh, that's easy. You have the one source of practical teaching and you don't have to be religious to look into it, and that's the Bible. It's practical teaching for marriage, for love, and for happiness period. You don't have to be religious, but if you have practical morals—you don't steal, you don't lie, you don't kill—you can look into the Bible, the source. There, is practical teaching on how to have a happy marriage. Everything else is secondary.
"You can look into the Bible, the source. There, is practical teaching on how to have a happy marriage. Everything else is secondary."
JMJ: First thing I would say is communication. Sometimes I feel like in relationships, even in my friendships, we don't communicate if something hurt us or if something didn't make us feel good.
I like that you mentioned your friendships because all of it is relationships with other people really.
JMJ: Yeah, for sure. After my last boyfriend, I took a sabbatical. It's amazing how much you hear when sex is not on the plate.
I agree. Sex can bring so much noise to where you don't communicate how you really feel.
JMJ: Right! Because if it's good, it's like, 'Girl, he's OK. He didn't really mean what he said. I didn't see what I saw.' It clouds your judgement. Your body is a temple; own it. Own you. It shouldn't be easily given to anyone.
That segues perfectly because with today's generation of dating individuals, there's so many distractions like dating apps, social media, and this general environment of oversharing and #relationshipgoals. So what's your advice for the younger, 20 somethings coming up. Some want traditional marriage but then there are the kids who just want to date and have fun. What do you say to them?
JMJ: I would say to just live your life in your 20s. Work toward your business acumen but in your relationship life, you should live. When you meet the one you're supposed to be with, when you're both mature enough to live life, then you're ready.
WJ: That's tough, real tough. If I could go back, I would definitely focus more energy into me, myself, and my career and getting myself together. But it's only natural for a young man and woman to like each other. So for me to say not to explore, that would be unrealistic. I would say though find some self-control, however you see fit.
Monogamy/UMC
JMJ: So you're agreeing with me!
WJ: Oh, well I definitely agree to a degree. When you say "live," to me you have to be more specific.
JMJ: I'm just saying in your 20's, don't try to make hard plans in your personal life but work on your business.
WJ: Yeah, what happens is that everything is so fast and so quick now, and because there's no self-control, there's no discipline. People are just jumping to do stuff and they find themselves all jacked up. Take a minute, take a step back, and truly evaluate the situation. Don't be so quick to throw your genitals up on that screen. Just find self-control.
You make a great point about self-control. Not a lot of people harp on the discipline aspect of relationships or growing up, which can curb things like cheating. Wesley, as a married man, do you feel monogamy in a marriage is natural? Is it necessary for a lasting, fulfilling relationship? Because the series challenges those ideas.
WJ: I feel monogamy is possible. It is natural? Yeah. But it's also natural to look at someone and say they're attractive. Here we go with self-control again. Some people would say it's not natural to be with one person because they're looking at everything else. Well, that's just because you have no self-control. Our imperfect impulses have us looking at others, and that's being greedy and not having any self-control and losing the value in what you have. Sometimes you have to come back to the person that you're with, work things out and rejuvenate, and have a conversation, even if it hurts. Those conversations help. But to say it's not natural to be monogamous is an excuse for everybody to be with everybody. It is natural to be with one person. That's God's arrangement. If you add more people to the marital bed, it gets real cloudy.
"Our imperfect impulses have us looking at others, and that's being greedy and not having any self-control and losing the value in what you have."
Monogamy/UMC
Jill, I want to ask you the same question but tailor it a bit differently. Black women, as you know, are always as far as headlines go, dealing with being cheated on and many women go into relationships with a fear or expectation of being cheated on. In relationships outside of marriage, do you feel monogamy is natural thing or something to be expected nowadays?
JMJ: Well, OK, yes I believe in monogamy. But I have two different couples that are together and they swing. And I have to say, both of those couples have great relationships. One couple's been together 18 years, the other maybe 11 or something like that. So I think in 2018, people carve out what monogamy means for them. It wouldn't work for me but it works for these two couples. So I understand, it's complicated.
"I think in 2018, people carve out what monogamy means for them."
WJ: But check this out though, is that still, in fact, monogamy? People start to take the true meaning of words and flip them. If y'all swinging, that's technically not monogamy. Y'all just understand it to be OK with each other. It doesn't make you unhappy.
So maybe it's not monogamy, but what Jill is saying is every couple should do whatever helps their relationship last, whether it's monogamy or not, right?
JMJ: Exactly. If it works for them, they're the only people that are in that, right? So if it works for them, that's cool.
WJ: Nah, that's polyamory [Laughs]. You missed the key phrase, it's the state or practice of being with one. It changes the game when you add another person. You can do that if you like, and you can say, 'Aye, it's just us three,' but they're not practicing monogamy because it's more than one person.
Monogamy/UMC
What do you hope the audience learns from this unique way of discussing Black love?
JMJ: It's a show that after each episode will provoke conversation. That to me is the brilliance of it all. People need to not just tell their loved ones the good-good stuff. Your partner needs to hear about what's not working. The things like, 'Wow, I wish you could be better at this.' Communication, I would hope, comes out of the show.
WJ: Yeah, she kinda took it. She's right. It brings up great conversation and controversy. As far as taking anything away, I just want people to feel. Whether it makes you angry, appalled, makes you cry, I just want you to feel something.
Lastly, your hope for [your characters] Maggie and Carson?
WJ: Man, I hope that we work it out!
Be sure to check out 'Craig Ross Jr.'s Monogamy' on UMC TV, available now to stream the entire series. And for more Jill-Marie Jones and Wesley Jonathan, follow them on Instagram.
My mind started wandering to that fantasy world where I go shopping with his mom and visualize how my first name looks with his last. I'm a talk-on-the-phone kinda girl, but I was actually excited to see his name pop up on my iPhone screen and chit-chat for hours via text. I’m a complete sucker for romance and can spew poems from Love Jones at a moment’s notice, but these feelings blindsided me. For months, I wasn't necessarily the one to get caught up in the rapture of love. In fact, before this out-of-nowhere crush, I opted for treating guys like play things.
You see, once enough hurt from past relationships piles up, your heart becomes icy.
To cope, I buried myself in that coldness, using men only for sexual enjoyment and attention.
No guy was ever more than emotional tinkering, and I'd mastered banishing them to the friend zone if they wanted anything serious. Men who truly cared about me were tossed into my petty spin cycle of late night texts (out of sheer boredom I'm sure) and read receipts. Somewhere inside I knew it was wrong to toy with men’s emotions, but I felt equally detached and empowered by my lack of caring. I was in a space where I couldn’t get hurt, and I bathed in Rihanna's "Needed Me" attitude.
[Tweet ""I buried myself in that coldness, using men only for sexual enjoyment and attention.”"]
Then, here was this guy who grabbed my attention out of the blue. This feeling of being wholeheartedly interested in someone was a little foreign to me. This felt different. He felt different. And for the first time in months, I wanted more.
We'd been friends for years before these butterflies began fluttering. From day one, I was (and probably still am) completely in awe of the man he was, is and will become. He is ambitious, driven, well-dressed, kind, intellectual and understanding. He's from the South, loves his mama, and a die-hard family guy with a great sense of humor. We discuss black literature, politics, encourage one another in our careers, shit-talk about LeBron and Steph Curry and dish out our opposing opinions about Cam Newton. I am open with him, vulnerable and honest. With him, I find myself swallowing my pride and fear of loving someone. There's only one problem:
He wants to remain as we are—just friends--and nothing more.
When he revealed this to me, for the first time in awhile, I was hurt. I assume it was the same pang of disappointment the guys in my dating history felt when I shut down any possibility of a relationship. He wasn't some random f*ckboy who set out to shatter my feelings. In fact, he was upfront, honest and considerate when he stuck a pin in the future I'd daydreamed about. Because of his emotional maturity, I realized that I should have extended the same courtesy to every guy I ever toyed with.
Instead, my cold, hard lesson came in the form of falling for this perfect guy who is currently falling for his perfect girl. After swallowing several spoonfuls of the medicine I’d been serving up for months, I now know the cat-and-mouse games are all nonsensical when you know exactly what and who you want.
Nowadays, I try to be just as forthcoming since I've experienced the pain of the other side. The bitterness that once allowed me to hurt others so recklessly has faded, and I'm emotionally ready for something honest, healthy and true.
[Tweet "I'm falling for this perfect guy who is currently falling for his perfect girl."]
Can I give him all the credit for my new outlook? Not entirely. But my situation with him was a major wake-up call: Karma's a bad b*tch and her vengeance is swift. Life will teach you what you need to know about love in due time, and you just have to take the Ls that come.
So, here I am writing you live from the friend zone licking my wounds. I'm not only humbled by the experience, but I'm also healing because of it. Even if I'd never get to call him my man, he's in my life for a reason. And if his friendship is all I can afford, I'll happily take it and the lessons that come with it.