"Brother Husbands," about MFM polyfamily with kids, will apparently become a weekly reality series on TLC

Remember Brother Husbands, TLC's one-hour reality special last month that followed an MFM polyfamily and their new triplets?

Jeremy, Amanda, and Chad

That show was a pilot: a one-off to test whether there'd be enough of an audience for a weekly series. We've seen no official word on whether a series will go ahead. But just out on SheKnows is some unofficial word: apparently yes. This afternoon the online women's mag posted an interview with husband Chad, and it contains this:

SheKnows: TLC has [only] aired a one-hour special about your family. Is there a series in the future?

Chad Ferris: TLC is extremely excited about the show, and they have been busy filming. You will be seeing more of us!

Here's more from the interview:

Everything You Wanted to Know About the Brother Husbands Family

By Sarah Aswell

SheKnows: First of all, I have to know: Do you use the term "brother husbands" around the house?

Chad Ferris: No, we say co-husbands.

SK: I'm guessing it's been some time since the special was filmed. How old are the triplets now, and how is the family managing?

CF: They turned one in December. They are all walking now, they’re all talking and eating real food. When they became mobile, it changed everything. It's crazy.

SK: During the special, your mom came to visit and she was obviously still getting used to the situation. How is your relationship with family now?

CF: That was the first time I'd seen my mom in four or five years. We had talked on the phone and started rebuilding, and that was the first in-person interaction. Since then it’s been good. I've also reconnected with my brother, who had felt kind of betrayed. When we came out as polyamorous to him, we had been doing it secretly for over a year, and he wished we had been honest sooner. We grew up with a conservative, religious background, and he saw our decision as abandoning our traditional family values and our faith.

SK: Are you currently religious?

CF: I'm not religious on any level. I worked at a church, and I had been working in churches for seven or eight years when I met Jeremy. Based on the response we got when we started talking with the community about our family, we left. We had already been moving past that, but the response from the church confirmed a lot of our feelings and we left that part of our life behind....

...SK: What are most of the conflicts about in the household?

CF: The most common conflict is parenting style. I’m more liberal and free-spirited, and Jeremy is more structured, maybe because he has to be with the triplets. I am a hippie and laid-back, we co-slept with the boys and everything like that. Jeremy and Amanda are more structured with bedtime, and the girls have always slept in cribs. Sometimes I need to check myself and respect Jeremy’s boundaries, and sometimes Jeremy needs to realize that he could be a little more flexible. We've gotten to a place where we know to respect one another but also learn from one another.

SK: Do you and Jeremy spend quality time together alone?

CF: Jeremy and I do try to make an effort to do that — bro dates when we go get a beer or play video games, or go see a movie or go shopping to stay connected. It's easy to slip into dad mode, and we both try to keep the house running as smoothly, so it’s easy to forget that we were friends in the first place....

The whole interview, with lots of pix (March 8, 2017).


● Another interview with Chad, on The Ashley's Reality Roundup: ‘Brother Husbands’ Star Chad Liston [sic] Answers Questions About His Family (mid-February):

The recent TLC special Brother Husbands left a lot of viewers in shock.. and with plenty of questions!

The special showcased Amanda Liston, a woman who is married to two men – Chad and Jeremy. The trio raise their kids as siblings and live as one big family unit. ‘Brother Husbands’ did well in the ratings, and started quite the firestorm on social media when it aired on February 5.

While the special touched on the family’s dynamic, it failed to answer many viewers’ questions. ...

“We felt like our family’s story was worth telling,” Chad explained. “We know there are many ‘modern families’ out there, especially ones that aren’t defined by patriarchy and monogamy, and we wanted to be a part of starting those conversations for people who may have never seen a family like this before.”

Chad said that, naturally, most people want to know about the sexual dynamic of his marriage.

“I think it’s easy to over-sexualize our relationship because of the unique makeup of it,” Chad told The Ashley. “We are probably much more boring than you think!”

Chad answered more of the frequently asked questions he’s been getting since ‘Brother Husbands’ aired.

Q: Who’s having sex in the family? Are you and Jeremy having sex together, as well as with Amanda?

Chad: Jeremy and I do not have a sexual relationship with one another! Jeremy has his own relationship with Amanda as do I.

Q: Isn’t it weird to know that some other guy is having sex with your wife?

Chad: When we are all in a good spot and trusting and communicating well, I can honestly say, no it doesn’t [feel weird]. It’s a choice we all made. It doesn’t mean it’s always easy….but I love and trust them. I don’t feel threatened by love.

Q: Do you consider yourself married to both Amanda and Jeremy? Or just Amanda?

Chad: I consider Jeremy my co-husband. We clearly are a family unit and my relationship with him matters just as much to me as my relationship with Amanda. They just are very different relationships. I would recommend the book Sex at Dawn. I especially look to that book as the template for how I operate within my family. ...

In the meantime, you can follow along with Chad and his family on social media at @BrotherHubsChad on Twitter and @brotherhusbandchad on Instagram.

● More backstory, at Independent Review Journal: Man Admits to Best Friend He’s in Love with His Wife. Nothing Could Have Prepared Him for the Reply (Feb. 23):

Amanda Liston and her husband, Chad, both come from conservative and religious families.

The couple has been in a relationship for eight years and they married when Amanda was only 18 and Chad was 21. Together they have two sons, Atreyu and Cassian.

Amanda explained on TLC's new show, “Brother Husbands,” that the pair considered themselves traditional up to that point:

“We went to the same church, our families were friends with each other, so we kind of had that small town Americana love story—boy meets girl, they get married young, they have kids young. My family life was the definition of traditional.”

That all changed four years after they got married, when Chad met a man named Jeremy. Both Chad and Jeremy worked at the church together and they eventually became best friends.

...Then, Jeremy fell in love with Amanda. He admitted on the show:

“When I first realized that I had feeling for my best friend's wife, I knew that it was just something that I had to deal with. The more time I spent with Amanda, the more I realized what an amazing person she is and I just started to fall in love with her.”

Wanting to come clean to his best friend, Jeremy told Chad that he had feelings for his wife.

Chad was not expecting this. He revealed on the show,

“I did not expect what [Jeremy] said to come out of his mouth. He understood what Amanda and I were and what our family was—he wanted to join that. It did feel in a lot of ways that my entire foundation had been out from underneath me.”

Chad's reaction, however, wasn't what anyone expected, and it wasn't what he expected either. Instead of lashing out, he found a way to deal with the new love triangle and formed a relationship that included all three of them....

● Here's the Brother Husbands site, where you can watch for free if you get TLC. Or pay to watch on YouTube (from $1.99).

[Permalink]

New Poly Reality Show! Pilot for "Brother Husbands" airs on TLC

Did this catch you by surprise? It did me.  (I was at Poly Living East all weekend and am writing this on the train home.) The show is a one-hour pilot for what may or may not become a series. It's been in the works a long time and airs tonight (Sunday February 5) at 10 p.m. Eastern time, 9 Central.

 

Brother Husbands, a show about a woman who is married to two men, will be premiering on TLC this evening (Sunday, Feb. 5, 2017). The show centers on a woman named Amanda Liston, who has married two men: Chad Ferris and Jeremy Johnston.

The show will be on after the TLC hit Sister Wives, and while it is about a polyamorous family, the two shows are very different. While Sister Wives features a very conservative Mormon family, the Brother Husbands family is not at all religious. They are a modern liberal family.

Chad Ferris was the first guy that Amanda Liston married. According to Ashley's Reality Roundup, the two got married on MTV's Engaged and Underage in 2007. The couple has been on several reality TV shows, including TBS' King of the Nerds.

Ferris and Liston have two children together. Liston also has three children with her other husband.

In some situations, Chad Ferris uses Amanda's last name and goes by Chad Liston. Many online have questioned whether he was gay, so in a comment to Starcasm, Ferris discussed the personal details of his sexuality:

"I am bisexual. Jeremy is straight. To clear up the confusion. We are all emotionally committed and connected. But I only have a sexual relationship with amanda, and jeremy and Amanda's is there own as well."

Ferris says that Amanda Liston is the head of the household while he and Jeremy Johnston take care of the kids. He seems to enjoy showing his lifestyle to the world and clearing up misconceptions.

The family is clearly a young, hipster millennial family. According to Ferris, Amanda Lipton works, and he and Jeremy Johnston take care of the kids. Ferris is a cat lover, and appears to have recently gotten a puppy.

While Ferris takes care of the kids, Liston works as a "book blogger" and makes clothing and costumes. She also has an Etsy store. Together, the famiily is into sci-fi movies and books, and Comic-Con.

Chad Ferris and Amanda Liston were married for several years before they added Jeremy Johnston to the relationship. Based on her statements, it appears that she got married to Johnston around 2015...

The article, at the entertainment mag Empty Lighthouse, includes links to three more about the three characters (Feb. 5, 2017).


● Another, on She Knows: Brother Husbands Is the New Sister Wives, Except Way, Way Better. With slideshow. (Feb. 2, 2017):

By Christina Marfice

For anyone who has watched Sister Wives and thought (correctly) "This show is a sexist mess," TLC just showed up. Brother Husbands is coming, and yes, it is exactly what it sounds like.

...The show's official description is vague, but wonderful. "Amanda has a very full love life with not one, but two husbands, and navigates a polyamorous relationship with both of them and their five children." I love this show already....

I don't get TLC, and anyway I'll still be on the train at 10 p.m. If you watch it, could you post your opinions in the comments?

--------------------------------------

Updates next day:

● You can watch the full episode for free if you're a TLC subscriber, or pay to watch on YouTube.

● Why did TLC air a pilot show opposite the Superbowl?! Maybe that's why there's so little commentary on the web today. An exception is this piece on SheKnows: The Pros and Cons of Two Husbands, as Learned From Brother Husbands (Feb. 6). The first two-thirds of it:

By Sarah Aswell

...I just finished watching the one-time special... and I think I have a better idea of the pros and cons of polyamory on a day-to-day basis.

Pro: Oh, the extra child care and housekeeping!

...Amanda is a paralegal working for the government, while Chad and Jeremy both stay at home looking after the kids and caring for the house. I must say that I was intrigued by the idea of having multiple men cooking and cleaning for me in between endlessly bottle-feeding triplets and roughhousing with the older boys. At one point, Amanda returns from her tough workday to sit in front of a lovely dinner and a glass of wine. Yes, please.

Con: Oh, lots more children!

On the downside, as on Sister Wives, polyamory seems to have led to having a lot of children running around. While all of their children are adorable, and while children are just wonderful, it looks like a lot of work (and a lot of diapers) even for three parents to handle.

Pro: More mothers-in-law

During one segment, Jeremy’s mom comes to meet the triplets and spread grandma love. She’s head over heels for the new babies and absolutely adorable as she meets each one of the three new baby girls. She also puts aside all of her prejudices and really tries to understand her child’s lifestyle and accept her kid’s brother husband. More people can equal more love!

Con: More mother-in-law drama

Of course, having more family members also means dealing with more family drama. Several family members have bowed out of the trio’s life, and Jeremy’s mom can’t help but mention her wish for the family to get paternity tests for the triplets and also can’t hide that she’s a bit uncomfortable with the nontraditional turn her son’s life has taken. I can’t help but wonder if Thanksgiving isn’t going to be even more complicated than before.

Pro: The kids have tons of support

It was heartwarming to see the two dads joining forces to care for all five kids, with only a little territorial scuffle every now and then. And it’s a good thing because it was a little stressful even watching them care for three tiny infants plus two rowdy boys.

Con: The kids stand out a bit at school

One segment focused on a parent-teacher meeting in which the family came out as polyamorous to their oldest child’s teacher. While the teacher was welcoming, she was a little worried about how the other children in the class would react. However, there was no evidence of bullying or teasing, at least at that age....

[Permalink]