Vinson (left) joined Kim and Dustin in their relationship after they opened up about their 11-year marriage last year. Courtesy of TLC
- Kim, 37, and Dustin, 42, have been married for 11 years and opened up about their marriage last year.
- In TLC’s upcoming series Seeking Brother Husband, they reveal their relationship with Vinson, who dates Kim but not Dustin.
- They said opening up about their relationship was a challenge, mostly because others were judging their decision.
Kim loves Dustin, her husband, and Vinson, her boyfriend, and that’s why she wants to find another partner.
A year ago, Kim and Dustin decided to open their marriage, specifically looking for another man. When Kim fell in love with Vinson, whom she met through a mutual friend, they decided to become a family unit along with her husband. Their elementary school-age children play together, and Dustin and Vinson have become friends. Kim has a sexual relationship with both men.
Her story is featured on the TLC series Seeking Brother Husband, in which married women seek dates and marry men in addition to their first husbands. On the show, the partners struggle with jealousy, confused and unsupportive family members, and lots of awkward conversations about polyamory.
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In the first episode, Kim, a teacher, and Dustin, a massage therapist, already have a connection with Vinson. But Vinson is wary of bringing a third man into their dynamic, which they face on the show.
Insider caught up with Kim and Dustin, who said they’re nervous but excited about participating in the TLC series because they haven’t publicly shared their open relationship until now.
“We’ve always worn our hearts on our sleeves, so we were like, ‘Hey, let’s do this thing,'” Kim told Insider.
She said she hopes showing her authentic relationships with Dustin and Vinson can help others who are considering non-monogamous relationships.
They opened up their marriage to grow emotionally and sexually
Ever since Kim and Dustin started dating in their 20s, they’ve loved to talk about attraction and how it can exist, even outside of marriage, Kim said.
When Kim pointed out another man she found hot, or Dustin did the same thing with a woman, neither of them got upset because they were confident in their connection, she said. Still, they didn’t talk about opening up about their marriage until they hit the 10-year mark.
“If you had told me early in our relationship that we would be here, I would have had trouble believing it,” Kim told Insider. She said this founding period prepared her for the transition to polyamory.
Dustin said he and Kim have always been invested in each other’s individual spiritual growth, which for her includes sexual and emotional growth. Jumping into an open relationship felt like a way “to expand and experience life,” Dustin said.
Kim said opening up about their relationship made her already great sex life even more vibrant.
“When we feel safe to express our sensuality in any way we can, it helps us be even more sensual with each other,” Kim told Insider.
Kim wants to date more men, but Vinson worries it could hurt their relationship
When Kim met Vinson a year ago, she said they had an “instant” connection. On the show, Vinson, 36, said he met Kim after struggling with shame over “two failed marriages”. She saw the best in him when he couldn’t, he said on the show.
According to Kim, the beginning of her relationship with Vinson was intense and overwhelming due to their longstanding religious guilt. Kim said she grew up in an evangelical Christian church and was taught it was shameful to be with more than one partner.
During the show’s first episode, Vinson and Dustin both say they unexpectedly formed a close non-sexual bond over their genuine love for Kim. Dustin said he’s open to Kim adding more partners to their family unit and said he wants her to experience as much of life as possible.
Kim and Dustin currently have a home raising their 7-year-old son while Vinson lives alone with children from a previous marriage.
“I think in a way we’re all mirrors of each other, and to learn more about who we are through other people I think is an incredible opportunity,” Dustin told Insider. He said he’s learned to have more compassion for himself as he navigates this new phase of life.
But Vinson said he felt like he was pulling out of the relationship because he was unsure whether Kim would date outside of him and Dustin, as he was already struggling with being the second male partner in their dynamic.
“My biggest problem is accepting where I fit into that dynamic,” Vinson tells Kim and Dustin in the first episode.
What are “brother husbands”?
Seeking Brother Husband comes 13 years after the hit TLC series Sister Wives, about a multi-wife husband, which premiered in September 2010. is not rooted in religious beliefs.
On the show, not all men are legally married to their partners. That’s because bigamy, or marrying someone who is already married to someone else, is a federal crime, although certain states have minimal impact on participation. In Utah, for example, someone who practices bigamy could be fined but will not serve time in prison.
In the first episode of Seeking Brother Husband, the focus is on Kim dating other partners. But Kim said she’s open to Dustin dating other women, and he has in the past.
“We’ve always been an equal relationship. Everything is 50/50. Anything I can do, he can do, so if I date, Dustin dates too,” Kim told Insider.
One of the hardest parts of opening up was telling the family
In preparation for the premiere of Seeking Brother Husband, Kim and Dustin opened up about their open marriage to their families and began posting more about it on social media.
Until joining the show, Kim and Dustin kept their lifestyle private, only telling close friends and friendly couples in open relationships, Dustin said. He said he’s kept a low profile since filming the show and is worried about what viewers will say on social media once the show airs.
Regardless of outside comment, he said he was proud of himself and Kim. In fact, some of Dustin’s colleagues first shared about their own open relationships after seeing Dustin share his online, he said.
“I’ve been given a chance to love myself on a deeper level and appreciate who I am and the courage I have. I mean, once you’ve done something like that, it doesn’t scare you much anymore,” he said.
Seeking Brother Husband premieres Sunday, March 26 at 10:00 p.m. EST on TLC and Discovery Plus.
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