LOVE WORTH THE WORK: ON DEEPA PAUL’S DEBUT MEMOIR
words by SONNY NGO
In Ask Me How it Works: Love is an Open Marriage, Amsterdam-based author Deepa Paul reimagines marriage beyond the monogamous standard. Her debut memoir is a raw, witty, and courageous exploration of open love, cultural tension, and emotional growth told through the intimacy of anecdotes, and written with the self-knowledge of a manifesto.
In recalling a conversation with one of many lovers, she lays out a central idea in the book: there are two kinds of people in the world, robots and aliens. Robots follow the script, they get the nine to five job, marriage, kids and all. But the aliens? They know life doesn’t have to look like that. They are different, unconventional perhaps, but most of all open and curious. Paul’s stellar debut is about what it takes to live, and love, as an alien, and how hard and beautiful it can be to make that work.
photography by SAMIRA KAFALA
After a sensual night with Robert, Deepa cycles home through Amsterdam’s streets to Marcus, her husband of nearly 17 years. He is already in bed, half-asleep, but fully aware of Deepa’s evening activities. In a few hours, their daughter will wake them both, and they’ll have breakfast like any other family. This is part of their rhythm. Some days, Deepa will get ready for a date, while other nights Marcus is the one slipping out of the house for a casual connection. It’s all consensual, of course, but it requires planning, boundaries (rather than rules), and it wasn’t always like this.
Deepa had met Marcus as a teenager in the Philippines, where the expectations of love were far more traditional. Boys and girls were often separated in schools, divorce was, and still is, illegal, and monogamy was of a moral foundation and not viewed as a lifestyle choice. Somehow, the two grew towards each other anyway. For years, their marriage was going steady: she was a freelance copywriter and he was a corporate bureaucrat in Singapore. They fit the blueprint, until Deepa felt curiosity bubble beneath the surface.
When she first proposed the idea of opening up their marriage, Marcus was furious. “Go to a swingers’ club? Have sex with other people? We’re married! Married people don’t do that,” he snapped. The comment was sharp, and it was this initial reaction that led Deepa to drop the topic entirely, though internally her needs remained. In secret, the internet slowly became her space of possibility. She had email contact with other people through Craigslist. And one connection with Thomas, became a real-life affair squeezed into a few stolen hours. It was never meant to be discovered, so when it did, the marriage between Deepa and Marcus was make or break.
The fallout was inevitable. Marcus was devastated, and rage consumed him. To Deepa’s surprise, Marcus was willing to try again – if not for her, then for their daughter. They attended relationship therapy together, and their coach Amanda shifted the narrative. “Sometimes, we confuse the need as being good or bad,” she said, “when it’s actually the strategy we choose.” That reframing was an eye-opener, a rewiring of the brain that until then had been so strict in its categorisation of what is morally correct. Suddenly, it wasn’t about blame or morality, but about (sexual) needs and how we choose to meet them. So, they started to unlearn and re-learn. It took a while, with plenty of discussions and fights, but through intimate conversations and emotions laid bare, they decided to open up the marriage.
“Sometimes, we confuse the need as being good or bad when it’s actually the strategy we choose.”
With a daughter and busy schedules, it was vital to have a strong foundation with clear boundaries, full trust, and constant communication. How often can they meet up with other people? How do they keep up with the logistical load? Should they share details about their dates? And how would they explain this to their little daughter? As Deepa writes, it required “a lot of emotional housekeeping.” It essentially meant reprogramming themselves and the ways they were taught to live and love. To make it work, it demanded a profound understanding of their own feelings, each other’s feelings, and a reciprocal level of maturity and willingness to discuss vulnerabilities.
When it does get tough, emotions run high: jealousy, anger, and sadness all seem to storm in. One particular comment by Marcus cut Deepa like a knife, he described a night with a woman as “raw feminine energy,” which Deepa had interpreted as something she was lacking. It was hard going through those motions, but her writing is piercing in its emotional clarity: “At the heart of jealousy is a fear too great to be named; a fear of not being enough, of never being enough [...] All it wants is to feel safe and to know – to believe – that it is enough.” Communicating those feelings and seeking comfort and mutual understanding was key. Sailing through a storm is never easy, but going through the tempest together left their connection stronger than before, and the coming storms slightly easier to glide through.
Deepa’s prose is as composed as it is candid, ever-so sharp and clever. Descriptive storytelling meets tender pages, making it feel as if you are sitting with her on the sofa, asking her the very questions the book anticipates. The memoir is indeed divided by questions, each chapter answering them through anecdotal revelations. Her writing voices all that makes us human and the things that we are sometimes too afraid to admit, and that in itself is radical. Especially as a woman of colour with Filipino-Indian roots. There is something contradictory about her engaging with ethical non-monogamy, writing about it, let alone living it. It clashes with traditional values; it is messy, sensual, complex and then some. I can’t help but admire her for talking about it. She displays the beautiful moments in her marriage, but more courageously, she also showcases the other tough side of it: the therapy sessions, the fights, the cutthroat words of Marcus, and the many tears flowing throughout the years. If anything, the memoir is as much about open marriage as it is about rebellion and loving and choosing yourself. It is a book about carving out your own intergalactic space race and leaving robotic blueprints behind.
“An open marriage is not a magic wand that disappears the past, nor a free pass that excuses problematic behaviour. It cannot bridge fundamental divides or save a dying love. It is a new way of thinking, communicating, being and loving that requires a strong relationship to take it on, the way only climbers at the peak of their physical and mental fitness attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest.”
This is a memoir that belongs on the shelves of women-led book clubs (Ms. Prada, this one's for you), nestled beside the Simone De Beauvoirs and the Fumiko Enchis. Deepa, like the women in those pages, isn’t afraid to be contradictory, sentimental, and vulnerable. She embraces them, and challenges stereotypes and other preconceived notions in the process. She dares you to rethink your biases as well, but doesn’t necessarily ask you to agree with her. She instead dares you to ask why you don’t.
I think those traits are what makes Ask me How it Works so magnetic. In her many contradictions, Deepa does wrongs, but she also learns, lets go, and grows. She understands her mistakes and her human dimensions, as does Marcus. Their story isn’t about perfection, but about maturity and growth. Her writing isn’t a plea to love this way, but it’s a dare to ask better questions. Not only on how to make open relationships work, but also on how to look beyond traditional understanding of love in the first place. As she writes, it is to understand that, at least for her, “love can be felt for many, but lifelong loyalty belongs only to one.”
If robots find comfort in the traditional, then Deepa is busy exploring galaxies where intimacy, freedom, desires, insecurities, jealousy, needs, and most importantly, all shades of love, orbit freely. She isn’t here to change your mind on ethical non-monogamy, nor is she here to justify her choices. She simply shares who she is and the everyday reality of having an open relationship. Of course, there is something inherently political about a woman of colour choosing transparency, pleasure, and autonomy in a world that quietly punishes all three. That is not the book’s central thesis, but it hums in the background regardless, and for that I have to admire Deepa and her writing. If there is anything you take away from the book, let it be this poignant advice she received from a high school friend, “Life is hard, so choose the things that are worth the work.”
