Military camps, malaria and dysentery: How ‘a naive couple’ tested their love

TV producer PJ Madam, 45, and her 43-year-old partner, Tim Noonan, a documentary-maker, put their relationship to the ultimate test. Now she stays home with their two sons (five years and 10 months) while he creates TV shows.

PJ: Last night, Tim asked me if we’ll ever have sex again. I was breastfeeding at the time. I wondered, is it a male thing, needing physicality to feel the love? I need to feel the love to be physical. I need a good night’s sleep and a bit of quiet, then I might be in the mood. We’ve worked hard at our relationship and I’m embarrassed to wonder, “Oh, my god, after everything, are we going to lose each other through the chaos of parenthood?”

We met as reporters on Sunday Night at Channel 7 in 2013. There was an attraction, but I mostly loved how hard he worked. Maybe it’s an in-built evolutionary thing: he’s going to be hunting for me forever. I could see he was a solid person – stable, honest – but I’d been ­married before and I was wary; I carried a huge amount of shame.

After a couple of years, Tim decided we needed to explain our relationship to my parents; the next minute, we’re in a car with them. Tim said, “Pull over at the nearest pub, Mr and Mrs Madam, we need to talk to you. I want to be with your daughter forever.” It went so well that now I think they favour him over me! Like me, they saw a man of honour, big on telling the truth; it unlocked a lot of trust.

‘We walked in infatuated, wearing rose-coloured glasses, and walked out with battle scars, able to deal with anything.’

PJ Madam

In 2016, we came up with a plan to explore relationships in remote cultures and film it as a reality show; we were the investigators. Netflix went for it; it was called Extreme Engagement. We lived with tribes in eight ­countries, including Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, Cameroon, Brazil, travelling together and ­seeing if we could make it as a couple. It was unimaginably testing.

Trekking in Mongolia in minus 40 degrees, getting malaria and dysentery and filming it all, including our fights. We shattered the novelty of the relationship. We walked in infatuated, wearing rose-coloured glasses, and walked out with battle scars, able to deal with anything.

I’ve been a feminist my whole life but, at the moment, Tim and I find ourselves in very ­gendered positions: he’s working flat-out on his show, Hunt For Truth: Tasmanian Tiger [on SBS On Demand]. I love watching him interview people, humanise them, embrace their uniqueness; he’s demonstrating how I want our world to be. At the same time, the spheres have moved for me: my body, thoughts, ­emotions are for the kids, not for us as a ­couple. It’s confronting, but I’m also relishing being a mum. I have endometriosis and wasn’t sure I’d have children.

Tim goes deep quickly. We’re having breakfast and, suddenly, he’ll ask what life is all about. There are still surprises: he’ll decide we need a holiday and the next day we’re on a flight. And the sex stuff: the penny dropped for me there. He’s telling me what he needs. It’s a flag. Life’s messy, but maybe I want it to be. On my deathbed, I want to look back and think, I lived. I have that with Tim.

Tim: I was always searching for my soulmate, The One. I knew it was PJ as soon as she sat down next to me at work. When I was with her for the first time in bed, it was like an atom had exploded inside me. It was the most euphoric feeling I’d ever experienced. I’d lived a lot, travelled the world, got a lot out of my system. But in that moment I felt, “I’ve experienced true love. I can die happy now.”

‘We were slingshotted into this really intense, extreme experience; it was like going to war and back.’

Tim Noonan

Of course, she’s beautiful, intelligent and we could have incredible conversations, but it was more that she allowed me to be my true self. In every other relationship I’d been in, I’d been accused of being selfish when I went off travelling for work. PJ was excited for me: she kicked me out the door to chase my dreams. For me, there was no doubt we should get married. In 2015, I got down on one knee in New York and she said yes. Then, on the plane home, she took off the ring and said, “I can’t wear this.” I was heartbroken. I thought love conquered all, but it was more messy for her. She harboured a sense of failure about her first marriage; it made her doubt her ability to make decisions.

While filming Extreme Engagement, we were slingshotted into this really intense, extreme experience; it was like going to war and back. We crammed 10 years of arguments into one year – and filmed it. Our first port of call was Cameroon. I’d hoped PJ’s first time in Africa would be a romantic adventure, seeing animals in an incredible national park but, in the first 24 hours alone, we were closed in by a desert storm and ended up in a military camp flanked by armed guards. It was dangerous for PJ to head into the bush alone to go to the toilet, so we squatted in the scrub together. It set the stage: nothing was off-limits. We started as a naive couple ­infatuated with the idea of being together; we came out more mature and worldly.

We’ve had a few sessions with a counsellor at tough moments over the years. He helped me puncture an idealised view of marriage and ­accept that PJ is committed just by being there. Towards the end of the TV series we were in PNG, sitting in a canoe, trying to catch a shark, which is the traditional way to celebrate a ­village wedding. It all went wrong and we sank the boat. Sitting in the water, I had a light bulb moment. My obsession with getting married seemed silly: what other girl would still be there? What further proof of love did I need?

PJ says she’s not a perfectionist, but I see her trying to perfect motherhood. Everything needs to be scheduled; I’m more free-flowing. I was always paranoid about giving in to ­routine, the white picket fence and all that. Out in the tribes, they’re not clock-watching, saying the baby needs to nap. Maybe one day we’ll have the guts to go back out into the wild and live the road less travelled.

I think life is for personal growth; we’re here to experience the most we possibly can, good and bad, highs and lows. Together, PJ and I are pushing life to its limits.

twoofus@goodweekend.com.au

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