A woman who is having an affair with a man in an open marriage says her extramarital relationship meets her sexual needs.
Rachel*, 35, from Glasgow, has been happily married for 10 years to a man who is “quite a lot older” than her.
However, she says: “He doesn’t have much of a sex drive, in fact I would go as far as to say he is asexual.
“For him the marriage is fine, as he likes the companionship and friendship it provides. But I have a much higher sex drive, and I like to be open about gender and about my sexuality.”
About six years into her marriage, Rachel started getting closer to a man she knew through work.
“We had known each other for ages and initially it was an emotional affair. We chatted lots, about everything and then we would meet up at work events that we both had to go to,” she explained.
But one night, the pair took their relationship to the next level and slept together.
“It was incredible. We had sex for eight hours straight. It was absolutely mind blowing,” she said.
From that night onwards the pair were engaged in an affair, which Rachel says took “a lot of communicating.
“We’d both be in different places and worked away a lot, so if one of us was travelling, the other would arrange to meet in the same place.”
She added throughout the affair, the pair agreed neither of them would leave their spouses.
“It was a great friendship and something we both needed, but we spoke about it and agreed neither of us believed in monogamy,” Rachel said.
After about 18 months of incognito dating, the pair parted ways after Rachel started meeting her lover’s wife, who he invited to a few functions.
She said: “They were starting to talk about having children and that has always been an issue for me. I have never wanted to break up someone’s family.”
Despite calling it a day on their affair, Rachel says she’s still on good terms with her former lover.
Then, last year, a few months into the pandemic, Rachel found it harder to meet new people as travelling with her job began to dry up - so she joined Ashley Madison, a dating site for people who are married or in relationships.
“I went on there with no expectations whatsoever. I just gave a very detailed description of how I looked and what I liked and I made it very clear I didn’t want my situation or anyone else’s to change,” she said.
Shortly after joining the site, Rachel says she was contacted by a man who wanted to get to know her.
“He very clearly explained he was married and didn’t want that to change, but he was interested in meeting me,” she said.
After chatting on the phone, Rachel realised she had plenty in common with the potential love interest and arranged to meet him for a coffee.
When their initial meeting also went well, they met again later on for drinks. That was when the new love interest dropped a bombshell.
“He asked me to go back to his house and meet his wife. He said he was in an open marriage and his wife knew we were meeting,” she explained.
When Rachel arrived at the big countryside house he shared with his wife, she was making dinner at the stove.
“He led me into the dining room and we sat down. He introduced me to his wife and she said, ‘You’ll be really good for him, I would have chosen you for him’.
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“I was really chuffed she said that,” Rachel said.
The husband then explained he only wanted one girlfriend outside of the marriage, rather than a casual arrangement with lots of people - but Rachel added she made it clear she only wanted to be romantically involved with him.
Now, Rachel has been involved with her lover for over a year - and her husband has no idea about her extracurricular activities.
“It’s all going smoothly, but at first there was an element of control on their part as they are very structured in how they work. They wanted to know my work schedule and I wasn’t keen on that.
“One of the biggest challenges was that they were concerned if I had a relationship with someone else. I do feel he’d be quite upset if I had another partner.”
She added the key to maintaining the affair is “strong communication” to make sure boundaries are set.
“If I’m going away for a weekend I’ll tell him I’ll be out of contact. Once I said I was away and he asked me if I was meeting someone else.
“I told him he wasn’t to ask me that again.”
However, for the most part Rachel enjoys spending time with her lover - and gets along with his wife too.
“I can openly speak to them about my marriage and tell them about how it’s going. They can give me relationship advice and it’s very helpful.
“They’ve helped me work out how to approach conversations with him. It’s positive to get some outside input from people who aren’t within my friendship or family bubble and there are no preconceptions there.”
Rachel's name has been changed
