Me, my husband and our many lovers: inside our open marriage

Times

2 days ago

I'm in my thirties and an author. My real name is the one I usually write under. You may have read my books while tackling the humdrum morning commute to work. They are historical fiction about romance in a century long past. In my normal life, I wear Reiss clothing and buy cushions from John Lewis. I'm also in an open marriage. Some nights, I dress up in black tie and go to elite sex parties.
My husband and I have regular encounters with others: couples, single women and men. We engage in orgies and trysts all over the world. It's a hobby, a vibrant extension of our already full lives, like the time I smiled at a drop-dead gorgeous guy at a party in Mayfair who followed me to the toilets, pushed me against the wall and kissed me, slipping his hands under my dress. The delicious feeling of being wanted, and of wanting, is something addictive and hard to let go of.
Words like polyamory, polycule (a network of people involved in sexual relationships) and throuple seem to be everywhere. Non-monogamous sex is suddenly on TV, both in the plotlines of dramas such as The Couple Next Door and reality shows. It's in buzzy confessional memoirs and being spoken about by Gillian Anderson. One study by the Kinsey Institute and Feeld found that 24 per cent of millennials like me have expressed a preference for ethical non-monogamy. While another survey found that 95 per cent of men and 87 per cent of women have fantasised about a threesome, though only about 18 per cent of men and 10 per cent of women have had one.
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Richard and I used to be like any regular couple. If you saw us wandering through Borough Market in London, comfortable and in sync, you'd never guess our secret. We met at a redbrick university in the north of England and for ten years we were really happy with our lives as they were.
When I first saw him in a bar, he was kissing my university flatmate. He was tall, with jet black hair and a slow smile. I found him attractive, feeling a twinge of jealousy that she'd found him first. At 21 I'd only had sex once, with a guy who'd been kind and handsome, but our sexual encounter was over almost as soon as it began and I'd been disappointed, wondering if it even counted as losing my virginity.
Weeks later, when their brief fling was over, he kissed me on the dancefloor on St Patrick's Day after numerous pints of Guinness. We still joke that without it, our love story might never have begun.
So far, so conventional. Post-university, his job took him abroad; my master's kept me in London. We spanned continents, speaking daily via Skype. I wrote my first novel, he built his new life abroad and then I joined him. We came back to the UK to marry and I dreamt of a life in the countryside — a stone house scattered with children's belongings, maybe a dog.
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We found the house — a cottage with roses round the door — but a baby wasn't as forthcoming. Despite my husband's caution, I told everyone we were trying. But as the months slipped by, turning to years, the happy-go-lucky mask I'd always worn began to slip. I became impatient, frustrated, envious of the friends who were conceiving all around me.
Sex became a means to an end. I kept an ovulation chart in my desk drawer, taking my temperature and pouncing on Richard when my cervix was open. Doctors poked, prodded and scanned me, and there was no conclusive medical reason that I wasn't getting pregnant. Our next step was IVF, but the cost and strain felt overwhelming.
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Over time, desire itself vanished. Richard expresses his love through touch, and my aversion to it felt like a rejection of him. I'd look at him and still find him attractive, but I just couldn't face sex. Bedtime became a source of dread.
I remember one night, he reached for me. As I made an excuse, familiar disappointment flickered across his face before he turned out the light, and guilt washed over me. So I reached for him in the dark but, sensing my pity, he pushed me away. I lay awake for hours afterwards, worried I'd broken us and knowing something needed to change.
I tried to find a way back to my body, taking long baths followed by hesitant masturbation. Initially, I felt numb, almost resentful. But with persistence, sensation returned, followed by fantasies. Long-dormant images resurfaced, many featuring women: intense feelings for my schoolfriend; a fantasy of being a maid seduced by an older couple.
These desires hinted at a part of myself I'd never fully acknowledged, a potential attraction to women that had always lingered beneath the surface of my heterosexual experiences. The intensity of these feelings surprised me.
Did I like women? I told my husband what I was feeling even though I was concerned that, with one confession, I might wipe out our ordinary life. Yet his response was one of curiosity and a deep desire for my happiness. He suggested that exploring these feelings, rather than suppressing them, might ease the pressure in our relationship. For him, seeing me struggle for years over failed pregnancy tests had been difficult, and he hoped this might bring me some relief.
We discussed having a threesome. Over the next few weeks, the thought nagged at me, and I couldn't help feeling excited as well as terrified. Maybe this would be the thing to reignite the excitement we used to share when travelling the world, when our life wasn't so consumed with the idea of a baby.
So over a glass of wine, we set up a dating profile on the alternative dating app Feeld, where people go to look for things conventional dating sites might not offer. Now I see the people who search for fulfilment of their deepest desires as brave, but then it felt as if we were entering a realm of people I didn't understand and frankly I found their penchant for whips, chains and orgies overwhelming.
I typed the bio, being the writer. 'We are looking for a third, a woman, to join us.' We used decoy jobs and fake names, terrified of being seen by anyone we knew. We searched for likely candidates on the sofa in the evenings while watching cooking programmes.
Weeks later, we found V. We met her at a Sheffield shopping centre on a mundane Tuesday afternoon. Among shoppers, we crossed the motorway to a Travelodge. I didn't fancy her at first. Nervous jokes in the lift preceded the sudden intimacy of the hotel room. What-ifs rose up and I was afraid: would this break us? What if I felt jealous? What if our reactions differed? It felt like a significant gamble.
I looked around the drab hotel room, the mundanity of the small kettle, tea set and the clinical bathroom making me wonder what the hell we were doing here. I'd imagined a glamorous suite above the city, a context suited to a transcendental experience. I wondered how to voice the fact I'd changed my mind. Luckily, V took control: leading me to the bed and kissing me. It felt like cocktails in the sun, like coming home, like a door opening to a new place. When she kissed my husband, I searched myself for jealousy but found only fascination at this new thing. Watching them, I felt a strange pride in him, a sense of ownership, empowered by facilitating this shared pleasure. For him, it was a release, a physical reconnection free from the weight of expectation.
After that, we didn't look back. We attended our first party and had sex with another couple in a cage. Everyone wore masks until 11pm and the setting was sultry, glamorous and everything that had been missing from our first encounter. The feeling of escaping the real world into a beautiful, sexy environment is a crucial part of our extracurricular activities for me.
There was the time we met another couple in a club in London who were going to Ibiza the next day. They invited us to come with them and we did, spending four sun-soaked days having fun on beaches, on boats, in hotel rooms. The vibe between us all felt amazing — until we arrived home and found they'd blocked us. We'll never know the reason, and commiserated together. We'd read about ghosting but hadn't experienced it until then.
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I've gained profound self-knowledge and confidence, reconnecting with my body and, perhaps for the first time, considering my own desires, not just pleasing a partner. Unlike conventional narratives of non-monogamy, we are united, side by side on this adventure, simultaneously supported and free.
This path isn't for every marriage; it demands unwavering foundations and open communication. Every time we attend a party or meet others we are entering dangerous territory, and it requires constant effort and honesty. I will tell my husband when I like someone — talking about it can be part of the fun. I don't harbour secret fantasies and neither does he. We are honest about everything, perhaps more than most people reading this, and that honesty spreads to the rest of our lives. Putting our marriage at risk repeatedly reinforces our primary bond, as we actively choose each other as the one we commit to, despite playing with others.
My mum was the one to notice the change in me. Once, she asked me what me and Richard were on, because she wanted some of it. She could see that whatever was happening was making us stronger.
My parents are (as far as I know) in a conventional marriage, and my own childhood was anchored in their loving, near-perfect bond. On a girls' shopping trip with my mum, I decided to tell her over lunch at the Ivy.
Obviously, I was nervous. My relationship with both my parents is uncomplicated, supportive and incredible, and my admission had the capacity to destroy that. Mum asked lots of questions, interested in the specifics of how things worked and the logistics more than anything. I answered all of them. She told me that as long as I was happy, that was all that mattered. She said it all sounded rather fun (for me). On the way home, she sent me a message that simply said go forth and conquer the world.
My dad still doesn't know. He is a traditional man who believes in marriage and God. I think he'd want to understand, but our relationship has a purity that I can't quantify, and I don't want to take the risk.
Sometimes there are nights when it feels like we're living inside a glamorous movie. But there are other times when we've had fun at a party and he wants the night to continue. I have been known to sneak back to our room in the hotel and watch QI and then go back and join him later, or simply go to bed.
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We can read each other much better now, as often we have to work out what the other is thinking when we are in company. And I've learnt to be more forthright and not just go along with things, which has helped me be more direct in the rest of my life.
I often wonder what that dreamy girl at university would make of the love she's found. I used to think love was adoration and self-surrender. Now, I believe it's wanting the best for your partner, choosing them above all others, except for yourself. It's a love that is empowering. I have no idea how we will evolve, but I'm definitely here for the ride.
Me, You, Them: A Memoir of Modern Love by Evie Sage (Michael Joseph, £20). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
Names have been changed