Monica, 33

If anything, my affairs enrich our relationship. I feel more confident and sexy, and I bring that energy home

Since we met 11 years ago, Gracie has been making a running joke about opening up our relationship. She’s always said, “At some point, I want you to go out and sleep with other women. I’ll be at home waiting for you, sipping a cocktail.” I think she started making that joke because she was hyper-aware of our age gap. We got together when I was 22 and she was 33.

We have two children, and our fertility journey was difficult. Gracie carried our first child, but had a hard time conceiving. I carried our second, and the hormones sent me into prenatal depression. I am a butch lesbian, and I hated the femininity that pregnancy gave my body. We didn’t have sex once during my pregnancy, and I found it hard to look after our first child, but Gracie was understanding, kind and affectionate. Even though we weren’t sexually intimate, I still felt close to her.

Luckily, my hormones stabilised after giving birth, and I began to feel like a sexual being again. Before meeting Gracie, I had only had sex with one person, and that never used to bother me. But after that difficult period, I realised there was a part of me that wanted to experience those wild years when you sleep around and learn about yourself in the process. When our kids turned two and four and we had more breathing space, we returned to the idea of non-monogamy – but it was less of a joke this time. We made an action plan.

With Gracie’s blessing, I recently started seeing someone. There have been moments when my dates have made Gracie feel anxious, but our boundaries are strict: my emotional commitment is to Gracie and the children, so this extra relationship is almost purely physical. I never think about this other woman when I’m with Gracie. When you begin a relationship, you pour a lot of energy into fantasising about the future life you might have together – but because I am not looking for any future with this other woman, I don’t spend any time visualising that stuff, so it doesn’t distract from my focus on Gracie. If anything, it enriches our relationship. I feel more confident and sexy, and I bring that energy home.

So far, Gracie isn’t interested in meeting anyone else. She says she played the field in her 20s. But that may change. I almost hope it does, because then our arrangement would feel more equal.

Gracie, 44

I helped set up Monica’s dating profile, and initially found it very exciting

Monica and I met at work, and kept our relationship secret for a while, which was fun. I remember the excitement of dressing up for her every day. Once, I lifted up my skirt in the office to show her I was wearing stockings and a suspender belt. We would make out in a local graveyard during lunch breaks, or pull sickies on the same day and meet in my bedroom.

I felt embarrassed about our age gap at first. I told friends Monica was 25 – so when she actually did turn 25 three years later, it was awkward. I was only the second person Monica slept with, which is part of why I’m open to her having sex with other women.

My struggle to conceive was painful for us, and then Monica’s pregnancy was very hard. We had a few tough years, and now I want her to have all the fun that she didn’t get to have in her early 20s.

I helped set up Monica’s dating profile, and initially found it very exciting thinking about all these other women desiring my hot wife. But I’ve struggled a bit since Monica started actually having sex with someone else. I’m not a jealous person – it’s not like I’m at home tortured by the thought of her in bed with this other woman. On my good days, picturing that actively turns me on. But sometimes I go into an anxiety spiral and imagine Monica leaving me. I recently lost my job, and I don’t think I would feel this way if I was thriving in my career. I tend to get in my head and say to myself: you’re 44, you don’t know where your life is going, you will be abandoned!

Confiding in Monica about my anxieties has opened up a new, more vulnerable kind of communication between us. She reassures me that our family is the centre of her life, and this extra relationship is a kind of satellite orbiting around it.

I don’t have any urge to go out and find my own satellite, but I do have little crushes and fantasies. For now, I’m happy at home with my cocktail.