When Cynthia got divorced at 47 — after almost three decades of “loyalty and commitment” — she had some *things* on her bucket list that she “needed to explore”.
“I’d say I had an oppressed childhood, my mother was very strict and controlling, and then I got married at 19 to the first guy I’d ever dated who was also very controlling,” she told Mamamia.
“I never went through that rebellion stage that most teenagers go through. Or the experimentation stage. I really didn’t have the opportunity to do what I wanted to do, and do the foolish things.”
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It wasn’t until the mother of five left her husband in 2005 that she learned “the world doesn’t come to an end if you do something crazy”.
“You can adapt and learn things about yourself and about other people,” she said, “and what their and your needs are.”
And for the now 65-year-old — her needs are very specific.
Once or twice a month she and her second husband invite a new friend into their home for Cynthia to have sex with. It’s an arrangement that’s been working for the couple for the past 16 years, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘We chose to keep our lifestyle open’.
After meeting on an adult friend finders website in 2007, the couple’s open relationship “gelled in a way that other relationships weren’t gelling” and they moved in together a few months later.
“We sat down and had the tough conversation about whether we would stop and go monogamous, or keep our lifestyle open,” she said. “And we chose the latter.”
Now they use Ashely Madison, the world’s leading married dating site, to find new people. Together, Cynthia and her husband will meet men out in public before inviting them over. This is to ensure everything is “aboveboard”.
“It helps just to get them comfortable with the situation and so they get the gist of the solidity of my relationship with my husband,” she explained, adding that her husband — who is 70 — isn’t involved in any sexual activity, but there is a “three-way communication”.
“There are no secrets, there is no pillow talk and there is nothing I would do that my husband wouldn’t know about.”
The Stag and Vixen.
While they’ve both tried the sex party scene, Cynthia and her husband prefer to bring their new friends home with them. However, it’s only Cynthia who has sex with them.
Now you might make the assumption that it’s wild and kinky, but for Cynthia it’s “just the act of being with someone else”.
“It's not so much fantasy or fetishes or anything, it’s just very normal sex,” she told Mamamia. “And then when we're done, we have a few minutes of chatting or cuddling before they get up and go speak with my husband for a few minutes before leaving.
Afterward, Cynthia and her husband will talk about what happened before having their own “fun”. It’s a move she called ‘the stag and vixen’.
“It's kind of like when you see an older man with a younger woman and she’s his ‘trophy bride’,” she said. “He's got this good looking woman on his arm and he's very proud of her.
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“It’s kind of like that with the ‘stag and vixen’ in that there is a man who's very proud of his sexy looking wife and he's willing to share her and gets an element of reward from knowing that that's his wife who man are having sex with.”
An added element is that most of the men Cynthia sleeps with are 10 years younger than her.
“Age doesn’t really matter to be but by and large it is usually fellows that are younger and they’ve got a little more stamina,” the 65-year-old said. “They’re a little more interested in my knowledge and just communicating with someone a little older is different for them.
“We’re connected but not emotionally, it’s more of a sexual connection.”
Keeping the secret.
When it comes to Cynthia’s ‘friends’, she explained that most of them are in relationships themselves but are “unfulfilled”.
“Usually there's something going on in their relationship — whether the wife has lost interest or has a physical issue where she can't have sex — and men just need to fulfill their needs,” she said.
“Most of them are happily married, there’s just that one element of their life that's missing, and rather than go out and cheat with a bunch of different people, they just need someone to fulfill that need.”
When it comes to whether or not the men tell their girlfriends or wives about their situation with Cynthia, it differs from person to person.
“Some of their partners do know,” Cynthia said. “I've had friends whose partners know what their needs are and have just said, ‘Go find what you need but don’t keep it a secret from me,’ while for others it is a secret.
“We have one fellow we've been friends with for probably 12 to 14 years. He’s happily married and has no intention of ever leaving his wife, but she's not interested in having sex anymore and he isn't ready to quit having sex.
“So in order to keep the marriage together, he’s got committed friends that he has sex with. His wife doesn’t know about it, but without that, he'd have been divorced years ago.”
‘It brings us closer’.
Cynthia is clear that an open relationship is “not for everyone.”
“You have to be very open-minded and willing to communicate at all times about very intimate things,” she explained. “And if the marriage is not good, it’s not going to save it.
“My husband and I have no secrets from each other. He knows what my fantasies are, he knows what my buttons are, I know his, and we use that to make our own relationship better.”
She added that a lot of people might also feel threatened if their partner was to speak up about what they really wanted if it was something “out of the normal”.
“That person then never gets to satisfy their curiosity or their fantasy or their need,” she said, “because they know that their partner has drawn that line. So they never get to experience it and then it becomes almost more potent because they can't have it.
“It's like the forbidden candy and when you know you can't have something, then it's all you can think about.”
Marriage as a contract.
For Cynthia and her husband, they believe a marriage should be more like a contract.
“If you're in business, you always have reviews — annually or semi-annually — and you review your five year, 10 year and 15 year goals,” Cynthia said.
“I think marriage should be more like that where you have the conversation about ‘is this going the way I want it to go, what can we do to change it and how can we satisfy both people within this relationship’.
As for their open situation, Cynthia admits it’s not something that everyone can understand.
“I do have a few friends who know about it, but they just can't get their head around the fact that we don't have any jealousy issues,” she explained.
“But when you communicate about it as openly as we do, we don’t have any problems. I’ve seen my husband with other people, he’s seen me with other people, and we just always come back to each other.”
It’s been 16 years since Cynthia met her husband and since then she’s been with about two dozen men. But for the pair, “it always boils back to us”.
Image: Getty.
