'How my husband's cheating lead to us having a polyamorous relationship'

I went the non-traditional route. I married the man I had loved since I was a teenager at Home Affairs, without our families. We had been engaged for two years, together for seven, but I had loved him since I’d laid eyes on him when I was 15. I believed I always would.

Our life had not been easy and it had also been wonderful. It was the kind of relationship that seems all too common in many people’s late twenties. A sort of mad, “what the hell are you doing together?” relationship with meteoric highs, and vertigo-inducing lows. I had very low self-worth and he was a philanderer. Neither of these facts was addressed, but we loved each other fiercely. We figured we would figure it out. We did, in the end.

The philandering was handled by bringing it into the open. The lying was as big an issue as the transgressions. My husband began to reveal his affairs and, while I worked very hard to conquer my roiling jealousy, I didn’t make much progress.

Years later, I met Himself. It was a slow-burning romance that I didn’t see coming, a tiny miracle. I have never had the desire to have fleeting encounters, and so I brought my nervous, tentative new feelings to my husband. He was wonderful: gentle, encouraging and non-judgemental. It was understood that Himself would be a part of our lives.

Thus began my foray into polyamory. I was in a romantic relationship with each of them, but they were not romantically involved with each other. Any kind of non-monogamous relationship brings up mental images of swinging and group sex (which, if it is your thing, go for it), but behind our closed doors there was more of a domestic paradise than a hedonistic one.

At this point, we did what seemed sensible and got neighbouring houses. I would spend half the week with Himself, and half with my husband. The three of us had dinner together most nights.

I felt as if I were learning more than I ever had about human interactions, because polyamory requires introspection and communication to succeed. I felt as if I had won at relationships. They balanced each other out: all that was missing in one was present in the other. Himself got the stability of love and a family and my husband was free to have ca­sual experiences without my emotional implosion.

I loved them both, and they loved me. We would sit and giggle in bars and buy each other grocer­ies and care for each other. We shared a domestic worker, a dog, a washing machine. We topped up each others’ electricity accounts. I have never had the desire to have children, but I place a very high value on family, and felt as if I were building one of my own. I was also smug about being outside soci­ety’s general expectations and having lots of really amazing sex. I was riding high.

Unfortunately, while I felt as if I were sailing on the high seas of progress, everyone around me saw my dinghy headed for a cyclone. Himself left first, after two years. It was agonising: the saddest, most brutal heartache I’ve ever had.

Worse still, my husband and I were growing apart. In almost every space, we wanted very different things. We disagreed on children: he was pro, I was against. On lifestyle, he was an extrovert and a heavy drinker; I was neither. We disagreed on which country we should live in. We disagreed on finances. We were drowning.

During therapy, our fears were confirmed. Faced with a future of radical compromise the youthful, loved-up us was at a loss. We had outgrown each other. He wanted us to separate; I was prepared to toil to save us until one of us expired from my frantic efforts. His leaving was extremely sad, but undoubtedly for the best. For us, “making it work” was going to be more Siberian salt mines than a labour of love.

We had loved and known each other for half our lives. For us, the failure was not that we were lazy, or complacent. We failed because we tried to do something that just did not work. And that’s a failure we both can live with. I wish more divorces were viewed this way: as a valiant, if unsuccessful, attempt.

The increasing number of “starter marriages” and divorces is a reflection of the long-overdue reckoning in the power dynamic between men and women. Women no longer feel dependent and beholden, and men no longer feel obliged to stay. This shift is most likely going to result in a lot more marriages like mine. Love can last a lifetime, or a year, or 15 years, or a night. And marriage should as accommodating: we will always love, but we may choose not to marry.

• This article is adapted from one published in Autumn/Winter 2019 edition of The Edit, a standalone Sunday Times magazine sent out to select subscribers. Read the latest issue here.