Why some women are happy being the mistress | Rebecca Jane column

They’re all sat around waiting for the day their partner leaves their relationship. Wrong. There’s a rising trend of women preferring to be a mistress, than be the girlfriend or wife.

Surprising or not, some women are choosing mistress life. Let’s delve into the reasons 3 anonymous mistresses gave me…

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MISTRESS A: Commitment. ‘The last thing I want is to be having daily arguments over what we’re having for dinner, where we are going to do a food shop and having my time demanded upon. I love the lack of commitment to the man I am currently seeing. He is married and in absolutely no place to tell me what to do. That gives me freedom to carry on living the wonderful life I have created, but I certainly have a best friend on tap, with sexual benefits and I don’t have the commitment.’

MISTRESS B: Excitement. ‘It’s the thrill of it all that makes me addicted to my partner. We started our affair in the work place, getting 5 minutes together, sneaking around, almost getting caught and keeping this very big secret between us is excitement in the purest form. The last thing I want to do is pick up his dirty pants, listening to him snore when I want to sleep or see him all day, every day. If you have steak every night for dinner, I suggest you’d be sick of it after a few weeks. Our affair has been going on for 2 years, and there’s even more passion there now than the beginning. You could never convince me I should have a monogamous relationship again’.

MISTRESS C: Trust. ‘I always had trust issues. Not just in men but in everyone I meet. Keeping the distance between my boyfriend and I means I don’t expect to trust him, and he doesn’t expect to trust me. I can safely say, this feels the most trusting relationship I’ve ever had because we have no expectations in the trust department. We just have it! He talks to me in a way that he doesn’t talk to his wife, to the point where I wonder if she even knows him. He has kept so much of his past life from her, but the truth is, he misses his old life and I’m helping to fill that gap for now.’

My next big question, but what is the future and how do you think it will all end? Surely, this can’t end well when only 12% of relationships that start because of an affair end in a new marriage.

A: ‘I don’t know if I’m totally honest. We already have a few arguments because I refuse to be there if he leaves his wife. I don’t want commitment, but I think because I’ve taken it off the table, it has only made him want it more. If that’s still important for him in a few months time, I expect I will end it.

C: ‘we’ve actually discussed him leaving his wife and I’m ok with it, to an extent. I’ve explained that he has to do whatever he has to do and leave me out of the conversation or thought process. If he wants to leave, fine, but I refuse to be the reason. I’ll happily carry on as we are, but I absolutely will not want to be monogamous. I don’t want to cut all my options out.’

B: ‘I know my partner won’t be leaving his wife. I go through spells of wanting him to. It has been 2 years, which is a long time to still have the level of passion that we have. I think if we still have it now, we will still keep it if we end up together. Right now, we’re not talking about it, but in a couple of months it will end up getting put back on the table as an option.’

Are there any downsides?

A: ‘I hate holidays alone. I’d love to travel the world with him. I was looking at brochures with my friend as I was coming out of my last relationship and my affair had started. She questioned who I wanted to go to the countries in the brochure with, and it took a split second to know it was the man I’m having an affair with. I’ve never really got over that. Getting time together is a nightmare, let alone a holiday’

C: ‘Christmas is awful for me. I have spells of guilt and stress and Christmas can become painful. He messages me constantly, but it doesn’t make up for the guilt I feel.’

B: ‘I don’t find any down sides for me. It literally is the most perfect situation for my lifestyle. Maybe a bit of guilt actually’

One of you picked up on guilt, and I guess in this topic; that’s the elephant in the room. Do you feel any remorse or guilt?

A: ‘Is it bad that I say no?! His situation is not my responsibility, his family is his responsibility. I only have one duty, to look after myself and my family. The people I care about.’

C: ‘Yes, I understand where she’s coming from but I think we have a duty to women in general. I don’t like the thoughts of the destruction we could cause because we can’t resist each other. His children would be affected, potentially very badly, his family and obviously his wife. I don’t lose sleep over it, but I’m not ok with it. I’d love to stop what we’re doing, but I’m too in love, settled and happy to stop now’

B: ‘I’m more on the side of not feeling guilt or remorse. I do have my spells too. Usually on a Sunday! My partner and his wife do a lot of walks with their kids, and family activities on a Sunday. It’s an aspect of life I miss out on, but the benefits outweigh the negative of missing out some bits with him.’

If you all became single, what would you want in a future partner? Would you want another married person, or someone single?

A: ‘I absolutely want someone married. I’d never go back to single men.‘

B: ‘I really love what I have now, so I’m probably the same. I wouldn’t go out and hunt down a married man, but I wouldn’t get on all the dating apps either. I prefer waiting until someone comes along, if that person is married, great. If they’re single, I’d probably think twice.’

C: ‘I don’t think I could go through this again. I’m choosing to stay as the mistress with my current lover, but that’s because I’m sure he is my soulmate. I’d avoid married men in the future, but for now, I’m firmly committed to my situation’.

Crikey crickets. Firstly, I want to thank the ladies I spoke to for their brutal honesty. Infidelity is rife, looking at different perspectives and uncomfortable truths help open our minds and thought processes. We may not like what is said, but we become more educated and aware. Awareness can only ever be a good thing, even if we’re talking about something incredibly negative.

So, where do I stand? This is a column, it’s my job to give my opinion and not sit on the fence.

Have I been a ‘mistress’? Yes.

Did it work for me? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. At times, the things the ladies said rang true. I understand not wanting commitment. I’ve had some incredible relationships, but I don’t think they would have been that incredible if we were monogamously committed.

Excitement, yes… I get that too, but it’s also incredibly stressful. If you really end up falling in love with someone, the frustration you feel when it’s impossible to see them can become unbearable. When you love someone, you want to be with them all the time. A wife is always going to be a barrier for that!

The trust aspect I did not agree with. I didn’t trust the last person I had ‘an affair’ with. I couldn’t get over his lack of guilt, lack of integrity, lack of respect or the ability he had to so easily live a totally false life. I never got over the fact if he could do something so awful to his wife, and children, I was no different. I wasn’t special, I wasn’t ‘the one’, I was just ‘the one of the time’. I was filling a void for him, and if it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. He went to pretty extraordinary lengths to make me believe otherwise, but it was an absolute lost cause for me and I put an end to it.

He often told me how much he wished we met years ago, and maybe he had a point. Maybe then it would have worked, but the fact he was in a marriage when we got together literally destroyed every last shred of electricity, passion, excitement and love that we felt.

When I ended it, I felt nothing. It wasn’t worth the destruction that could be caused.

So, would I choose to be a mistress and was I happy being one?

Some elements I enjoyed, some I hated. It’s not a lifestyle for me. Instead, I’ve chosen to work on my relationships with fully available people and find ways to bring in the elements of an affair that I enjoyed. I’m more open with what I like and don’t like, i don’t morph into one person and I will always keep my own identity (unlike previous relationships), I put boundaries in place that mean I don’t see the person ‘too much’, I’ve been brutal in my stance that I don’t want commitment for a long time…and there has to be a conscious effort to keep the excitement alive.

Mistress life, is not the one for me!