My Husband Let Me Take a Year Off From Our Marriag

My Husband Let Me Take a Year Off From Our Marriage — Here's What Happened

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a40304/woman-took-year-off-marriage/

The results of the experiment were unexpected to say the least.


We think it's fair to say that every married gal gets a little antsy on occasion and Robin Rinaldi, author The Wild Oats Project, is no exception. But unlike those of us who simply wonder what it would be like to take a break from our husbands — Rachel and Ross style — Rinaldi actually acted on it.

After being hitched to her spouse, Scott Mansfield, for 18 years, she made the critical decision to enter into a year-long open marriage so that she could experience life (and by life we mean sex) with other people.

Rinaldi, 51, who lives in San Francisco, says that she and Mansfield, a brewer and wine-maker, were "stuck in a rut." She told the New York Post, "Our once-a-week sex life was loving, but lacked spontaneity and passion."

But, unimaginative sex isn't what convinced Rinaldi to try her experiment, and ultimately write a book about it. She says that she finally reached a breaking point in her early thirties when she realized that despite years of pleading, Mansfield would never be willing to have a c***d with her.

She wrote in The Wild Oats Project, "I refuse to go to my grave with no c***dren and only four lovers ... If I can't have one, I must have the other."

"I reached a point that a lot of us face in midlife where I was about to have an affair. I knew I was going to cheat, or we were going to get a divorce and something had to change. And I figured if I was going to do it, I was going to be fair and give him the freedom. I knew it was a long shot," she explains.

And now for the terms: Rinaldi rented an apartment where she lived from Monday through Friday. There she was allowed to court as many suitors as she liked. On the weekends, she returned to her husband and they lived like a happily married couple without asking each other what or who they did during the week.

I knew I was going to cheat, or we were going to get a divorce and something had to change.

"It wasn't as strange as you might imagine. I liked it. It was the perfect balance, living on my own during the week and then returning home," she writes. "We had sex as always and the open marriage spiced things up — at least at first."

The few conditions were that they had to practice safe sex, could't sleep with mutual friends, and had to avoid "serious" relationships. Perfectly reasonable clauses, though they were all violated.
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Rinaldi, who had been off the market for awhile, began her exploits by posting an ad on nerve.com. Within one day, she had 23 offers.

Her first paramour was a 40-year-old lawyer but she quickly moved on to younger men. She recalls texting her hubby goodnight from a Las Vegas hotel room immediately after a 23-year-old guy left her bed.

Over all, she had 12 encounters. Two were with women, one of them was a threesome.

After her trial year of condoned dalliances was up, however, Rinaldi and her husband struggled to make their marriage work.

"Moving back home full time proved more difficult than I had thought. After you open up a marriage and experience a whole range of sexual variety and aspects of yourself you've never had before, it's hard to put everything back in the box. You're changed."

"Suddenly I found an updated version of myself. The person I was at 44 was so much different than the woman I'd been when I was last single at 26. She was less shy, more confident, wilder."

Mansfield, had changed too. For nearly six months he had been exclusively seeing one woman, who happened to be younger than Rinaldi but she says that didn't bother her.
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She wrote: 'The turning point was hearing from Alden [one of the men she had slept with]. He sent me an e-mail, out of the blue, several months after the project had come to an end. Before long, we were having sex again. Being with him was exquisite. After reconnecting with Alden and falling deeply in love with him, there was no going back."

Robin says she's grateful for the experience of being married to Mansfield. "But for now," she continues, "For for this part of my life, I believe being with someone who is the most temperamentally like me is where I can learn more."

Rinaldi has been with Alden (monogamously) for the past five years. And Mansfield, who has since found a new partner, has been a good sport about her book. He said, "You have to write it. If you write it well, it won't really be about us, it will be about lots of marriages."

When asked if she'd recommend this experiment to other married women, Rinaldi told REDBOOK. "Not if they want to stay married."

But her biggest takeaway? "Passion comes in many forms and the passion I was looking for at first, which I imagined I'd get from motherhood, and then I thought I'd get through new lovers, I was able to find in other ways — from friendships with women. From creativity. But the key is to find that passion for yourself and not expect it to all come from your partner."

Although she's happy with Alden, Rinaldi says she doesn't believe in happy endings. "All I can say is life is a process and I'm a larger, more complete, more fulfilled woman now."