'My boyfriend loves it when I cheat - it has made our relationship stronger'

For most couples, fidelity is sacrosanct, but for Jade and Josh Vow, cheating is a crucial part of their relationship. While Josh, 40, only has eyes for Jade, 27, he loves nothing more than when she plays away with other men. Admitting that being betrayed makes him love his girlfriend of eight years more, the music producer from Somerset explained: "It's the hot wife thing." "I could go the rest of my life without another woman, just me and Jade. More than happily," he says of his unconventional desire to be the scorned. "It's taboo. I know I like things that are kind of incorrect to society. But it's obviously not just that, because that would be just me rebelling." The pair were just a year into their relationshp when Josh opened up about his secret kink. Having been cheated on in the past, Jade was 'disgusted'. But once Josh explained that he didn't want to do the cheating, Jade started to consider what their relationship could look like. "We would joke about it, I would tease him about it. Honestly, I never thought it would actually happen. And then it did". She started by matching with another man on a dating app, and meeting for drinks at a bar, but that hit the skids when she decided to introduce him to Josh. "It was nice and everything, but I got nervous and brought the guy back home to meet Josh. I'm not sure why I did that. I didn't know what the hell I was doing at the time, and Josh immediately became best mates with him, which kind of killed the sexual chemistry." Josh admitted, "It's a fault on my part, I'm just always friendly." But when Jade walked her date to the car to say bye, things heated up. "I ended up saying goodbye for about an hour," she said of their hookup in the back seat of the car as a storm raged. Dressed in a yellow raincoat and Wellington boots, Jade wasted no time sending pictures of her liaison to Josh. "So the photos I got, the first time seeing Jade cheating on me, the first time finally getting my kink sort of checked off the list if you like, was with Jade in a yellow anorak!" Jade laughed, "I think that's pretty hot!" While Josh was delighted, the betrayal was harder for former UNICEF worker Jade to stomach. Breaking down in tears straight after the tryst, she recalled how: "I felt bad. This was all very new to me. I think I just assumed that he'd been talking this talk about how much he loved it, deep down, he would get jealous and be mad at me." Now, the couple scroll dating apps together looking for Jade's next lover and Josh loves the idea of her sleeping with someone she's met without his knowledge, "pushing that button as close to cheating as possible." "Really, it's the same as any hook up, but with a boyfriend involved," Josh says of their adventures which sometimes extend to threesomes. Jade has also gone to the homes of the men, as well as to sex clubs. Far from controlling the setup, Josh prefers a "hands-off" approach and doesn't want to "pick out a man" for his girlfriend. Instead, he wants Jade to enjoy her experiences and explore her sexuality independently. For him, this is the strongest thrill. Jade explains: "I think in a lot of these relationships, the men like to be in control. They want to pick out the guy their girlfriend or wife is going to be with, and oversee the whole situation." "In a way, I'm like the ultimate feminist," adds Josh. "I want you to have control, and experience it for yourself, to the degree where you've said, 'Do you want to see the guy first?' and I'm like, no, you do your thing!" But there are boundaries though. For Josh, seeing Jade cuddle another man or laugh at his jokes is too much. Jade says, "There was a time when we had a guy over at our house, and we'd done all the sexy time, and then afterwards, I think I just got a bit sleepy and you and the other guy were just chatting about football or whatever it was, and I curled up on his shoulder and started to like cuddle him a little bit, that got you a little bit." The couple, who are now living in Cyprus, are not in an open relationship, and the connections with others are strictly sexual. Jade admits that if Josh changed his mind, she would be happy to stop. "With other people, it's completely sexual only. When it comes to emotions, we are completely shut off. He is my person, always will be. Obviously, I have fun doing this, and I love all the experiences I have, but a big reason why I'm doing these things with other guys is for him." The jealousy, they say, only makes their relationship stronger. "If you do genuinely love and trust each other, jealousy can almost be a good thing," Jade says. "Emotions are just heightened. You could have just argued and screamed at each other, and suddenly there's this tension. And I think the same goes for feeling that jealousy." Branding her partner "a weirdo", she explains that moving forwards, they have no plans to start a family and adopt a mainstream way of living, and are happy with their menagerie of pets which includes a goat. While their families were not previously aware of their antics, neither are concerned about what they, or anyone else, thinks. "We do definitely get judgment," says Jade. "We're quite open about our relationship online. We tell the truth about it, and we get a lot of people assuming that we don't really love each other. And I fully understand that, because at the beginning of the relationship, when we first started talking about this, I thought too, 'how could you see your partner with another person?' I think if you met us for five minutes, you wouldn't be able to deny we're in love". Josh adds: "If you meet us, how comfortable we are, how loving we are, is not a secret. We just wear it on our sleeve. Everyone can see it. No one thinks otherwise about us." Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com