Cavendish PressA couple who fell in love on an extramarital dating site while cheating on their partners have said they plan to get married next year, and definitely won’t be unfaithful second time round.
30-year-old entrepreneur Thea Thorpe is getting hitched to removals firm boss Jack Logan-Beddings, 36, next summer after both used the site to cheat on their previous partners.
The pair met through a dating website for married people, but both insist they have learnt from their mistakes and they trust each other to stay faithful in future.
Cavendish PressAfter meeting Jack on IllicitEncounters.com, Thea said:
Yes, we have both cheated in the past but this is a new start for both of us.
We both previously had a very liberal attitude towards monogamy. We thought being in an open relationship was the way to find happiness because life is too short to spend all your life with one partner.
But that all changed when I met Jack. I wanted to spend the rest of life with him and that meant ditching the extramarital dating.
I appreciate this is not your conventional love story but they do say that love finds a way – and it certainly has with Jack and I.
Cavendish PressJack said:
If you had told me that I would meet the woman of my dreams on a cheating site, I never would have believed you. But after my first date with Thea I knew that I never wanted to share her with anyone else. I wanted us both to build a future together as a normal man and wife.
Thea and Jack first started dating a year ago, despite being in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend and Jack being married to his first wife.
Though it wasn’t as straightforward as you might think, as Thea said:
We were both in relationships where we had permission to cheat. I was dating several men on a casual basis and was using lots of dating sites.
A specialist extramarital dating site suited me because the kind of people you meet are in open relationships too. It makes things less complicated and you can just concentrate on having some fun together.
I had several affairs in this way and thought that I was living the perfect life – with lots of sex but the stability of having a steady partner back at home. For a long time I convinced myself that this is what I really wanted and that I was enjoying the best of both worlds.
I would get the giddy excitement you get when you meet a new partner and then, when it all went a bit stale after a few dates, I could just move on without any complications. Then I met Jack and all that changed.
Cavendish PressThea added:
He made me realise that my long-term relationship was a sham and that the flings I was having on the side were just that – meaningless flings. With Jack, I had something much more meaningful and I knew I could not handle the idea of him sleeping with another woman.
Within a few dates, we had both left our partners and cancelled our subscription to IllicitEncounters.com. We have remained faithful to each other ever since and cannot wait to tie the knot next year.
Like Thea, Jack had been unfaithful several times and he is still married to his first wife. He will only tie the knot with Thea when his divorce comes through.
He said:
I knew straight away with Thea that I was living a lie and that I had met my life partner. Obviously it was slightly more complicated for me because I was married to my wife but we split shortly after that first date with Thea.
I had had other flings with women I had met on dating sites before I met Thea. It was fun at first but it does get a bit tiring moving from one relationship to the next when you are still married. I didn’t really connect with anyone until I met Thea and then love hit me like a thunderbolt.
Cavendish PressJack insists that he trusts Thea completely and they have been completely faithful since falling in love, saying: ‘We cannot bear to be apart so I know where Thea is 24/7 – we have total trust and cannot wait to build a future together.’
While Thea said: ‘Just because we have both cheated before doesn’t mean will do it again. It’s different with Jack.’
To ensure that they both don’t cheat in the future, they are working with relationship expert Louise Van Der Velde, who runs courses teaching couples how to have better relationships.
IllicitEncounters.com spokeswoman Jessica Leoni said:
We are delighted that Thea and Jack are tying the knot after meeting on the site. Around 10 percent of the people who use the site do find love in this way while the vast majority happily continue to cheat with like-minded people.
Around one million people have registered with IllicitEncounters.com since the site was first started 16 years ago. Jack and Thea are the first couple from the site to go public with their wedding plans.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.