A surprising amount of you would let your partner have sex with someone else – but why?

Would you let your partner cheat on you?

It’s a question which we would have always assumed would have an incredibly obvious answer, with almost everyone surely addressing it with the disdain it deserves. And yet a recent survey has suggested that a surprising amount of Brits would be willing to allow their partner to sleep with other people.



In an age where open marriages and relationships are becoming more of the norm, some couples are resorting to agreements that sex can be found elsewhere if things aren’t working out in the bedroom or that physical spark has gone. Recently, Saira Khan told Loose Women that she simply doesn’t like sex anymore and would allow her husband to ‘go elsewhere’, comments that they later both clarified.

One thing Saira realised in the wake of the strong reaction to her comments was that people really want to talk about this issue. With this in mind, OnePulse spoke to 1000 men and women aged between 16 and 65, who are in relationships, to get their thoughts on whether they would allow their partner to stray.

Almost a fifth of the respondents admitted that they would let their other half seek sex elsewhere if they went off it, with 7% of people indicating that they would even be the ones to suggest it. And over 20% shared that if their partner suggested it, they would sleep with someone else if sex was no longer on the agenda in their relationship.

The surprise results appear to show just how important sex is to individuals, with it being considered so vital that many are prepared to allow their partner to get it anywhere – so long as they get it. To back this up, 90% of the people in the survey said that sex was important in a relationship. But surely such a decision to allow your partner to stray can only be damaging to a couple?

According to the survey:

90% of people in relationships believe that sex is at least somewhat important to a successful relationship
23% say it’s ‘incredibly important’
36% say it’s ‘very important’
Sex is more important to men but gets less important as they get older.
Sex is less important to women overall but remains just as important regardless of age.
18% of people would allow their partner to sleep with someone else if they didn’t want to sleep with their partner anymore
7% would actually suggest this
Married people are least likely to break up over issues relating to sex
30% of married people would break up with a partner if they didn’t want to sleep with their partner anymore compared to 42% of those in relationships but not married
If their partner made a similar suggestion, 21% of coupled-up Brits would likely sleep with someone else
Men are more likely to do this
32% are likely to sleep with someone else compared to just 14% of women

While many claim that they can have no strings sex without developing any feelings, this is harder than it sounds. Being able to give your body to someone without developing a more than physical bond is not something most can control. What if the person fell in love with this anonymous lad or lady they had permission to sleep with?


Permission or not, infidelity comes with the crushing shame of not staying true to your partner and you may end up resenting the person you’re in a relationship with for giving you the allowance to cheat and making you feel this way. Their reaction might not be a grateful one of ‘ta love, I’ll stock up on the Durex now’ but might be one of horror that the person they love and trust could even contemplate this.

Involving someone else into a marriage or relationship, whether it is through nothing more than copulation, is a slippery slope. And something about being given the green light is unlikely to take away most of the negative feelings that you will come away with after your release with a stranger.


Sitting around a dinner table with you both knowing that one of you was in a sweaty entanglement with someone else entirely can only lead to tension and sadness – and yet the survey results show that many disagree. It’s a changing world we are living in – and if fidelity in marriage is becoming less and less important, who knows what it will lead relationships to be lax about next…

Source: metro.co.uk