Woman, 78, claims her decision to ‘swing’ with her husband and their next door neighbours was the biggest mistake of her life after it ruined her marriage and tore her family apart
- Kay Moriarty swapped husbands with neighbour Rita, not her real name, in 1970s
- Mothers from Kent booked two-week trip where they’d swap men for week each
- When got home Rita said her and Kay’s partner Robert would be living together
- Kay, 78, said the swap ruined her daughter Rachel’s relationship with her father
Kay Moriarty, 78, has said her decision to ‘swing’ with her husband and neighbours was the biggest mistake of her life
A woman who swapped husbands with her neighbour has said it was the worst decision of her life after it tore her family apart.
Kay Moriarty, 78, and next door neighbour Rita, not her real name, swapped partners in the 1970s after they learnt about ‘swinging’ in a self help book.
Now Kay, from Birchington-on-Sea in Kent, has said risking the safety of her marriage to Robert, not his real name, ‘for a night of passion’ with Rita’s other half Terry was a mistake, reports the Daily Express.
Kay, who met husband Robert when she was only 19, explained how she’d always ‘wondered what it would be like with another man’ as she’d only had sex with him.
Along with neighbour Rita, the mothers persuaded their husbands to swap and they booked a caravan holiday for their two families – including the four children.
Each couple would swap husbands for a week of the trip, but before they went away Kay ended up having sex with Rita’s husband Terry.
After they returned from the holiday Rita and Kay’s husband Robert told Kay they needed to talk about the future.
Kay said she’d always ‘wondered what it would be like with another man’ as she’d only had sex with husband Robert, left on their wedding day, but regrets the choice to swap husbands. Pictured right is Kay with her son and daughter Rachel
The mother-of-two, pictured with her daughter Rachel, moved in with Rita’s husband Terry and they stayed together for seven years before splitting up
She said: ‘They announced they were going to set up home together and all four children would live with them.’
Too embarrassed to tell her own family what had happened, Kay moved in with Terry and her daughter Rachel eventually started to live with them too.
After a year, Rita and Robert moved to the north-west of England while Kay and Terry stayed on the south coast, trying to make things work. However they split up after seven years.
Looking back on the swap, Kay said it ‘ruined’ her children’s relationships with their parents and split her home.
Kay said: ‘Although I didn’t love Robert, we created a stable home for our children to grow up in. But the wife swap ruined Rachel’s relationship with her father.’