When Michael Oshust and Stephania Meyer first met in 2004, they were both married to other people.
They were in their 30s, living in Ontario, Canada, and had been married for 6.5 and 11 years, respectively, but it wasn’t going well for either of them.
Oshust had filed for divorce and was separated from his ex-wife in all ways except legally. Meanwhile, Meyer and her ex-husband, who got married at a young age, had grown apart but were planning to wait to split up so that their young daughters could have one final Christmas as a family.
Oshust and Meyer met on Ashley Madison, a discreet dating site for people in relationships who don’t want to be seen on other dating apps. The website’s slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair,” and it has been criticized for promoting infidelity (its ads were banned in Singapore for what the government described as a “flagrant disregard” of “family values and public morality.”)
It also suffered a major data breach in 2017, when the names, addresses, payment details, and even nude photos of over 30 million customers leaked on the internet.
Despite the criticism, Oshust and Meyer are grateful that Ashley Madison enabled them to meet. And people are still signing up in their droves — a report on customer statistics released by its parent company, Ruby Life, said it had 4.6 million new sign-ups worldwide in 2021, the latest available data.
Twenty years after they cheated on their exes with one another, Oshust, 55, and Meyer, 52, are married, co-own a house painting business in Nova Scotia, and don’t regret a thing.
‘Yearning’ for partners with similar interests
Back in 2004, Oshust, a former IT project manager, signed up to Ashley Madison because he was still technically married and wanted to be discreet about starting to date again.
Meyer, who was a stay-at-home mom at the time, meanwhile, joined just to see what was on offer. She was “fully aware” of what the site was promoting, but wasn’t looking for an affair, she said.
They were both “yearning” for people with similar interests to have “intellectual conversations with,” Oshust said. He also wanted simple things like someone to ask how his day was, which he said had been missing in his previous marriage.
Most messages Meyer received on Ashley Madison were asking for nudes or no-strings-attached sex, which she wasn’t interested in. But Oshust actually asked how she was. Plus, his bio showed they liked the same rock music.
“It intrigued me, so I just sent a little note back. And then we just kept messaging. We had so much to talk about. It got to the point where every day I’d get the kids off to school and race home to get online just to chat with Michael,” Meyer told Business Insider.
As the weeks passed, Meyer realized she was starting to feel “something more” for Oshust.
“It scared me because I’m not a cheater per se,” she said. “It just felt so different. Natural, even.”
After meeting in person, the relationship escalated
Six weeks after connecting online, they met in real life at a coffee shop in October 2004.
“I opened the door, and I gently gave her a nice kiss. And that was the best feeling I’d ever had in my life at that point,” Oshust said.
They snuck around for a few months, speaking on the phone a lot and Meyer watching Oshust play hockey.
But in mid-November, Meyer’s husband read her emails and discovered the affair.
“He called me and he says, ‘I know what’s going on, I know where you are.’ And he was upset, obviously, and he more or less kicked me out. He told me that was it,” she said.
After the dust had settled and the divorce was finalized, Meyer’s ex-husband told her that he had known something was up because she was suddenly glowing and started taking better care of herself.
Oshust and Meyer quickly moved in together, but stayed near her children, who were five and seven at the time.
Meyer’s children no longer speak to her
Although Meyer maintained a relationship with her daughters as children, they stopped speaking to her seven years ago and have blocked her “on everything,” she said. That has been “the hardest part of it all,” she said.
Most of her other family members and friends “blackballed” her, too.
“You sure find out who your friends and family are when something like this happens. Yeah, they kind of turn against you,” she said.
She and Oshust got married in 2007 during sunset on the beach in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, accompanied by two friends.
Oshust and Meyers know cheating is wrong, but they don’t regret it
“I don’t regret meeting Michael at all. Maybe I regret a little bit that it happened so quick,” Meyer said. “But you can’t change what happened.”
She added: “It is cheating, and we’re both aware of that. We’re not proud of it. But at the same time, if it wasn’t for Ashley Madison, we wouldn’t have been together. So in a weird way, we’re thankful.”
They don’t think Ashley Madison is inherently bad, seeing it as a “tool.”
“If you’re at that point in your relationship where you need something outside your marriage, you’re going to find it regardless,” Oshust said.
Twenty years on, they’re still married and have “never been happier,” Meyer said, adding: “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
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