Amber Rae could barely catch her breath when she locked eyes with the stranger on her doorstep.
Her stomach churned – and, as they shook hands, her skin prickled. She knew she had met her soulmate.
There was just one problem – and it was a big one. Her husband was standing right next to her.
Amber relives this meeting and the upheaval that followed in her upcoming memoir, Loveable: One Woman’s Path from Good to Free.
A raw departure from her usual motivational writing, the book charts how the encounter with John Messinger upended her life. And she reveals that it ultimately led to the happiness and freedom she had always secretly craved.
‘It was liberation,’ the 39-year-old author and illustrator tells the Daily Mail. ‘I was finally true to myself and able to honor myself after decades of being “the good girl” and “the good wife”.’
Amber was 26 when she met her first husband in New York City in 2012. He was four years her senior and they were collaborating on a number of start-up projects in the technology space.
Author Amber Rae and her second husband and ‘soulmate’, John Messinger
Amber at her low-key second marriage to Messinger in Los Angeles in 2022
‘At the time, I thought we had a meaningful connection, as we had the same business interests and motivation for our careers,’ she says. ‘I had dated some unavailable men in the past and he gave me emotional safety.’
Still, Amber knew in her heart there was no spark – either spiritual or sexual – between them. But she held on to the hope that it would grow and, when he proposed just six months after they met, she accepted.
‘I was swept along,’ she admits, ‘partly because of the societal pressure that you should be married by the age of 30. A lot of friends were settling down and I guess I wanted the same thing.’
She had grown up with Bohemian parents who led a hippie lifestyle, often hosting sex parties at the family home. Though they had loved each other, they were unfaithful – hardly an example of a model happy marriage.
‘I was conditioned to think: “Do not trust men you are in love with”,’ Amber says, adding that she had believed the ‘sensible choice’ was a safer option for security.
Perhaps tellingly, the couple delayed their wedding for seven years. Looking back, Amber can see how they ignored the cracks developing in the relationship.
The biggest issue was the sex – or lack of it. At one stage, they were intimate only twice in a year but it was never addressed.
Desperate for love, Amber ‘lunged’ at him in the kitchen, only to be pushed away.
‘My husband is half-heartedly kissing my back and touching me, but barely opening his mouth,’ she writes in her memoir. ‘I try harder. But his lips remain tight.
‘Suddenly he backs away, squeezes my shoulders, kisses my forehead, and walks into his office.’
She tried organizing romantic breaks, carving out alone time, but he would routinely brush off her advances.
Why did she put up with it? ‘I thought that I had to be a good wife at all times,’ she says.
When Covid struck in 2020, they made a restart of things – leaving New York and buying a plot of land in Baja California, Mexico, with plans to build a retreat for artists.
But it was during a meeting with architects and potential investors for the project the following summer that Amber met her true ‘soulmate’.
Messinger and Rae embrace on their wedding day 2022
Messinger and Rae tied the knot in a small ceremony attended by family and friends
The chance meeting almost didn’t happen. John Messinger, an artist, was not even meant to be there that day – he was just ‘tagging along’ with friends.
Amber remembers how nervous she immediately felt in his presence. ‘I tilted my head,’ she says, ‘and he tilted his at me, and I said to myself: “This is my person”.’
At first, she tried to dismiss that instinct. ‘I thought: “You’re married, yet you think you’ve found your soulmate in another man. Are you insane?”‘
While her husband and the others talked business, Amber and John spoke for hours.
They had a remarkable number of things in common and she wondered how life would have turned out differently had she met him sooner.
‘I thought, “This is what it feels like to feel seen and heard”.’
To distract attention from her own desires, Amber even offered to match John with one of her single friends.
He declined, laughing, and said that he was only six months out of a serious relationship and needed some space.
But Amber couldn’t stop thinking about him for the next few days. And when John then agreed to join Amber’s and her husband’s project as a designer, things became palpable.
In business meetings, the chemistry between John and Amber was so intense that people assumed they were married.
At a party with friends, Amber’s husband greeted John warmly: ‘So good to see you. I want to thank you because I’ve never seen my wife more alive.’
‘That sentence etches into my heart like a carving on a tree trunk. “Alive”. Yes. That’s it. That’s what I’m feeling,’ Amber writes. ‘When did I stop feeling alive?’
Things came to a head just two weeks later when John stayed with them for a few days to finish his part of the project.
One night, after Amber’s husband had gone to bed early, they sat on the porch and John confessed he was in love with her.
But, feeling that the situation was hopeless, Amber dismissed his advances, asking him not to say such a thing ever again.
‘I kept telling myself it was wrong,’ she says. ‘Like many women, I’d been conditioned to be selfless in a relationship, even if it meant sacrificing my own hopes and needs.’
But, when she went up to bed herself, her husband was still awake.
‘Are you falling in love with him?’ he asked.
Amber stammered as she tried to answer: ‘I think so. I’ve never felt this way before.’
Rae with her son, August, moments after he was born in the fall of 2024
Rae relaxing with baby August
Her husband exhaled deeply and said simply: ‘I’m happy for you. I’m glad you’re experiencing this. But, if the roles were reversed, you would not be okay with this.’
In fact, her husband’s acceptance of the situation was remarkable. The following day, instead of reacting angrily, he spoke privately and calmly with John.
He admitted to being confused about what he really wanted in life and, as Amber put it, ‘didn’t know how to show up for the relationship any more.’
With immense grace, he gave Amber and John his blessing.
The trio even took a walk on the beach the following evening. They lay down on the sand and looked at the stars.
Eventually, Amber’s husband said: ‘It’s time for me to call it a night, but you two stay.’
Without a hint of rancor, he added: ‘Why would I get in the way of the magic that is the two of you? It’s undeniable.’
‘Both of us deserved more than what we had,’ Amber now says. ‘We were two good people who’d grown apart and needed to be wanted and loved.’
A few weeks later, she flew back to New York to pack up her belongings at the couple’s old apartment. She then flew on to Los Angeles, where John lived.
He met her at the airport. It was the first time they had kissed.
‘I didn’t want to cross the line and do anything physical before I’d officially left my husband,’ Amber said. ‘I thought it would dishonor everyone.’
Around nine months later, while her ‘quickie’ divorce was being finalized, Amber noticed her husband tagged on the Facebook page of a woman she didn’t know. There was a photo of them holding hands and showing off matching tattoos.
Her ex-husband was described as the woman’s ‘forever love.’ They have since married.
Messinger with August, who will celebrate his first birthday this fall
Little August takes in the view near a jetty around dusk
‘I was elated and relieved,’ Amber says, ‘because I wanted him to find a true love.’
As for her and John, they married in a quiet ceremony in their LA backyard in 2022.
There were just nine guests – in contrast to the 70 people who attended her first wedding in Morocco.
The couple, who now live in Brooklyn, welcomed their first child, a son called August, in the fall of 2024.
In the dedication to her book, she writes: ‘For my husband who gave me the courage to re-write my story. And for my son – I lived this story so you could live yours.’
Loveable: One Woman’s Path from Good to Free, by Amber Rae, published by Macmillan on August 5, is available for pre-order.
