Parenting

How I Do It: The soon-to-be divorced mum trying not to catch feelings mid-fling


‘I can’t help myself with him, a few moments of kissing, and I’m all his’ (Picture: Getty Images/Myles Goode)

For this week’s How I Do It, we get a week-long peek into the sex life of Nancy*, a 37-year-old writer and mum in the middle of a divorce.

Nancy is also mid-fling after having spent many years without any sense of sexual adventure.

She’s enjoying the fact that her sex life is now ‘spontaneous, sexy, and raw’, saying that she feels ‘like a different person.’

However, even though having sex with him has helped keep her sane during the pandemic, she’s also wary of getting too attached to her new casual beau Matt*.

Her method to avoid catching feelings? Chatting and flirting with other people via text.

Here’s how she’s getting on…

Monday

I used to use Mondays to take a long walk on my own, treat myself to a café visit without my children, maybe squeeze in a shop at the supermarket, or do some cleaning.

It was precious alone time in a crazy year – the only time I had to myself.

But then I met Matt, and Monday mornings – or at least most Monday mornings – got more interesting.

I text him today and tell him an unexpected opportunity has arisen, and I could be over by 11. I run up the stairs to his place, then try to look like I haven’t.

He kisses me hello. We were going to have a coffee, but instead I’m straddling him on the floor, my hands under his T-shirt. I bite his neck and his hands drop to my waist.

I pull him up, and wrap my legs around him as he pulls off my grey wool jumper, biting me through my T-shirt. I can’t help myself with him, a few moments of kissing, and I’m all his.

We’re kind of rough with each other – ‘vigorous’ is how he puts it – he likes it when I pull his hair. He pulls mine, which gently tugs my head back, and kisses my neck.

Before long he lifts me up and carries me – my legs wrapped around his waist – to his bedroom. The sheets are cold. He lays me on the bed and takes his clothes off.

I never had sex like this: it’s endlessly fun and sexy. Afterwards, he goes for water, and I lie in the light of the winter sun coming through the window, sated. I wonder who this person is.

He slaps my bum when he comes back, and I don’t know for sure, but I suspect I look delicious. He snuggles in behind me, rubs my side from my arm to my hip, and occasionally kisses the back of my neck as he talks, and I pretend not to doze.

Then he makes me tea and marmite in bed. It seems so excellent. But later I tell him: ‘I had fun today, like always’. And he says: ‘lol. Thanks for coming! Xxx’ and I wonder what the hell that means.

Tuesday

To say it’s been a tumbledown kind of year would be an understatement, and sometimes I wonder how I’m still standing.

But I keep putting one heavy foot in front of the other, try to find joy in my children, blitz my work as hard as I can, and use days like yesterday as a kind of sanity lever.

There’s a brief moment in which I’m not worrying, but being a working, single parent in a pandemic is tough. I read about the ‘pandemic wall’, and realise I hit that in early January. Some nights I feel very alone.

When that happens I have a bath, try to make time for recovery, rest, and on this occasion, to relive the day before: moments like that are precious right now.

I try to realise how far I’ve come. I avoid texting Matt, get my book and have an early night.

Wednesday

Recently, I’ve been feeling wildly hormonal. The ups seem so very up, the downs, so very low.

Today a friend asks how I am at my children’s daycare and I can’t stop the tears from falling down my cheeks.

‘All I want is to give you a cuddle,’ she says, standing in a facemask two metres away. Someone else sends me a bunch of flowers and I break down sobbing in the kitchen.

12 hours later and I’m fine, horny as hell, and wondering what to do about it.

Given that I managed to suppress this side of myself during my marriage, I wonder where it has come from. It both surprises and delights me.

Matt seems happy with our occasional trysts, but long term, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough for me.

Rediscovering my sex life, and my sex drive, feels like a revelation even in a time of everything being sh*t. And my mind is rampant.

I’m watching porn regularly for the first time in my life. I’m on a dating app, even if it’s all virtual right now. I’m having sex that leaves me breathless. And I wonder what the hell was I doing with my life before.

Thursday

I work most of the day and spend my evening doing divorce admin.

A curiously charming guy that’s been messaging me recently writes to ask if I’ve had any sexy thoughts today, and I laugh at how terrible my day has been and how unsexy I’ve felt.

When I get out of the bath I wonder if I should up my game. Having never used dating apps before – it’s been a long time since I was single – I was incredibly paranoid at first.

But I’ve loosened up, and learnt that taking sexy photos is a process: concealing all identifying markers, trying to be sexy but not graphic.

Tonight I give it a go: but I’ve lost weight and look all skinny and bony, with a baby-bearing tummy, so it’s not a very sexy effort.

I turn over and try something else. Better – I’m still peachy there – but I feel self-conscious so instead I send one of me lying on my bed.

My hair is tumbling into shot, and you can see just a hint of my breasts pushed onto the bed. I think it’s sexy but restrained. I send it to both Matt and the dating app guy. Matt says: ‘Aren’t you cold?’. Can’t win them all. 

Friday

I feel a bit like a teenager surreptitiously checking my app for messages during a long, and not very exciting, work meeting.

It’s strange, re-entering this world, when you thought you would never be here.

It’s been a learning curve, but an exciting one, too, although I only met a few people late last summer. Matt is the only person I’ve slept with from this app.

But I’m keeping my options open, wondering where we will all be when this is all over, when dating is allowed again. For now, it provides an escape. 

Saturday

My birthday. Disappointing in sex terms.

I get home after work, and when I’m alone tell him: ‘You’re cutting it a bit fine for my birthday surprise. You better be turning up on my doorstep naked in the next 30 mins.’ 

He says he forgot. I try not to take it as a sign.

Later he sends me a picture of him naked after a bath saying this is the best he can do.

It shouldn’t be good enough, but he never sends these kinds of pictures, and he is so hot I can’t help but imagine him lying on top of me and me tugging my hands through his chest hair.

I’m not that into muscles or bodies normally, but there’s just something about his perfectly proportioned, big and hairy, and smelling oh-so-delicious body that puts me in a spin.

I think of him while finding some birthday porn to watch: I settle on a French porn video on a site which is ‘for women’. They’re slower to get going but less… gynaecological.

‘Happy birthday’, I think to myself. At least it was better than last year.

Sunday

I get outside with my bairns and feel instantly much better. Days like this are for them: I’m all theirs, and that’s OK.

I drive home and look at them in the rear-view mirror, and wonder about my mum, and her secret world (I know she had one).

I absent-mindedly answer questions about puddles and sing nursery songs over and over. These days by myself are full on, delightful too, but by the evening, I’m ready for some adventure, if only virtually.

A guy that’s been messaging me tells me to watch Rick Stein’s Secret France series. He seems exactly my cup of tea – charming, sexy, well-travelled, funny.

One day, I wonder, when this is all over, might I have him, too?

We fantasise about running away to eat steak and comté cheese, while drinking red wine. ‘We should go immediately,’ he says. I quite agree.

Tomorrow, I won’t see Matt, but maybe next week. I wonder if I should turn up in my underwear and just my coat.

It doesn’t feel very me. But then again, it would be fun.

*Names have been changed



How I Do It

In Metro.co.uk’s How I Do It you get a sneak peek into a week of a person’s sex and love life – from vanilla love-making to fetishes, threesomes and polyamorous relationships, they reveal it all.

Fancy taking part yourself? Email aidan.milan@metro.co.uk for more information.

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk


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