Bharat, 62
We’d try to have sex three times in four hours, to make the most of the Premier Inn booking
My relationship with Jessica started out as an affair. We met online six years ago via a website for married people who want to cheat. Recently, we both left our spouses and brought our relationship out into the open, which has changed our sex life.
Affair sex was always charged, but it was also a bit of a rush: we’d try to have sex three times in four hours to make the most of the hotel booking. Or we’d meet in a National Trust car park and have a five-minute tryst in a quiet coppice. I’d go home with suspicious insect bites all over my bottom.
These days, Jessica and I are discovering the joy of sex in a proper bedroom. We do it leisurely, on weekend mornings, and then read each other the papers. I’m in my 60s but I’ve never had this kind of regular, loving, “relationship” sex before. My ex-wife was uninterested in a physical life with me. We got married very young and I’m not sure she ever really fancied me.
Before I met Jessica, my unhealthy way of coping was to meet someone online twice a year, shag them for a few weeks then cut it off. I’d spend the next six months trying to resist the website, but I’d always crack.
After I left my marriage, I wasn’t sure I was able to commit to Jessica. I didn’t want to repeat my pattern of being the “affair guy” and start cheating on her. She had her doubts, too: we were good at having secret sex, but would we be good at going to Tesco together? Or running a house? Starting out as an affair facilitates a ruthless sort of honesty – your partner already knows the worst thing you’ve ever done, so it’s easier to say the unsayable. We had a lot of frank conversations about whether we should attempt a real relationship.
Love has crept up slowly on us, but that has made our connection deeper. Extreme honesty remains the cornerstone of our partnership. We discuss friends of ours who have had affairs, and regularly ask one another whether all of our needs are being met. So far the answer has been “yes”, but I think we could be truthful about it if the answer were ever “no”.
Jessica, 58
I decided to have an affair because I wanted a bit of pleasure that was just for me
My ex-husband was very controlling. He eroded my sense of self and bound me to him through fear, influencing what I wore and who I saw. I also found it very difficult to say no to sex with him. My decision to have an affair was an act of rebellion. I mulled it over for months before I activated my online dating profile. I finally pushed the button so I could stake a claim to a bit of pleasure that was just for me.
Meeting Bharat was liberating. The sex was passionate, but there was no heavy, painful emotion between us. In bed, I held a part of myself aloof from Bharat, and I enjoyed the sense of detachment, because it was the opposite of how swallowed up I felt by my husband. But sometimes with Bharat I felt as if I was play-acting the part of the “sexy mistress” who wore nippleless bras and crotchless knickers. The sex we had in bland hotel rooms was exciting, but the excitement sometimes felt a bit cheap.
I left my husband a year after meeting Bharat. The affair helped me end my marriage, because it gave me a taste of autonomy, but I had no intention of converting what I had with Bharat into a serious relationship. When Bharat left his wife, I worried about his life as a serial shagger. Part of what persuaded me to give it a go was his total transparency. He went to therapy, and told me about previous flings in such gory detail that I was convinced he had nothing to hide.
The first time he said “I love you” my initial self-protective reaction was to blurt out: “I don’t love you.” I was fearful of losing myself in another relationship, but I did love him. One unexpected consequence of making our relationship official is that the sex has actually got better. I bring my whole self to the bedroom now. It’s more sensuous. I’ve hung up my crotchless knickers, and that’s a relief.
Would you and your partner like to share the story, anonymously, of your sex life?
