I slipped through the front door at 10pm, silently closing it behind me until I heard that familiar click of the lock that I had come to associate with my humdrum life.
Inside, my husband Neil* was asleep on the couch in front of the TV. Again.
Heels in hand, I tiptoed down the hallway, past our framed wedding photo hanging on the wall, and took out my phone. After checking to see if Neil hadn’t stirred, I texted my lover James* before going to bed.
‘Thank you for a wonderful night.’
James is my one hundredth lover since I starting cheating on Neil more than 20 years ago out of revenge for his complete lack of interest in sleeping with me.
I had kept count. Tonight was special.
Being 61, you would expect me to be running around looking after grandchildren or tending to the garden. Instead I spend my Friday evenings with a lover. I currently have six, all of whom are married with children.
Neil must know. I mean, how could he not? But he’s never said anything. Never once aired his suspicions or even offered a hint of jealousy. When I come home late, far from being angry, he seems vaguely annoyed that I’ve intruded on his private time.
Our pseudonymous author shares her story of cheating on her husband a hundred times in two decades. Even at 61, she continues to take lovers (stock image posed by models)
I remember one night walking in and he was wearing an apron, having just baked a chocolate cake. Just minutes earlier I was in the back of a car with my dress pulled up while a Brazilian waiter gave me the rogering of my life.
It was utterly humiliating.
Is this how I pictured life in my 60s? No. Do I want to get divorced? No. Am I willing to lie to my husband? Yes, and I will continue to.
Do I feel guilt? Not anymore. I was loyal for two whole years after he decided football, work and his friends were more interesting than taking me to bed.
Yet don’t mistake my faithlessness for contempt. I do still love him. He was a wonderful father – and still is, even after our daughters grew up and flew the nest. And he has provided me with a comfortable lifestyle.
But as a woman with a high sex drive, I simply refused to settle for a sexless marriage after 40. I vowed my sex life would continue, even if his didn’t.
I was 26 when we married. It remains one of the best days of my life.
Our sex life began very active, then became what you’d call normal. Then by my late thirties, Neil was always ‘too tired’ or ‘wasn’t in the mood’.
Sometimes if I initiated, he simply couldn’t do it.
Sex became infrequent and I would cling to those few encounters we would have and tell myself, ‘It’s quality, not quantity.’
But once every two months wasn’t enough. Then, about the time of my 40th birthday it stopped entirely. I became miserable, sexually frustrated and out of shape.
Forty-one was the age I was unfaithful for the first time. For months, I’d thought about it but resisted the urge. It was like there was an angel and a devil on each shoulder.
Eventually I signed up to cheaters dating website on the recommendation of a friend who was also stuck in a sexless marriage.
I matched with a man named Aaron* who was my age and married to a woman who had lost all interest in having sex with him.
She was missing out.
I lied to Neil and said I was going to see a friend and instead went for dinner with Aaron. It was like we were living the same life.
At first, I was wracked with nerves and guilt. But the more we spoke, the more I discovered both of us had nothing to feel guilty about. If anything, it was our spouses who had broken the vows of marriage.
Don’t they say ‘to have and to hold’?
I promised myself it would just be dinner, but we ended up going to a hotel and having sex. While it was wonderful, I crumbled afterwards when I realised what I’d done.
Foolishly, I forgot to shower before coming home and walked through the door looking and smelling like literal sin – wine, sweat, cologne.
Neil kissed me on the cheek and asked how dinner was.
Perhaps in that moment he knew the truth of what I’d done. Maybe he was too proud to say anything. Maybe he was surprised it had taken me so long.
And so began a dance that lasted for 20 years. One hundred lovers, with my husband not saying a single word. In the background, I’ve been through menopause, waved our girls off to university, retired, downsized, redecorated, buried my mother.
Even as I enter my sixth decade, my sex drive has diminished only slightly. Still, when I do cheat, I like it to be with someone new. There’s still something so exciting about connecting with a person you’ve never met before.
I love the way these men make me feel sexy, wanted. Over time, it has started to feel less like betrayal and more like a hobby – something I do in my spare time, like my husband enjoys fantasy football.
Being an adulteress has also kept me healthy, believe it or not.
Having boyfriends who are younger and more energetic does motivate you to stay in shape. Perhaps I’ll live longer because of it – imagine that!
At our 35th wedding anniversary, it dawned on me that had I not cuckolded Neil, we would probably have ended up divorced. Our children may well have gone off the rails. Our retirements would be far less comfortable.
In a twisted way, it has been a blessing.
When I married Neil all those years ago, I told him that I loved him and that hasn’t changed – even though we have.
You see, when I said in my vows I would be loyal, I meant it. But Neil changed and I refused to settle for a life without intimacy.
That’s why every time I step out of our cottage on a Friday evening with my heels secreted in my handbag next to a toothbrush, I don’t feel a pang of guilt.
And if it really bothered my husband so much, surely he would have said something?
- As told to Carina Stathis. Cressida Ashvine is a pseudonym based on several interviews. *Names have been changed.
