Annette* was a happily married woman. Or at least she thought so – until she met Mark.
Mark was her son’s music tutor. He too was married. Yet every week when they crossed paths, they would flirt. It was subtle at first – but then she noticed his attentions becoming more intense. And she liked it.
It had been so long since her husband had shown her any real affection. They’d been married for 24 years, she had borne him three children – but she couldn’t remember the last time she had been touched by him with anything even resembling intimacy.
Mark, six years her junior, was not what Annette had once imagined was her ideal man. In her youth, Annette was attracted to older men – like her husband – with visions of their own business empire and a strong sense of their own identity.
Mark taught her son drums. That’s how they first met.
“It was an immediate attraction,” Annette says. “We could both feel it. We liked the same food. We laughed at the same jokes. And we both loved the beach. But we were both married and I never thought anything would happen. I never thought I would let anything happen. But it did. And I never felt guiltier, more in love or more alive.”
Annette certainly is not alone. Statistics from both sides of the Tasman show we are indulging in extra-marital affairs in huge numbers, an issue only highlighted by 2015’s ‘Christchurch insurance office sex romp’, which went viral.
Metro magazine’s Nielsen Sex Survey found almost a third of Kiwis have cheated on a partner, a figure which rises to 42 per cent among those aged 50-64. Interestingly, there is no difference between the figures for men and women – 31 per cent of each are indulging in extra-marital affairs.
Across the ditch, the numbers are in the millions, with the latest Great Australian Sex Census showing 39 per cent of men and 35 per cent of women being unfaithful.
Boudoir baccarat – the age-old refuge of disillusioned spouses around the globe – is alive and well in the suburbs. And it is being aided and abetted by a most willing enabler – the internet. During the past few years, more than a dozen websites have sprung up catering to the repetitively untapped untapped market in extra-marital libido.
The best known, Ashley Madison, is a site that sells itself with the bon mot ‘Life is short – have an affair’.
“Women are now pursuing affairs at a rate that rivals their male counterparts – it’s a common misconception that women are the more faithful sex,” says Ashley Carr, PR co-ordinator for Ashley Madison, which was famously hacked in July 2015, with millions of users information and data released online.
“Up until recently, women weren’t offered the same opportunities as men when it came to committing infidelity. Now, as traditional family roles change, and with the accessibility of technology, many women seek out a way to have their physical desires met that are often left unfulfilled at home.”
Indeed, in a recent survey by the organisation, more than two in five Kiwi women said they have sex with their husband only once a month – and, of those, 44 per cent cite lack of sex as a reason for straying.
When it comes to seeking fulfillment, Australian women are just as proactive.
“In this day and age, I don’t think that should surprise anyone,” says Sydney-based psychologist and marriage consultant Philipa Thornton, who has helped couples recover from affairs for more than a decade.
“The truth is that men and women have very similar sexual drives and needs. What is different is often the stimulus for those needs.”
“It’s difficult to make generalisations about why people have affairs because everyone is an individual with their own perceptions. But we can make some observations. Men want more sex. Women have a need for intimacy. The triggers are different, but the drives are similar and often lead to the same place.”
Yet what is that place and why do so many of us want to go there? Human sexuality is a complex beast. Philipa explains that relationships have five pillars – attraction, friendship, bonding, love and commitment. These pillars – strong as they might be at the beginning – wax and wane during every partnership.
“These things cycle in and out in any marriage,” says Philipa. “Attraction, of course, is what brings us together in the first place. However, there are times when those feelings aren’t strong. That first flush of passion that we all experience at the beginning of a relationship is actually a chemical reaction in the brain and it rarely lasts more than a few years, though there are some who have that feeling their whole lives.”
Moreover, it is during those times when attraction and possibly even friendship – the real foundation stone of a lasting partnership – wanes, that the possibility of an affair can become a reality, especially if the opportunity presents itself.
That’s what happened to Annette when she met Mark. It was a case of the right people coming together at the right time.
“I was a teenager when I married,” says Annette. “My husband was older than me. I was the office junior. He always had the upper hand in the relationship. He was always in control.
“Consequently, I let him be in control. But after we had the children and he was still consumed by his business, I was feeling alone and taken for granted, although I couldn’t have articulated it before I met Mark.”
Annette says their music-night chats became more when Mark called to ask if she’d like to come to the beach one afternoon.
“I knew I shouldn’t, but I did. He brought along Champagne and some strawberries. It was sweet and it was attention I hadn’t had in my life for so long. From then, it was a slow burn. The thing was, he wanted me. He made me feel a way I hadn’t felt since I was 17, and it was wonderful.”
It’s not always so Mills and Boon, of course. Simone is a 20-something mother-of-one who travels the world from her Asia base. Six months ago, she registered herself on a dating website aimed at married people, more out of curiosity than anything, she says.
“But my marriage is not what I expected it to be,” she adds. “To be honest, I thought it would always be love and roses, but it seems that isn’t what happens, at least not with me. We had our son and now my husband doesn’t even seem to see me. I have tried to get him interested, but he just isn’t there any more. I would never leave him because of our son, but you know, I have needs, too.”
Simone heads to Melbourne every six weeks or so for her job. When she put her profile online, Australian men inundated her email, wanting, as she puts it, to ‘hook up’.
“I come from a very traditional family and I would never have thought I would be doing this – let alone enjoying it – but the truth is I am having a wonderful time and I have discovered that men find me attractive,” says Simone. “I am not what I would call an attractive woman. I am fit, I am well groomed, but not beautiful. Yet when I head to Australia, it is different. I walk down the street and men turn to look, or even approach me. At home, I blend into the background.”
Simone says she wants sex without any responsibility.
“Let’s be honest, that is what we want. That is why I put myself on the website. I have discovered another side to myself, of which I was not aware. At home, I am a wife and mother. At work, I am the professional. However, when I date overseas, I am free to be whoever I want, and I enjoy that.”
So far, she has met and slept with two Australian men, one in Melbourne and another who met her in her own country while there on business.
“I was nervous at first, but I am a smart girl,” she says. “I think I can gauge whether a man is trustworthy or not by his replies to my questions. I don’t take chances. I always meet them in a public place, a coffee shop or a restaurant, and the rule is that if it’s not working, then we simply say, ‘No thanks,’ and walk away. It’s a very mature way of achieving what we want.”
If she chooses to have sex with a man, he must use a condom, she says.
“I’m a woman in the prime of my life. So far, these men have treated me with every courtesy and I don’t feel sleazy at all. I enjoy feeling attractive and I enjoy the excitement.”
It seems not all of us are cut out to be monogamous. Indeed, there is an argument that human beings are disposed biologically to sleep around; that may be so, but there are other considerations.
“There is a higher brain component in all this because, aside from sexual drives, we have morality,” says Philipa Thornton. “We also have responsibilities to our partner, to our children and our wider families. Everything we do has a consequence. But when people are in the flush of an affair, logic and morality often aren’t enough to put on the brakes.”
One of the most dangerous affairs for any relationship is one not founded on sexual attraction. Christopher is a senior financial consultant. He is a fit, successful, 40-something father-of-three. He fell in love with a co-worker, who was 20 years his junior, and he was on the verge of leaving his wife and children when his wife discovered a telling text from the young woman on his phone.
“I was convinced it was love,” he says. “Yet we never had a sexual relationship. It wasn’t like that. I fell in love with her on an emotional level. Of course, there was a physical attraction, but I just couldn’t bring myself to cross that line. Our intention was that I would leave and we would live together, but then my wife discovered that text and the whole thing fell out on the kitchen table. It was gut-wrenching, not just for me, but for my wife. I’ve never seen anyone so hurt.”
Christopher and his wife took months to find common ground again.
“It was a betrayal of everything my wife had believed in – I had to take responsibility for that,” he says. “It’s the greatest regret of my life. But we are back together and looking to the future. In some ways, I think we are better for the experience because we’ve been jolted into a new awareness of each other that time and kids had eroded.”
Of course, pain and guilt are ultimately the natural by-products of most affairs.
“I consider infidelity and affairs in the same sense as physical and emotional trauma,” says Philipa Thornton. “There is so much grief and threat that comes with a discovery like that. For the person who is being cheated on, the discovery has just pulled the rug out from under a relationship that was a safe and secure bond, and suddenly it’s no longer that.
“In many ways, it is the death of the old relationship. If there is to be a new relationship, then what needs to come out of the ashes is the answer to one question – how did that happen? And the answer is often found not in what a person was getting from an affair, but rather in what was not happening in the marriage. People go through a range of emotions in that scenario – grief, anger, anxiety and depression. They can even have a revenge affair, which only adds to the complications they already have.”
Complicated. It’s a word that pops up time and again when infidelity is mentioned. Annette knows just how complicated it can all get. She is still having an affair with Mark, but she is also still married to her inattentive husband.
She is caught in what is, ultimately, an unbreakable bind.
“I’m in love with Mark, but I still love my husband. I’ve shared a life with him, had three children with him, held him when he cried. It’s not like all that history suddenly just disappears. I feel a lot of guilt about that.
“The trouble is, I can’t choose between them. I love Mark. He treats me like a woman who he desires and I love that, but my family is important, too. It’s agony. I guess that’s what cheating gets you.”
*All names have been changed.
Infidelity by numbers
110,000 New Zealanders are signed up to HaveAnAffair, a site on which co-founder Edward Chen has seen “the female ratio steadily increase over the years”.
39 per cent of men and 35 per cent of women in Australia admit to cheating, according to The Great Australian Sex Census.
31 per cent of men and 31 per cent of women have cheated on a partner, according to the Metro magazine Nielsen Sex Survey.
Cheating, what to look for
Psychologist and relationship counsellor Philipa Thornton suggests the following might be indicators that your partner is having an affair:
If your partner suddenly becomes very conscious of his or her weight and you notice changes in the standards of their grooming and appearance.
If your spouse shows up without his or her wedding ring, or suddenly stops wearing it and makes improbable excuses as to why.
If they appear distant, show a lack of interest, or develop an unexplained aloofness that wasn’t there before.
When your partner deletes an email the minute it comes in and then deletes the trash to make sure you don’t see it.
When they are always tired or demonstrate a noticeable lack of energy or interest in the relationship.
Additional reporting by: Sara Bunny
