Aditi, 57
My husband was never interested in having sex with me
In all ways except one, our relationship is ordinary: Adrian and I have been together 20 years and we’re so comfortable together. If I was to list all the different positions we do in bed, the list would be very short. We are the relationship equivalent of a pair of lovely old shoes. There’s just one tiny detail: we are married to other people.
My affair with Adrian started at a work party. We shared a taxi home because we lived in a similar part of town, and he turned to me on the backseat and kissed me. I fell in love with him because of that one kiss. It was warm and knowing and comfortable and perfectly timed. I barely ate for two weeks after that taxi ride, I was so besotted. My husband thought I was ill. But I was lovestruck.
Around the time I kissed Adrian I’d just emerged from a postnatal depression that had lasted two years. My husband was never interested in having sex with me. We were deeply conventional people who got married because it was the next thing to do. Then I had a baby and I felt I had to stay, until she grew up. We have been good partners to one another but we have not been romantic partners.
After that first kiss with Adrian, I was conflicted. We went for long walks on our lunch breaks where we didn’t touch each other at all, just talked. We said “I love you” before we’d gone to bed together. And when the sex eventually came it was a disappointment, funnily enough. I was so attracted to him it was hard to relax. We only had the odd, snatched afternoon, in a hotel. We were obsessed by one another, but it took some time for our physical relationship to click into place.
People imagine that the guilt of an affair makes the sex more exciting, but it’s really only now we’re in our late 50s and there’s less jeopardy that we’ve found our stride.
My children are grown up and I have moved out of my husband’s house now, although technically I am still married to him. Adrian comes over two nights a week and the lovely thing is we talk about the sex. We have a kind of post-match analysis – what we liked, what we could do better. We are gentle with one another, and generous. We have not loved one another in easy circumstances, but this love has been a gift.
Adrian, 60
There used to be an element of danger in our love affair that I don’t think either of us enjoyed
I think I fell for Aditi because she corrected me. We were at a work event and she told me I was using the word “oxymoron” wrong. That was the clincher. I thought: she’s challenging and she told me off in public – I have to make her fall in love with me.
At work we started spending every spare minute together. We didn’t have sex, mostly because we had nowhere to go. So we just went on long walks and talked about sex, non-stop, for months. By the time we actually managed to get into bed together our expectations were ridiculously high. The act could never match up to our shared fantasy. We were both horribly nervous and I know she was very worried about our situation. She also had a terrible headache and I accidentally gave her paracetamol with caffeine in it, which she is allergic to.
Later on in our relationship, we’d go to hotels every second weekend. But, for a while, it was still awkward between us in the bedroom. Aditi is an incredibly eloquent person. She can communicate her love, her desire, her passion with elegance and precision. It doesn’t come so naturally to me, I’m more methodical. But talking is the key to her heart and so now I’ve learned to use my words when we’re in bed together. Aditi says she “trained” me.
We plan to move in together soon, 20 years after our first kiss. I still live with my wife, but we have separate lives. We’re in the same house, and have one child who lives with us. Occasionally we talk to one another when our child is in the room, but it doesn’t feel like a marriage.
There used to be an element of danger in our love affair that I don’t think either of us enjoyed. Thankfully, that edge has now faded. If we got found out and exposed today, nobody would be surprised. The kids wouldn’t be happy but they wouldn’t be fatherless. In that way, growing older and more comfortable with each other has been joyful. It has been a relief.
Would you and your partner like to share the story, anonymously, of your sex life? Email sexlives@theguardian.com with a brief outline of what you get up to in the bedroom
