"I love the thrill of it, although it’s tricky to hide it from my friends.
I also know it’s not going to make the problems in my marriage disappear."
Dear Coleen
I’m a woman in my early thirties and I’ve been with my husband for three years. Over the past 18 months he’s been away a lot with work, spending weeks at a time abroad. It feels as if we’re living separate lives and, obviously, sex doesn’t happen often.
I would love to start a family, but he’s never been that interested – he always says he doesn’t feel ready yet. The trouble is, I am ready and have been for a while.
In addition to these issues, I’ve started having one-night stands.
The first time it happened I was at a party with some friends and got quite tipsy. I ended up going back to this man’s place and having sex.
It was great but I never saw him again (he also has a partner) and we both agreed that what happened was for one night only.
But it made me feel sexy and attractive for the first time in ages.
The thing is, I’ve had a couple more one-night stands since, picking up guys at parties and in bars when I’m out with friends or work colleagues. I love the thrill of it, although it’s tricky to hide it from my friends.
I also know it’s not going to make the problems in my marriage disappear.
I feel terribly guilty sometimes because, deep down, I do love my husband. What should I do?
Coleen says
When it comes to your marriage, you’ve lost touch with each other over the past 18 months.
Instead of communicating and working as a team to keep your marriage alive, you’ve both retreated into your own separate lives. You need to confront your husband about your relationship and tell him how unhappy you are, and how you miss sex and intimacy.
It’s so easy to fall into routines and, before you know it, 18 months have gone by and you’ve barely had sex or a proper conversation with each other.
You need to look at work and your lifestyles and try to work out how to spend more time together. If that’s what you want, of course.
As far as the meaningless sex goes, it will blow up in your face at some point. Something will happen and your husband will find out. So, if you really want to save your marriage, don’t wait until that happens – by then it’ll probably be too late.
Stop putting yourself in situations where you could potentially end up sleeping with someone and focus on sorting out your relationship one way or another.
When it comes to having children, you can’t keep putting it on the back burner. If he carries on being unwilling to commit, that could be the deciding factor for you.