Infidelity: Desperately seeking someone

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 21/01/2008

In the digital age, having an affair has never been easier. Author Angela Levin spent five months interviewing middle-class professionals for an extensive study that charts the rise of the no-strings-attached* relationship. In the first of a three-part investigation, she reveals why the UK is in the grip of an infidelity epidemic.

'Been left parked in the garage of marriage too long, battery getting flat and needs somebody to give it a spark of life, full tank and ready to go.

Infidelity
Clincher: many unfaithful men blame their wives

"Present owner does not like going for a ride any more but am not up for sale. Seeking discreet lady mechanic, preferably married, to enjoy some NSA run-outs together."

This advert was posted by John, a 44-year-old married IT manager on a popular dating website favoured by men like him who want no-strings-attached (NSA) relationships.

"I try to make my adverts witty because I don't want sex with someone who doesn't have a sense of humour," the father-of-two explained. "At the same time, I want whoever she is to know from the start that if she is after a relationship, she can forget it.

"I have no intention of leaving my wife. I realise it sounds funny to say I care about her, but I do. I am just a bit bored."
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Quite how many married men and a smaller, but increasing, number of women are risking their emotional and physical health in this way is difficult to know, as few people ever tell the truth about their sex lives. However, a survey last week claimed that more than half of married people admit they are not completely happy in their relationship, and that 59 per cent of wives would leave their marriage if they could afford to do so. Seemingly trapped by their unhappy domestic situation, eight out of 10 couples will, at some time, be unfaithful to each other.

Of course, men have sought mistresses since time began. The difference is that we now seem to be in the middle of an infidelity epidemic. The dilemma seems less about whether to have an affair and more about finding the most convenient way of doing so. As a result, no-strings-attached relationships have become something of a cultural phenomenon.

In spite of a recent survey revealing that 70 per cent of married women and 54 per cent of married men don't know about the extra-marital affairs of their spouses, infidelity remains the most common reason for divorce - a situation that is currently affecting 40 per cent of all UK marriages.

But is it realistic in this day and age to expect decades of fidelity? And should society come to a new accommodation of marriage and long-term relationships? "An awful lot of both men and women commit adultery but don't want their marriage to end," says James Stewart, a divorce lawyer at leading London solicitors Manches. "They can be quite shocked when their spouse considers it a deal-breaker."

There are many reasons why more people than ever are having extra-marital affairs. We are all healthier and living longer, which means marriages can last decades more than they used to and there is an increasing chance of people growing apart or getting bored of each other. We also live in a me-generation, and fewer of us are prepared to compromise on the kind of life we want. Women today are more financially and psychologically independent than ever before, and more sexually active. They are far less likely to stick with a marriage if they are unhappy than ever before in history.

Viagra and other drugs help men stay sexually active for longer, while women have access to HRT, Botox and cosmetic surgery to keep themselves looking good. And - thanks to modern methods of communication, such as email, mobiles and text messages - affairs are far easier to run than ever before, at least in practical, if not emotional terms.

Over a five-month period, I spoke to nearly 100 men and women - all middle-class professionals with good homes, decent jobs and, on the surface, happy families - who have had extra-marital relationships. It was a random rather than scientific study but it confirmed that there seems to be a seismic shift in people's attitude to adultery.

What used to happen (and still does to some extent) is that an individual met someone, perhaps a colleague or their spouse's best friend, fell for them and as a result had an affair. Nowadays it is often the other way round and almost brutally clinical. Individuals decide objectively and in advance that they want an affair and then set out to find someone suitable. It's almost as if he or she is a commodity to be taken off a supermarket shelf. As it has never been easier to find illicit sex, the adulterous shopper is often spoiled for choice.

Type "discreet relationships" into Google and an astonishing 1,670,000 websites come up. These include marriedsecrets.com, illicitencounters.co.uk, rekonnect.com, meet2cheat.co.uk, askmen.com, philanderers.com, and the sizeable personals sections on sites such as gumtree.com and craigslist.org. They cater for people of all ages who want to advertise for sexual partners.

But a glance at the type of advert placed reveals the age old differences between the sexes. While the men are self-promoters and boast about their sexual prowess, the women tend to undersell themselves. "I am not a stunner, just average," begins one modest female. "I have no wish to lie about my circumstances. I am at the end of a long marriage but can't leave just yet because of the children," writes another.

John has been advertising on two sites with some success over the last nine months. "I'm doing it because my life has become dull and predictable," he says.

"My job's OK. I can pay my mortgage and go on holiday. My children are doing reasonably well at school. My wife works part-time and runs the home. But I want to feel adrenaline running through my body again and only great sex can give me that. I feel really excited when I place my advert. I have opened up a separate email account so it is unlikely that anyone at work or home can discover it. I've had a few short-term flings and haven't got it right yet. But it is addictive, so I shall keep trying. You don't know who is going to be out there."

Some older men admitted that they have advertised for a sexual playmate to relieve the boredom of early retirement. "I had a busy career but now that I am at home all the time, I find life very dull," one 60-year-old confessed. "I want what everyone else is getting. I can always get some Viagra if I find a much younger woman. I'm still very interested but my wife lost interest in sex long ago."

Blaming their wanderings on their wives' sexual rejection of them is a common way for men to justify their behaviour. Richard, who runs his own marketing business, shows unwavering confidence in his sexual prowess and has successfully found several casual encounters. His advert - "Another married guy, 54, looking for NSA married fun with married woman" - is pragmatic and to the point, but hardly enticing.

He insists his unemotional affairs are saving his marriage rather than putting it at risk. Like many men he doesn't want a divorce, partly to avoid the financial wrangling and also because he wants to stay close to his children.

"I've been married a long time and have a high sex drive. My wife doesn't. I've tried to talk to her about it, but she either gets angry, withdraws or cries and the atmosphere between us can be awful for days.

"But I don't want to leave her. We are good friends. We have a lot in common, including our children. So having an NSA arrangement suits me fine. I love the excitement of a different body and know for certain that without it my marriage would be over by now.

"I have sex with a woman, rather like casual friends might meet for a drink. I don't get emotionally involved. I enjoy the chase and can get very intense when I am after someone new. I send lots of flirty texts, and emails. Women are very susceptible to flattery. Most feel self-conscious about some part of their body and reassurance soon makes her mine.

"When the sex is good I feel 50 feet tall, confident and relaxed. Otherwise, I'm climbing up the wall, am bad tempered, difficult to be with and very critical of my wife. It's as simple as that." He believes men have been genetically programmed to stray: "Men can't resist temptation. I get a thrill from chasing new women. I prefer older married women, because they know what they want and have fewer hang ups."

The most likely times for a man to stray are after the first year of marriage, when the emotional high of finding the right partner subsides; after his first child is born, when he suddenly sees his partner as a mother figure rather than a lover; after between five and seven years of togetherness, when he's bored, doesn't want to settle into a cosy routine and yearns for excitement; and then at intermittent intervals.

Tony, 53, believes he could never be faithful, whoever he married and in whichever century he had been born. "If I wasn't involved in NSA relationships I might have had more complicated affairs or even used prostitutes. Most prostitutes today are drug addicts whereas most of the women I've been with have been quite respectable.

"I like the fact that I don't get involved in talking about mundane stuff like problems with the washing machine or little Billy's latest upset at school. I get those passion-killers at home. Instead, I wipe out everything that is going on in my life for a couple of hours.

"I've met some attractive women who are fed up with their husbands because they have gone to seed and lost interest in sex. All they have to do is understand the deal.

I am straightforward about it, always use contraception, and if they show signs of getting involved I move on."

All the men I spoke to were careful to take precautions and tried to ensure their wives didn't find out what they were up to. But they all persisted in the belief that if she did catch them out, she shouldn't take their behaviour seriously. "Although in some people's book what I am doing is immoral," said John, "I think it's pretty harmless. No man wants to swap a meaningless relationship for a marriage. Particularly if it's lasted a long time and you are good friends."

It is perhaps the only saving grace of an NSA relationship. If there is a scale of adultery, NSA liaisons surely come nearer the bottom than the top. They are essentially top-ups, a desire for variety and sexual thrill and not intended to break up an established relationship. "It's a bit like not wanting the same sauce on your pasta every single mealtime," one man told me.

An alternative, that simplifies the process for both sexes and saves time, is offered by David Miller, a self-styled businessman turned adulterers' guru. David, 53, runs lovinglinks.com, a London-based internet dating site that has 23,000 members all, in theory at least, married men and women who want to stray. He also runs "a bespoke one-to-one service" for a select few, where women pay £350 and men £1,500 every eight weeks for his services. ("Men pay more," he explains, "because the type of men I deal with are usually high earners. It also helps ensure they are respectable.")

David, who is twice divorced and now "extremely happy and faithful" in a long-term relationship, likes to think of himself as a cross between a service provider and a social worker. "I am not in the sex industry," he insists. "I am just a realist. People have these situations and want to deal with them elegantly."

He used to produce TV commercials but 13 years ago decided he wanted a change. "I toyed with the idea of opening a specialist dating agency but realised married people don't really want to get involved with singles. So I ran an ad in a Sunday newspaper with a PO box number that read, 'Attached? Married? Bored?'. I was inundated and it went on from there."

He meets each applicant personally and over a drink or two finds out his or her needs and desires. He then provides three carefully chosen individuals at a time for them to chose from.

His clients are wide-ranging. "I have all sorts of high-ranking professionals come to me and, recently, far more women. Many of my female clients are psychotherapists. I haven't a clue why.

"All the women tell me they feel safer if I vet men for them before they meet - while the men are often so busy they rely on me to find them someone discreet and personable. I've even had a woman bring her son-in-law to meet me. She could see that there were things going wrong in [her daughter's] marriage and thought a discreet affair might prevent a break-up.

"Nor are most of my clients only interested in the sex aspect. They also want to be able to talk intelligently with whoever they are with and even go out to dinner. They don't want something dirty, nasty or sleazy. They want fun and quality in their life and I try to find it for them. I am a romantic and I want people to be happy."

Isn't their happiness at the expense of their married partner? "People can get hurt," he agrees, "but they can get hurt anyway, and sometimes these type of relationships, if they are handled discreetly, are the Band-Aid a long-term marriage needs.

"Women have usually thought about it very carefully often for years before they approach me, and by the time they do they have already bought a separate mobile and set up an email account - whereas most of the men haven't even thought about how they will manage it. Women also can handle a portfolio of relationships, men can usually only handle one. And not just because they are so busy."

His liaisons are not for the emotionally vulnerable or faint-hearted and should come with a health warning. "Once people get involved in the type of situation I provide, it's hard for them to stop," he says. "They are the crack cocaine of relationships. People get addicted to the buzz and adrenaline rush of new encounters."

Anyone who seeks a casual fling needs to have a cast-iron emotional constitution.

Re-assurance or tenderness isn't part of the deal. It's a take it or leave it situation, although it's not always expressed in such basic terms. He, and particularly she, also needs to understand the difference between lust and love and try to protect their heart as well as their health - and that of their spouse. The health risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are well-known, but the risk of psychological damage, particularly for the vulnerable and needy, can be underestimated.