A 57 year old Divorcee Maria-Louise has been married twice, to men who refused to have sex with her and was a virgin till 51.She met her current boyfriend Tim while married to second husband and according to Tim, 55, he has the ‘right’ to have sex with who he liked. When I received a late-night call from my lover inviting me to his home, I was already tucked up in bed. Giddy with excitement, I slipped into my best silk underwear, got into my car and made the quarter-of-an-hour journey to his house.
I’d been seeing Tim for four years, but his shift work as a doctor meant that it was rare that we’d get to spend the night together.
When I pulled into the drive of his pretty three-bedroom detached cottage, the door opened and my 53-year-old tall, dark and handsome boyfriend greeted me with open arms.
We walked towards his huge, warm kitchen, arm-in-arm — yet the moment I passed over the threshold I froze at the sight of an attractive 20-something woman sitting brazenly at Tim’s kitchen table.
Calmly, I sat down and tried to make polite conversation while they finished a bottle of wine. I tried not to react when the young woman, Lucy, brushed her hand up and down his arm.Why didn’t I react? The honest truth is that as a woman in my late 50s, I no longer feel I can.
Desperate not to be alone, I have to accept a relationship on any terms offered to me. At my age, the brutal truth is that I feel I can’t afford to be choosy. It’s sad, but true.
At 2am, Lucy announced she was tired, and I watched, flabbergasted, as she walked up the stairs. I looked at Tim, my heart breaking into a million little pieces.
He urged me to go upstairs, too, casually adding: ‘We’ll go upstairs, we’ll go to bed and we’ll invite her to join us.’This was too much, so, managing to control my tears, I haltingly explained that I, a then 55-year-old woman, wasn’t available for such tawdry threesomes and left with a heavy heart.Two years on, we’re still together. For six years now I have been in the most significant, loving relationship of my life with Tim. We’re a couple, but in order for us to exist as such, I must allow him to sleep with whoever he likes whenever he likes.
You may wonder why I, a successful career woman (I was a sales executive for most of my life) who owns a detached, mortgage-free £250,000 cottage, would put up with such disgusting behaviour from a man who claims to love me. But the truth is today, at 57, my chances of finding anyone else are so remote that I’ve no choice but to accept it.
After all, as I revealed in the Mail five months ago, I was a virgin until I was 51: even though I was married twice before I met Tim, both my husbands had refused to have sex with me.
Then, two years into our relationship, Tim made it crystal clear to me that fidelity was out of the question. Since we’ve been seeing each other, to my knowledge, he has slept with three other women.
When I returned home that evening, I burst into tears. I didn’t know what to do. Create a scene? I knew I’d lose him. Challenge him? I wasn’t in a position of power to lay down the law. Have him followed? What would that achieve?
As a woman over 50, I just didn’t feel I could make a fuss.By now, I was menopausal and staring down my sixth decade. At 48, he was a handsome man in his prime. I genuinely believed if I pulled him up over his behaviour he’d dump me.
So I held my tongue. Then, in January 2009, almost a year after we began seeing each other, I pressed him about ‘our’ future. His divorce was under way, as was mine, the paperwork being processed was just a formality. We were free to be together, so surely that would put an end to his wandering eye?
So I raised the subject of fidelity and how important it was to me. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.
According to Tim, he had the ‘right’ to have sex with who he liked. Hiding my shock, I explained that, for me, sex is the closest two people can possibly be, and that making love was an expression of my feelings for him. He merely replied it was better for me that I knew this was how it was going to be. Defeated, I said I’d accept it, as long as he was discreet. What other choice did I have?
After that conversation in 2009, life was, on the surface, wonderful. We’d enjoy long nights together, cooking wonderful meals and listening to jazz. If he slept with other women, well, at my time in life, what could I do but turn a blind eye?
Of course, that’s not to say it was easy. There were those moments when we were making love when I’d compare myself unfavourably with the other women he was inevitably seducing at the same time.
But I forced my anxieties to the back of my mind and quietly started to make plans for our future. With my divorce finally through in 2010, I sold the marital home and hired an architect to build a family home for us. Tim has two children by his ex-wife, a 20-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son, and I wanted them to be a part of our future, too.That night when he tried to make me sleep with him and another woman, however, threatened to destroy everything.
It forced me to take stock of the stark realities of my partner’s infidelity. I took an STD and HIV test, a sobering, not to mention humiliating, ordeal to put yourself through at 55.For months I tried not to call him, but after a while I just couldn’t help myself, but he wouldn’t take my calls and refused to see me.
The showdown came in February last year at his home. I told him I loved him and pleaded that I wanted him to reconsider his attitude towards fidelity.
He replied that it was out of the question: sex, according to Tim, is akin to browsing at the supermarket: one week he might fancy a rump steak, the next roast chicken. The choice was his to make.In floods of tears, I walked out. While continuing to oversee the house I’d planned for our future, I’d cry myself to sleep. I was lonely and acutely aware that as each day slipped by I was getting closer to 60.
Friends tried to pull me out of my gloom, reassuring me I was better off without him, that there were plenty of other men for an attractive woman such as myself. But the truth is that there aren’t.
This January, I turned 57. I was desperately lonely and in May I couldn’t take it any more. I called and begged him to take me back.
While friends are genuinely concerned that I’ve resumed our relationship, I’ve simply forced myself to accept that Tim will sow his oats when and with whom he wants to.
Today he’s 55 and I reassure myself he can’t go on doing it for ever. Granted, he’s handsome now, but sooner or later, women won’t want to sleep with him any more.
Things are back to normal between us and we’re a proper couple now, albeit one harbouring a rather tawdry secret.I cherish having someone to hold my hand and tell me he loves me. What he does when he’s not with me I would rather not know.
Instead, I focus on our future: sitting on the terrace of our new home that I built for us, growing old together. After all — what other choice do I have?
Realities of life!
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