Hand on heart, I went into my marriage with the most honourable of intentions.
I loved my husband and wanted us to grow old together, to fall asleep every night warm and safe in the cocoon of a stable, conventional marriage with a man who loved me and whom I loved in return.
I was determined our home would be a happy one, without a calendar in the kitchen scheduling ‘Daddy weekends’, and for our children never to endure another introduction to ‘Mummy’s new boyfriend’. And that’s what I set out to achieve that day, ten years ago, when I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm at our local church in Hampshire.
However, as I got to the front pew, where my handsome soon-to-be husband Andy waited nervously, I looked over and caught my mother’s eye – and she winked at me.
She knew. Of course she did. This marriage was doomed from the start.
And she was right. I am currently in the early stages of a divorce after sitting Andy down, six months ago, and telling him I wanted ‘out’ – after ten years and three little girls together.
It was dreadful seeing him so heartbroken and confused as I explained how unhappy I was and how I thought we’d grown apart.
What I didn’t tell him, however – and have no intention of doing so – is that there was another reason for me wanting to be single again. I’d developed a crush on a much younger work colleague, which had spilled over into a steamy affair.
I’m not in love with this younger man – far from it.
He’s merely a symptom, not the cause, of the breakdown of my marriage. The brutal truth is that, for me, the prospect of having sex with just my husband until the day I take my last breath had started to terrify me – and I couldn’t be faithful to him any longer.
And I believe it’s because I’m genetically hardwired to be unfaithful.
I believe I’m genetically hardwired to be unfaithful, writes Sharon Bayley. My inability to remain faithful is coded into my DNA and passed to me from my mother – as it was from her father
As I got to the front pew, where my handsome soon-to-be husband Andy waited nervously, I looked over and caught my mother’s eye – and she winked at me. She knew
After a decade fighting against my nature, I’ve finally accepted the inevitable. And at whom do I point the finger of blame for this inherited character trait? My mother.
Yes, my mother, the one sitting there in her new hat on my wedding day, giving me that knowing wink.
I honestly believe my inability to remain faithful is coded into my DNA and passed to me from her – as it was to her from her own father. Mum has been unfaithful her entire adult life, to both her husbands and every other relationship between and after.
Before you scoff, or write me off as a harlot, this is not an excuse; research has long backed up the strong genetic link in the intergenerational transmission of divorce. Some studies suggest your chances of getting divorced are doubled if your parents’ own marriage didn’t last.
Of course, there’s always the ‘nature versus nurture’ argument to consider, i.e., how much of our behaviour is genetically inherited and how much is learned from our parents. And I learned a lot from my mother on this subject, from a very early age.
I was just seven when Mum sat me down to explain about the birds, the bees… and extra-marital affairs. Despite my tender age she didn’t hold back. She has always lived by the mantra ‘life is short, so have fun!’, and she told me in no uncertain terms that I should never feel obliged to stick with one partner if it wasn’t making me happy. She has never once expressed remorse either.
She treated me and my older sister Amy more like friends than daughters, once regaling us with the story of how, two weeks before she married my father, she was on a plane to New York for her job in publishing. On the flight she got chatting to a handsome stranger and when they touched down, she went to his hotel to have sex. Her justification was: ‘I could, so I did!’
Unfathomably, Mum told Dad exactly what had happened when she returned home and yet the wedding still went ahead. They were together for four years, splitting up when I was a year old because of Mum’s continued affairs.
Somehow they managed to stay amicable and Dad went on to marry someone else. Mum, meanwhile, went on to have multiple other relationships, many of which ‘overlapped’.
She gave marriage another try when I was ten, yet this imploded in typical fashion after four years when she failed to come home one night and breezily confessed that she’d been ‘sleeping with someone else’.
I didn’t witness the scene that ensued, thank goodness – Mum just told us about it later. Luckily, I’d never developed a deep bond with my stepfather, so I didn’t miss him too much when he packed his belongings and moved out.
After that, my childhood was a revolving door of handsome men. I know there were affairs throughout my primary school years, not least because Mum would point out other fathers at school whom she’d slept with – although she was always careful to avoid the fathers of my close social circle of friends, in case it created problems for me.
To my sister and me, this was entirely normal – which naturally influenced our behaviour as adults. While I followed in Mum’s footsteps, getting married before straying, Amy, who works in the film industry, remains deliberately single. She has no intention of embracing a ‘traditional’ life, instead preferring to keep up a rotating cast of lovers.
Yet though Mum’s behaviour had such a seismic impact on me, I don’t resent her for it. What she lacked in perceived morality, she made up for with love and complete honesty. Growing up I always felt I could – and still can – talk to her about absolutely anything, which any mother will know is pretty rare.
Believe me, Mum is not a bad person – she’s kindness personified, a very present and loving mother. She just had a very different perspective when it comes to sex and marriage.
While I admit there were occasions when I envied the conventional lives of my school friends, those with dads at home every evening, they never had the warmth and fun of our house.
Of course, there were casualties along the way. Mum always told us: ‘Nothing lasts for ever, but accept you might hurt people.’ Poor Andy was hurt and my father and stepfather certainly were, too, though I never felt I could discuss it with my dad.
While you may consider Mum telling me such things as highly irresponsible, one thing she was very firm on was that you should only have children when you are ready and settled, and throughout my teens drummed into us the importance of contraception.
By 19 I was in a relationship with my first serious boyfriend. While most first relationships are of the obsessive, puppy love kind, Mum’s influence meant I was repeatedly unfaithful
There was one colleague who I couldn’t stop thinking about even though he was ten years younger than me. We met up at his house; the sex was mind-blowing
By 19 I was in a relationship with my first serious boyfriend. While most first relationships are of the obsessive, puppy love kinds, Mum’s influence meant I was repeatedly unfaithful.
Mum could see what was happening and she never judged me for it. She’d remind me: ‘You’re only young once.’
I wasn’t surprised when she told me how her father was also unfaithful. He even had a separate family that Mum only found out about after he’d died – though Mum says she wasn’t shocked, as her dad had always been a ladies’ man – proving the ‘unfaithful gene’ goes way back.
I’ve often wondered how Mum would have reacted if the tables were turned and she discovered one of her husbands was cheating on her. I don’t think she’d have been jealous. Knowing Mum, she’d want to know the woman and be friends with her.
But after I left home for university and was further out of Mum’s orbit, I suddenly became aware of just how unusual her views on fidelity were. How immoral others considered such behaviour.
In every film I saw or book I read, the women who stayed faithful to their Prince Charming were the heroines. Women like Mum were the villains.
I found myself increasingly confused and conflicted. Eventually I resolved that while I would indeed satisfy my sexual urges while single and dating in my early 20s, when I finally met a man I could settle down with I would never stray again.
I would embrace everything that Mum had railed against: conventionality, stability, fidelity.
I met Andy at the marketing firm we both worked at when I was 27. He was perfect for me: solid, dependable and from a loving, stable, conventional home. I was convinced he was ‘the one’ to make me mend my ways and we married two years later.
I told myself that I was committed to this institution of marriage. I would be faithful.
At first, it was easy. We had our daughters in quick succession and as a busy mother of three children under-five my focus was on them.
But even when all the children were out of their baby years, things remained rather mundane in the marital bedroom.
I’d always had a high sex drive and, before I was married, would have sex daily if I could. Yet now I was half-heartedly going through the motions once a month, with zero libido.
I was so perplexed by this that I even saw my GP to see if, even though I was only 35, there was something hormonally wrong with me. He kindly pointed out there were no physical issues – but that there was perhaps an issue with my marriage.
His words came as a great shock. But back home I wondered, was he right? At last the penny dropped. I hadn’t gone off sex – I’d just gone off sex with Andy. The prospect of having sex with him, and only him, for the rest of my life – of never feeling the hot rush of new desire ever again – horrified me.
But still, I resolved not to do anything about it. I wanted my daughters to enjoy the stable, nuclear family I’d never had. So I buried my feelings and tried to make the best of things.
Two years later, when my youngest daughter started school, I went back to work aged 37 after five years as a stay-at-home mum.
It was such a buzz being around new people. And the testosterone given off by younger men was intoxicating.
When my husband asked what my new colleagues were like (hot, sexy, making me giddy with desire…) I had to play it down.
There was one man in particular I couldn’t stop thinking about. Even though he was ten years younger than me, I’d find myself deliberately sitting next to him in meetings and making excuses to bump into him in the kitchen.
I told myself it was just a harmless fantasy. But then last spring – around a year after we’d started working together – I confessed my feelings for him at a work party after a couple of drinks.
To my delight, he felt the same. And so began an exchange of steamy text messages between us. After so long without this kind of chemistry, experiencing this new sexual energy was absolutely thrilling. Two weeks later we met up at his house; the sex was mind-blowing. I was honestly surprised to realise I didn’t feel guilty at all. If anything, my main feeling was one of relief. I’d felt empty for so long; this was exactly what I needed.
While, like Mum, I felt no guilt about my infidelity, unlike her I didn’t tell my husband I cheated. But after that, our marriage was unsalvageable – I couldn’t pretend any more. I still loved Andy as the father of my children but I no longer had feelings for him.
We did undergo counselling but, for me, it was just a box-ticking exercise to keep things cordial. I’d already checked out of our marriage.
Andy has told me I’m ‘cold’ for my unruffled attitude about our separation – and that’s without him knowing I’ve been unfaithful. But I haven’t felt so happy in years. Like Mum, when my relationship wasn’t serving me any more, I found one that did.
I did consider staying with Andy for the sake of our children but if we weren’t sleeping together any more, what was the point in keeping up the pretence?
While I could have followed Mum’s example and continued to stay married while cheating on him, quite frankly with a busy job, three young children and a husband to care for, I wouldn’t have had the time.
The one person I’ve told the truth to is Mum; she simply told me to be true to myself. Fighting against my instincts and my inherent nature made me very unhappy. I believe that, like her, I cannot help what I am.
The girls were upset about the divorce at first but Andy and I have worked out a good system and he’s a good father.
I think the girls are happier seeing me so happy.
However, I won’t be sitting them down, like Mum did with my sister and me, and cursing future relationships before they’ve even been on their first date.
While monogamy wasn’t for me, I don’t want them following in my footsteps. And yet I do worry that they may have inherited my anti-commitment gene.
Now 39 and single, the offers coming my way are plentiful and I intend to enjoy as many of them as I can – just as Mum, now in her 60s and still an attractive woman, continues to do.
Many people reading this will be judging me harshly. They’ll say I’m cruel and unprincipled, and that I’ll get my comeuppance when I end up a lonely old woman because of my inability to stay with one man.
Maybe that’s true. But I refuse to live with regrets. I’ve denied my true nature for long enough.
Sharon Bayley is a pseudonym. All names and identifying details have been changed.
As told to: SAMANTHA BRICK
