In an article published in the Daily Mail, a British woman named Sarah Collins revealed about her cheating husband. Collins recounts that she first suspected her spouse was cheating on her one summer morning in July 2019, despite wanting to “blame Instagram” for their failing marriage, which eventually came to an end. “I” is to blame for the failure of my relationship, according to Collins.
“I noticed my husband, Graham, had posted a picture of his empty plate on Instagram, having polished off a vegan breakfast at a local cafe. He pronounced it ‘yummy’ and, underneath in the comments, a woman had written her agreement that yes, it was ‘yummy.’ Curious, I clicked on her profile — and my life fell apart.”
As she scrolled through the woman’s profile, evidence of an affair stared her in the face. She saw images that connected her husband to this other woman, “recognized his handwriting”, and knew things were about to get ugly for her marriage.
“I confronted Graham that evening, and he admitted it was his writing. He told me he had been seeing this woman for four months. I asked if they were sleeping together, and he said yes. And what’s more, he said he’d never been happier. It was an earth-shattering, humiliating, and gut-wrenching night, one I will never forget. And yet I know a large part of the fault for his infidelity rested with me.”
Collins explained that for years, she constantly rejected her husband’s sexual advances by shutting herself off from him both conversationally and physically. After years of this, he finally turned his attention to another woman who wanted him for who he was.
“Graham and I were having sex only once every two years, if that, and we’d made love maybe five times over the previous decade.”
That wasn’t good enough for their marriage, and Collins accepts responsibility for failing to satisfy her spouse’s sexual needs – or at the very least recognizing them and putting them in perspective for the sake of their connection.
“I assumed that because our 28-year marriage had been carefully built on love and respect, our lack of sex life didn’t matter. Clearly, it did.”
After their third child, she recognized a difference.
“Following two natural births, he was delivered via an emergency Caesarean section. The moments leading up to it left me so traumatized I hadn’t realized my son had survived. On top of the emotional cost, there was the physical aftermath to deal with.”
She added, “He kept trying to be affectionate and initiate sex, but I’d push him away rather brutally. I can’t imagine how that routine rejection must have felt, but I genuinely couldn’t bear the thought of it. And no, I didn’t seek help. I just assumed Graham accepted how I felt and that this was the new normal between us as a married couple. When I finally relented two years after our third child’s birth, Graham was so loving and kept asking if I was sure I wanted to go ahead. It was over as quickly as it started.”
It was then that she realized her mistake “when I pointed out he was throwing away a 28-year marriage for sex, (and) he told me that we hadn’t had a marriage for a long, long time… If my daughter ever decides to get married, I will be brutally honest with her about the physical side of married life.”
