Sarita, in her late 20s, felt rather differently when she found that her husband had a girlfriend: she was pleased and relieved. Having experienced the difficult births of two daughters (by then six months and three years old), Sarita found the constant physical demands of her highly sexed husband tiresome. She gladly gave him permission to see the other woman, as long as he always came home to her.

Reflecting on my own experience of infidelity, I think it just felt too hard to leave. I had no family support, nowhere to go and was working part-time to be with my children more. It would be extremely difficult to survive alone, financially, and I couldn’t bear the thought of putting my children through what I had been through as a child.

The relationship lurched on, with my husband ‘working late’ most days. Eventually, he stopped trying to cover up what was going on. He would page himself on a Saturday evening and tell me that he had been called out by work, returning in the early hours. One Sunday morning, I found a bag containing his smart clothes in the cupboard under the stairs; he had clearly just dumped it on his way back in and forgotten to move it. I had had enough and told him that I didn’t want a sexual relationship with him any more. Even then, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I asked if we could live together for the sake of the children, who were just two and five years old. Nevertheless, a few weeks later he moved out and the only emotion I felt was relief.

“I turned a blind eye to my partner’s infidelities – would you?”