A woman has revealed she blames herself for her marriage breaking down after she agreed to have sex with her husband just once every two years.
Sara Collins, 52, explained that while she and her ex-husband started out with a very active sex life in their early 20s, the amount of intimacy slowly decreased over their 28-year marriage.
In 2016, she appeared on This Morning to talk about her marriage:
While the pair outwardly had the perfect life with their home in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, she admits that before Graham cheated in 2019, 'we’d made love maybe five times over the previous decade.'
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The mum of three wrote in an essay for the Daily Mail this month (September 2022) that she had now 'cursed myself for not prioritising my sex life and letting my marriage die' after still finding herself single three years on.
Recalling the day she discovered that her now ex-husband was having an affair, she wrote: "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."
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She recalled of her confronting him: "I asked if they were sleeping together and he said yes. And what's more, he said he'd never been happier."
Sara said that their sex life ended following a traumatic Caesarean section in 2008, which caused her to lose all confidence in her body.
She explained that when her Graham attempted to initiate intimacy after this, she rejected him and things got to the point where she wouldn't even let him see her naked.
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While the couple did finally have sex two years later, she said it was 'over as quickly as it started'.
However, Sara said as her then husband was such an understanding person, she thought that he would happily accept their new, sexless marriage.
But she realised that wasn't the case when, upon discovering his affair, she said: "I pointed out he was throwing away a 28-year marriage for sex, he told me that we hadn't had a marriage for a long, long time."
Now, Sara is full of regret over the situation, revealing that while her ex-husband's affair didn't last, he is a 'catch' for his age and is seeing a new woman who she describes as 'lovely.'
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"I wasn't prepared to compromise or acknowledge his needs, and, in the process, I lost the love of my life," she said.
Sara is now sharing her story in a bid to stop others from making the same mistake as her and said it's something that she will eventually warn her daughter of too.
"If my daughter ever decides to get married I will be brutally honest with her about the physical side of married life," she said.
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"I cannot understate how important this aspect is. Because if you aren’t having sex with your husband, there are plenty of women out there who will."
Sara's ex-husband, Graham, meanwhile, admits that he should have told her how much their lack of a sex life was upsetting him.
"I'm not a cruel person, but I did it to save myself after years of being ignored," he said of the affair.
"I don't think Sara is to blame, rather I regret that we allowed things to get to that stage and that communication broke down between us."
Topics: Sex and Relationships, This Morning