The hell of being a mistress

I met him when I was 29, through work. I was doing a computing course, and a mutual colleague introduced us. We just got talking and after the course we went out for dinner. I liked him a lot, we just seemed to get on really well, and I was attracted to him. He told me he was married from the outset. He later tracked me down at work and invited me out for lunch. And it went from there. After a few weeks, it was all getting a bit serious, and I had to make a decision about whether I would go through with it. At the time, it seemed the right thing to do. When the affair started it was incredible, which surprised both of us.

He'd pursued me so I assumed there must be something wrong with his marriage; I didn't think a happily married man would risk his marriage unless that was the case. Looking back I was very naive. After about six to nine months together it dawned on me - he wasn't going to leave his wife. He was telling me he loved me, so I couldn't understand why he wasn't going to leave her. I was devastated.

Since I was single he would come over to my place. We did go out in the evening, nearly always for meals - that was how we socialised. I was not expected to phone him at home, though I could call his mobile phone, which was always switched off in the evenings. If his friends were around, I had to fade into the background and quietly disappear. He never, ever stayed the whole night. Not once. I got used to waking up on my own.

A mistress must conspire to protect his marriage; the man expects you to do that. It's an implicit fact, not spoken of. I am not a secretive person by nature, so the lack of public acknowledgment for me was difficult. I could talk to my friends and family about him, and I realise I'm lucky to have had such supportive people around me. It was the people who didn't know me who disapproved. For example, if you go to a party, you can tell a stranger you are gay without anyone batting an eyelid, but try telling a stranger you are a mistress - just watch their face.

After 10 years we split up. It was my decision. I got to the point when I couldn't handle it any more - emotionally you have to be very strong if you are a mistress, and I wasn't strong enough. I realised he would never be there for me. If I was going through a bad time, I could never ring him and say, I need you, can you come over?, but the reverse was not true - he could always call on me when he needed me.

When the rest of my life was going well, I could handle it, but if something was getting me down, I had to deal with it alone. He wouldn't have walked out of his home to come and see me. There was a time when I really needed him and he wasn't there - that's why we split up. He was calling the shots because he was trying to protect his marriage.

We met again nine years later when his company moved to where I lived. I thought, it's been a long time, so I contacted him as an old friend. We met for lunch, but I didn't expect anything would happen. Then he phoned me again and I went back to him. It was even more intense after all that time and I thought it would be more meaningful. But, in fact, it wasn't.

The second time round we met at lunch-times. He worked nearby and he would visit me at my flat or we'd go out for lunch. He would go back home in the evenings. We didn't make love every time we saw each other - our relationship was more than sex, especially after all those years. When I was with him I would want the time to be as pleasant as possible and avoid arguments, because the time we had together was so short. It wasn't like a normal relationship; I would have to bottle things up and it put a real strain on me.

I never met his wife. I think she knew about me from the beginning, but it was a subject we didn't talk about. I found his marriage strange, though to him it was obviously perfectly normal. I think that I was the only one who was monogamous in that triangle. It's the way I am: I couldn't be with more than one person. People used to tell me I should find a man who wasn't married. But I found it a strange concept, to give up the man I loved and find someone else. I would rather have had the half of him than the whole of anyone else. The issue was that I loved him. He is an extraordinary man, and I am very lucky to have been with him.

I found the little things the hardest when I look back on it now, such as where to send the birthday or Christmas card and what presents to buy him? I never saw the inside of his house so I didn't know what he had. We had to be very careful how we paid restaurant bills; credit-card slips or loose receipts might have raised suspicion. I had to go alone to weddings. He never met any of my family, but I am not sure they would have been very friendly towards him. My family were supportive of me, but not of the situation.

Although he was the love of my life, it was very painful and not a healthy relationship. You've got to be a lot stronger than I was. You do what hurts least in the end, and to lose the man was, at one stage, more painful than to keep him. When it became more painful to stay together, well, that's when I had to go.

We broke up last October, and I haven't found anyone else. It's too soon. I'm sure he'll find someone. We won't get back together again.