Don't hate me. It happened to me too. My husband left me, probably years before he actually moved out, for another woman. A woman with her own bad marriage. They did yoga together. He swears they never slept with each other but we all know infidelity has many definitions. Shared secrets, a connection, someone who finds you interesting because you're not talking about children and bills and home repairs, someone who makes you feel alive again. How could she? How could I? It wasn't planned. I should let you know that I never set out to do this. I've known your husband for about 20 years now. I've never met you. The number of times I've used that as some sort of justification. His life and mine crossing paths here and there, through work. I hadn't seen him for at least 10 years when he contacted me on social media one day after I had posted something about needing help moving to my new home across the city. He had a ute, a bit of spare time, he'd be happy to help. We swapped a few harmless messages. If you need anything done around the house, he said. If you want to catch up for a beer, he said. How are you, he said. Confused, I thought. I am confused.

The worst thing to happen out of the past few years, separating from a man I had been with for close to 30 years, is that I have lost the ability to read people. I don't know what anyone means anymore. I don't know what anyone wants. A man tells me he's never met anyone like me and then he disappears. A man tells me I'm too smart and I will never find a man. A man texts me at 4am saying he is dreaming of me, but won't correspond when the sun is up. So when this man, a man I truly believed was available, texts me and says let's catch up, I said yes. So we met for a coffee and he told me straight up that he couldn't give me Tuesday nights or Sunday afternoons but he could give me sex. Go home to your wife, I said, as we walked out to our cars. But I kissed him first. I miss kissing. You can touch yourself all day if you want. But you need someone else to kiss. And at that moment I wanted to kiss him. I just wanted a little taste of something I had, if I'm honest, wondered what it would be like for 20 years. Your husband is sexy. Even close to 50. I hope you realise that. We said goodbye and left. It was over, no harm done. And then five minutes later he rang and said he wanted to meet again. Meet at my house the next night.

I said yes. I don't know why. He wanted me. That's probably why. I hadn't had sex for years and I wanted to be wanted. Perel says 'the other woman' needs to be treated as a human being. She needs a voice and a place to dignify her experience. She writes about women who spent 30 years in relationships with married men, women who genuinely love their lovers. She talks about how many other women are not the femme fatale the media would have us believe, but are divorced or widowed women in their 50s, 60s, 70s, smart, accomplished and realistic. How we're not naive, lonely, desperate women (I sometimes disagree with her there) but women who choose to be a secret, to live a secret. But in the next breath she talks about the heavy toll these covert liaisons can take on the one who is a secret. "The lover gets the lust without the laundry, but she lives without legitimacy - a position that inevitably erodes self-esteem and confidence," she says. I'm sleeping with your husband because for the first time in a long time I feel desired, feel needed and wanted. I'm just feeling again. And I need that.

Perel talks about how the real damage from affairs is the dishonesty. Your husband has never been anything but honest with me. And I'll take that.