I asked my husband why we hadn’t had sex for 8 years… his answer was brutal but it triggered my sexual awakening
FACING her husband, Vicki Williams said the words that had burned inside for so long: “Why haven’t you wanted sex with me for eight years?”
A day earlier, the intimacy-starved mum of 13-year-old twin boys worked out exactly how long she had gone without sex — and was devastated.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as Peter repeated the words that shattered her confidence: “I don’t fancy you, because women over 35 just aren’t meant to be attractive to men.”
His admission not only ended the 19-year marriage, it also triggered Vicki’s sexual awakening — which included propositions from a friend’s 27-year-old son, randy builders, the postman and even a celebrity.
With her confidence boosted, she met a man who she is still enjoying racy sex with two years on.
Author Vicki, now 47, from Hammersmith, West London, says: “For 11 years of our marriage, it was happy.
“Althought unexciting, our sex life was existent and we were intimate at least once a month.
“But when I turned 37, sex and all intimacy, including a kiss, ended.
“Every month I would try to get him to be intimate with me. I organised for nice meals out and bought new lingerie — but nothing ignited the passion.
“If I tried to bring intimacy up he would simply walk away. We weren’t even having huge rows — we moved along with our lives as though each of us was a ghost in the house.
“For three years I gave up trying for sex, the rejection was too humiliating.
“I threw myself into hobbies and friendships, but missed intimacy as feelings of unattractiveness crept in.
‘The bubbly woman I was at 20 was coming back’
“I’d appraise myself in the mirror and would come to the conclusion I actually wasn’t in bad nick.
“Since having children I’d gained a couple of pounds on my size ten figure, but I wouldn’t be considered overweight.
“I made an effort with my long brunette hair and make-up, and people said to me I looked young for my age.
“My husband was five years older than me, balding and trying to cover it up.
“But I had fallen in love with his personality and had still wanted to be having a sexual relationship with him.
“Questions burned inside me: ‘Was he gay? Was he having an affair?’
“But he did not let me ask them — he would slip out of the room as I entered.
“One night I sat on the sofa with a glass of wine and tallied up how long we had been sexless. I nearly dropped my glass when it hit me. It had been eight years.
“My kids were growing up and needed me less. If anything, they needed a happy mum, not the shell I had become.
“It was time to confront the issue. I went up to the bedroom we still dispassionately shared, stood in front of the door and, as he walked out of the en suite, I asked him: ‘Why haven’t you had sex with me for eight years?’
“Stunned, he bluntly replied: ‘Women over 35 aren’t supposed to be sexually attractive to men. It’s nature.’
“I was speechless and asked him to sleep in the spare room — while I sobbed in bed.
“I couldn’t live with a life of sexual drought. The next day, I told him it was over — and he simply nodded.
“When we told the boys, they weren’t shocked — they knew we were unhappy.
Sexless couples
“I then discovered that marriages lacking in intimacy are not unusual. Relationship charity Relate reports that a quarter of couples are classified as sexless.
“I’d have been relieved it was over, but my confidence was ruined. I was terrified I’d never feel alive again.
“I spent a week studying my face and body, appraising for signs of age.
“But as my second week as a singleton dawned, I decided that enough was enough — being single would be better than a sexless, loveless marriage, and I was ready for my life to restart.
“Just six months later I was in a new home — and rather than being a lonely spinster, from the moment I took the wedding ring off, offers from men started coming in.
“I was renovating a maisonette and realised, with shock, that endless tradesmen were giving me the eye.
“I brushed it off as my imagination, until one roofer asked me for a date.
“I was shocked, but he pointed to the indent on my ring finger and said: ‘You’re clearly single.’
“I told him that I wasn’t dating, but there was no denying the surge it brought to my confidence.
After not having any compliments or attention for the best part of a decade, I was leaving in my wake a trail of disappointed men.
Vicki
“The next week, a married kitchen fitter came straight out with the question: ‘Would you like a bit of no-strings fun?’
“Amazed, I told him that I wasn’t into that — and he laughed and said it was worth a try.
“He was perfectly friendly — and I felt pretty and seen.
“Just days later, a carpet fitter asked if I fancied going for a drink that evening — and the very next day a tiler offered to take me out to a new bistro.
“It felt utterly crazy — after not having any compliments or attention for the best part of a decade, I was leaving in my wake a trail of disappointed men.
“Applying my make-up every morning, I looked at myself appraisingly.
“I really was OK. I had a nice face and made an effort.
“The woman I was at 20, confident and bubbly, was coming back.
“Maybe the tradesmen were confusing my friendly, lively demeanour for flirting.
Ego boost
“Even the postman was after me. He showed up on my doorstep with a bottle of brandy, claiming he’d been given it for Christmas by one of my neighbours and wanted to share it with me as I seemed ‘lovely’.
“He wasn’t attractive to me, so I gave him a kind, but firm ‘No’. As I progressed into eight months of singledom, a celebrity sportsman was at an event I was attending.
“We had a laugh together over a glass of white wine. I thought he was just being friendly when he asked for my number, which I handed over.
“But minutes after the event, he messaged asking me to meet him at a hotel.
“I felt flushed with confidence but he wasn’t my type so I told him I wasn’t currently looking for anything sexual.
“But my biggest ego boost came from my friend’s twentysomething son.
‘Out of the blue, he shared his older-woman fantasies’
“I’d only known my pal for a few years. Her son had boy-band looks but I’d never considered him as anything other than a nice young guy.
“He had my number as he had wanted help with his career, in the same industry as me, so we were messaging.
“Out of the blue, he started flirting, sharing his older-woman fantasies and exactly what he’d like to do with me between the sheets if I let him.
It’s not just smoking-hot celebs like model Heidi Klum, 52, and actress Demi Moore, 62, who attract young lovers.
Vicki
“I nearly dropped my phone. He was hotter than anyone I’d been propositioned by when I was young. Taking a deep breath, I texted back that I wasn’t sure his mum would approve.
“But I had finally realised my husband was an idiot and I was not unattractive — in fact, I was in the prime of my life.
“It’s not just smoking-hot celebs like model Heidi Klum, 52, and actress Demi Moore, 62, who attract young lovers.
“A study from US magazine Men’s Health found 64 per cent of young men have fantasies about older women, with 40 per cent specifying ladies in their forties.
“I am certainly not alone in being an object of lust in later life — my single friends are having racy cougar flings too.
“My self-esteem was transformed in three short months and I had never felt more attractive.
“Far from being a past-it, middle-aged frump, as my ex made out, I was hot stuff to loads of men.
‘Chemistry was incredible’
“And it was at this moment that a super-hot Mr Right came along and got to be the beneficiary of my newfound sexual confidence.
“I was all dressed up in heels and a little dress at a party and got talking to a guy a similar age to me, with silver-fox looks and the toned body of a man half his age.
“He had me laughing from the start and we arranged to meet again.
“Days later, at a bar, we met and he lent over for a kiss. I was stunned. It was my first snog in almost nine years — but worth waiting for as the chemistry was incredible.
“Days later we met up again for dinner at his home.
“We couldn’t resist each other and the sex was smoking-hot.
“My worries about my mum tum, and nerves about being with someone after so long, melted away and he made me feel gorgeous.
“He was infinitely better in bed than my ex, who had always been very unsensual.
“Things moved fast and we couldn’t bear to be apart. After six months of dates, he moved into my home.
“Two years later we are still all over each other, whenever the kids aren’t around — and happily they love him too.
“He’ll wake me up in the night feeling fruity or grab me mid-afternoon when we’re supposed to be working from home. I’m more than willing.
“It’s like living in a rom-com crossed with a porn film — a thousand miles away from my sexless hell — and it’s amazing to feel so desired after the opposite experience.
“As for my ex, his new partner is well over 35 — so I hope he’s changed his tune on older women, for her sake.”
- Names have been changed