Category: Dating Advice

• The Argument You Can’t Tell Anyone About: What Happens When You and Your Affair Partner Row

  Helen from Hertfordshire didn’t sleep the night she and James fell out. They’d been seeing each other for nearly six months — coffees, lunches, the odd hotel afternoon. It had felt easy. Then one Thursday he messaged saying he didn’t want to be the one always rearranging his diary, she replied something sharp, and he…

• The Privacy Mistake Nearly Every Married Dater Makes in Their First Week

  Mike — fifty-one, married twenty-three years, second time on a married dating site after a long pause — was certain he had the privacy thing sorted. Hidden folder. Burner email. Notifications off. He’d spent more time setting up the app than actually messaging anyone on it. And then his wife, who has never once asked…

• He Stopped Reaching for Her Hand at Some Point. She Couldn’t Tell You When.

  It happened to her in a Pret in Reading station, of all places. Anna was forty-seven, married for nineteen years to a man she still — by every reasonable measure — loved. Two children, both at university now. A semi-detached on a leafy street in Berkshire, a labrador called Bertie, the usual quiet rhythm of…

• He Wants to Meet. I’m Not Ready. How Do I Slow This Down Without Putting Him Off?

  “I joined a married dating site about three weeks ago and matched with someone really lovely — kind, funny, married like me, similar age. We’ve been chatting every day. The problem is, he’s already asking when we can meet for a drink. I’m not ready. I really like him though, and I’m worried that if…

• She’d Stopped Dressing for Anyone. Including Herself.

  The drift didn’t happen all at once. That was the strange part. Helen, 48, an architect in Edinburgh, thought back later and couldn’t pinpoint when she’d started reaching for the same grey cardigan four mornings in a row. Or when she’d quietly retired the lipstick she used to wear to client meetings. Or when the…

• Everyone Says I Should Just Leave. But I Don’t Want to Blow Up My Life. Is That Stupid?

  “I’ve been married 14 years. Two kids, the mortgage, the school run, the lot. My marriage isn’t bad exactly — it’s just gone. We don’t fight, we don’t really talk, we don’t share a bed in any meaningful sense of the word. Every friend I confide in tells me I should leave. They make it…

• She Didn’t Expect to Like Him. That Was the First Problem.

  Rachel from Winchester was forty-three when she signed up. She’d been married for sixteen years to a man who, by any reasonable account, was decent. Mark wasn’t cruel. He didn’t forget her birthday. He put the bins out, went to their daughter’s netball matches, and occasionally remembered to bring home flowers on a Friday —…

• 7 Quiet Signs You Stopped Being Happy in Your Marriage (Long Before You Admitted It)

  Most people don’t wake up on a Tuesday and realise their marriage is unhappy. It arrives more quietly than that — settling in slowly, like damp into old walls, and by the time anyone notices the smell, they can’t quite remember when it started. Sarah from Nottingham, who joined Illicit Encounters in 2025, put it…

• Essay: Signs Your Marriage Is Over: How to Tell When It’s No Longer a Rough Patch but a Quiet Ending

  Rebecca from Harrogate sat across from a friend in a Yorkshire café and said something she hadn’t said out loud before. “I think it’s over.” Then she waited for her friend to push back — to say marriages go through this, to say everybody feels like that sometimes, to find the reassuring reply that would…

• Do I Actually Need a Second Phone for Married Dating? A Reader Asks

  This week in the IE postbag — Karen from Guildford writes in with one of the questions we’re asked more often than almost any other on the discretion front. Mia answers. Dear Mia, I’ve just joined a married dating site for the first time. I’m 43, my marriage has been a polite flatshare for about…