Tag: affair psychology

• 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…

• 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…

• Discreet Dating Site vs Mainstream App: Which Is Actually Safer for Married People?

  Ask most people where to go for dating online, and they’ll name a handful of the usual apps. Tinder. Hinge. Bumble. Match. The brands are so recognisable now that they’ve become shorthand for dating itself. And for a long time, married people looking outside their marriage tried to use them too — quietly, cautiously, hoping…

• Why the Best Affairs Don’t Start with Attraction

  You’d think it starts with a lingering look across a crowded room. A hand that brushes yours a second too long. That unmistakable, stomach-flipping moment when you just know. But ask anyone who’s been in a meaningful affair — one that lasted longer than a few breathless weeks — and they’ll tell you something different.…

• My Husband and I Are Basically Flatmates — Is That Normal?

  Dear Mia, I’ve been married for fourteen years and I love my husband — I do. But somewhere along the way we stopped being a couple and started being… housemates? We split the bills, coordinate the school run, argue about whose turn it is to ring the plumber. We haven’t been on a date in…

• The Invisible Strings: Navigating Emotional Attachment in Affairs

  There’s a moment that every person having an affair recognises—the split second when you’re with one person but thinking of another. Not in the dramatic, cinematic way of romance films, but in the quiet, ordinary moments. When your spouse asks what you’re thinking and you can’t possibly tell them. When you’re laughing at your lover’s…

• My Lover Keeps Asking About My Husband. How Much Should I Actually Tell Him?

  Your affair partner wants to know all about your marriage. Mia on how much to share, what to hold back, and why oversharing can quietly kill the spark. Dear Mia, I’ve been seeing someone through the site for around four months now, and it’s the happiest I’ve felt in years. The problem is he’s started…

• Texting vs Calling: What Actually Keeps an Affair Alive Between Meetings

  Texts are safer, calls feel closer. So which one keeps a married affair alive between dates? Mia on getting the risky in-between right without slipping up. Two people meet for coffee on a Tuesday. It’s easy, warm, a little bit thrilling. They part in the car park already half-planning the next one. And then… not…

• My Husband Loves Me. So Why Do I Ache to Be Wanted by Someone Else?

  She knows her husband loves her. So why does she crave being desired by a stranger? On the quiet, very human gap between being loved and being wanted. There’s a particular kind of question that lands in our inbox more than almost any other when it comes to extramarital dating. It rarely arrives in those…

• Can My Husband See What I’ve Been Browsing on the Home WiFi? A Reader Panics

  A worried reader asks whether her husband can read her private messages through the home broadband. Mia explains what a router really sees — and what it can’t. Every so often a question lands in our inbox that’s less about romance and more about plumbing. The digital kind. And this week’s is a good one,…