Hilary Boyd: Affairs made my marriage stronger

Real life Wanderlust: Top author Hilary Boyd reveals how affairs made her 45-year marriage stronger echoing the steamy BBC drama where a couple go to VERY drastic lengths to save their relationship

Wedding day: Hilary and Don Boyd tied the knot in 1973

One evening, having just got out of the bath, Don, my husband of then 22 years, appeared in the bedroom. ‘We’ve got to talk,’ he said. My stomach turned to water.

‘I’ve fallen in love,’ he announced.

I felt sick with shock as he explained. He’d only met her recently, on a work trip abroad. But she was in London now and he wanted to be with her. He was smitten: a coup de foudre was how he described it.

I cried and cried. It felt like the end for our marriage. Don moved out, and for a long time all I could do was weep.

We were in our 40s back then, on that fateful night in 1995, and were yet to discover that extra-marital affairs don’t always spell the end of a marriage.

It’s a theme currently being explored in the BBC’s controversial new drama, Wanderlust, which exploded onto our screens this week.

Dubbed the steamiest drama ever, it tells the story of middle-aged relationship counsellor Joy Richards (played by Toni Collette) and her schoolteacher husband Alan (Steven Mackintosh), who agree to take lovers in an attempt to reignite their flagging sex life.

Not that Don discussed the option of straying before he went ahead and did it. But it certainly shook things up.

Looking back, I’d even dare to suggest that it was beneficial for our marriage. Eventually, that is. There is no denying that the road to recovery was long and difficult.

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And there were times when it was by no means certain we’d ever rekindle the spark that attracted us more than 40 years ago. We met in 1972, at a party in London’s West End. My cousin, who’d taken me along, pointed Don out. ‘There’s Don Boyd,’ he whispered, reverentially. ‘He’s a film director.’

We were introduced, but I wasn’t impressed. Later in the year we met again, at a May Day party, and this time it was instant attraction.

His first words to me were: ‘I wish I carried a lighter so I could light your cigarette.’ Which sounds a bit smooth — especially as he’s never smoked and hates it — but he says he was desperate to speak to me.

He was already married, with a small daughter called Amanda, but that did nothing to lessen our feelings.

Mature love: Hilary and Don have survived 45 years together

Our courtship was difficult for everyone, and very painful for his wife. Neither of us was proud of it. In fact, I decided at one point that I must call a halt.

I was on holiday in the Lake District at the time. Don knew I was coming back on a certain day, and instinct took over. He stood on the platform at Euston, meeting train after train, until I finally arrived. If he hadn’t, I would probably never have seen him again.

Don got a divorce and we married in 1973, to a chorus of disapproval. No one thought it would last.

Our daughter, Clare, was born in 1974, followed by Kate in 1977. We moved to a terrace house off the King’s Road, Chelsea. I was a nurse, but gave up work when the girls were small. It quickly became clear that Don’s work as film director/producer was all-consuming.

In those days he was away constantly — his work was his obsession. I loved his mad energy, but it came at a high price for the family.

My own father had died when I was nine, so I was used to a household that coped without a man. And for most of the time, I was virtually a single parent.

But things weren’t all doom and gloom. We enjoyed a glamorous life together: pottering on a beautiful yacht in Cannes; living in Hollywood in the early Eighties — Muhammad Ali smiled and said ‘Hi’ to me once while driving his open-topped gold Rolls-Royce into the gated community where we both lived.

There were Oscar rehearsal dinners, where I shook hands with Kirk Douglas; dinner parties with Stephen Fry, Charles Dance, Helen Mirren and John Hurt. But despite these highlights, family time with the girls was rare.

By the time of our first split in 1995 — when Don admitted he’d fallen in love with someone else — I’d known something was wrong for a while. We’d just got back from a miserable holiday in France, where he’d been very distant with me.

It’s a theme currently being explored in the BBC’s controversial new drama, Wanderlust, which exploded onto our screens this week (pictured)

Shortly before we went away, Don had confided that he’d been abused for years by the French teacher at his Scottish boarding school. A man I’d met, a man I’d made lunch for, for goodness sake!

Don wouldn’t talk about it or get help, so I thought that was the reason for his uncommunicative mood.

When he admitted the real reason, I fell apart.

When Don left, our younger daughter, Kate, then 17, was still at home. She had to listen to me cry every night — which made me feel so guilty, and furious with Don.

I found a brilliant therapist — and was still functioning, just. But all I wanted to do was cry.

Dubbed the steamiest drama ever, it tells the story of middle-aged relationship counsellor Joy Richards (played by Toni Collette) and her schoolteacher husband Alan (Steven Mackintosh), who agree to take lovers in an attempt to reignite their flagging sex life (pictured)

That goes a long way to explaining why — six months after he had left me — I welcomed Don back with open arms.

His new relationship hadn’t worked out. ‘I love you, I’ve always loved you,’ he said, a picture of contrition.

I was so happy. I automatically took him back. You might think this was weak and stupid of me, but I still loved him.

We were both wounded and didn’t fall back into each other’s arms immediately. But, gradually we reconnected, remembering how much we had loved each other.

The fact is, affairs — or the desire for one — are usually a symptom, not a cause of marital troubles. And, without being flippant about the pain involved, sometimes couples need to look at each other differently, to re-evaluate their relationship.

If you are prepared to be entirely honest with each other after an infidelity, there are positives you can take from it.

Our mistake was that we didn’t do that, preferring to brush things under the carpet.

Five years later, in May 2000, we split up again, following another period of difficulty. This time the separation was down to my affair.

It wasn’t tit for tat — honestly. But it was an accident waiting to happen.

Having sold our flat, we were living on top of each other at my sister’s while we found another home.

I met the man in question at a friend’s dinner party. He wasn’t married, nor looking for a relationship, but he appreciated me in a way that Don had ceased to do.

By this point I was writing non-fiction books about health. Don was depressed and going through serious work ructions. He was like a bear with a very sore head, but he wouldn’t talk about what was wrong.

Don found out about my liaison when, fixing a glitch on my computer, he spotted the damning emails. He promptly went nuts. And then he fell apart.

He moved out, lost weight, began exercising manically and found a therapist. I’d never planned a future with the ‘other’ man and soon ended the affair. I assumed my actions had already spelled the end of my marriage. Happily, I was wrong.

For, crazy as we are, we missed each other. Don’s flat in Covent Garden became our ‘love nest’. We met once a week, sometimes I stayed over. Cautiously, we fell in love again.

It was an exciting time, passionate and fun. He’d make delicious suppers he knew I’d like, with classy white wine, lovely cheeses, tomatoes, salads and fruit.

Don was angry about my affair. But he knew he couldn’t talk, having been unfaithful himself first.

I apologised to him for lying, but I felt no remorse for the affair. Don and I had been struggling to connect for so long and it had been important to find confidence in myself as an attractive woman.

But underlying it all, we had so much shared history and so much love for each other. We’d just lost sight of it.

We had the best of intentions when we rekindled our relationship after both our affairs. But we hadn’t resolved our problems. And although everything went well for the next few years — we were proud we’d survived another relationship trauma — the unexamined past haunted us.

Don had not completely recovered from my affair and was often jealous and possessive.

We should have talked more, been honest about why the affairs had happened in the first place. But we just slipped back into our marriage. And the past festered.

Cut to early 2006 and we’d reached a point where we could barely be civil to each other. No affair this time, but by mutual consent, I moved to Highgate, round the corner from our daughter, Clare, and her husband, Simon. Don moved to a place in Soho.

I was relieved to be on my own and free from the endless bickering — I needed to be independent. ‘It really is over,’ I told myself. But then something magical happened: Tilda, our first granddaughter was born that September. And Don had a lightbulb moment. He suddenly realised just how important his family was.

He apologised to his daughters for not being a better father. He apologised to me for being a rubbish husband. And we began our third round of falling in love.

This time things were more real. There was no love nest, no special suppers, no grand romantic gestures. Just a quiet acknowledgement of our love.

I insisted we talk openly about our marriage, about how we really felt about the affairs — warts and all — about all the hoarded bitterness we’d never dared express. About what would — and wouldn’t — work for us in the future.

It was painful, facing all those resentments and failures in our past, being reminded of what we had put the children through.

But we laid all bare, shouted and cried, then set new parameters, centred firmly on honesty and respect. The effort was worth it only because we knew we still had that soul connection.

I had a lucky break eight years ago, and wrote a very successful novel. We moved to West Sussex, and we’ve never been happier.

After decades on a rollercoaster marriage, I feel that Don is now totally on my side — we’re a proper team at last.

The rancour of the past has long gone; we no longer blame each other for what went wrong.

It’s great to be able to talk about it without feeling pain and resentment. Now we’ve been married for 45 years, none of it matters.

I would never advocate splitting up as a solution to a rocky marriage. But sometimes it’s important to get perspective, to find out who you are as an individual again, especially in a long partnership.

Being unfaithful is dangerous, and the fall-out is extremely painful for everyone concerned.

But it can also make you realise just how much your partner means to you. It can give you space to recalibrate your relationship.

I firmly believe that an affair can be survived — if those involved are prepared to be honest about why it happened in the first place. I also believe if you truly love someone once . . . then, why not again?

n Hilary Boyd’s novel The Anniversary is published by Michael Joseph on September 20 at £7.99 or in eBook today from amazon.co.uk. To pre-order the paperback for £6.39 (before September 14), visit mailshop. co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640. P&P free on orders over £15.

 

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