- Tracey Cox says that affairs come from a human desire for excitement
- She says that as a relationship goes on we can long for more exotic sex
- She claims that in order to avoid affairs we should lower our expectations
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Affairs are big news right now.
Gwyneth and Chris's apparent 'open' marriage is making headlines, while Cameron Diaz claims infidelity is inevitable ('everyone will be cheated on') and one of America's top psychotherapists has penned a book that claims people who sleep around can still be happy at home.
Esther Perel is the author of the infamous Mating in Captivity and one of the sanest (albeit controversial) voices on couples and sexuality.
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Tracey says the real reason that people stray away is because they are looking for more sexual excitement than their relationship is offering
She's always believed affairs are less about how much you love your partner - or even a reflection on how good your sex life is - and more about a very human desire for excitement that's lost when we settle into a routine.
Marriage and love comfort us and give us much-needed security, she says. What long-term relationships don't tend to offer is sexual charge.
She's right, of course - married couples are always moaning about sex.
'We'd stay in bed for hours on end. That's what weekends were for. Why can't it be like that ten years on?'
'I want the sex we had at the start. When we did it five times a day, up against the fridge, on top of the coffee table.'
I'd also like all of the above (two happy years in with my partner) - and the physique of a Victoria Secret model, Kim Kardashian's credit cards, to spend most of summer with my bum velcroed to a sun bed in the south of France and a nice, big roof terrace added to my flat.
Affairs are a hot topic in the celebrity world with rumours of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's split being down to an 'open relationship'
Thing is, I don't expect any of these things to happen because I'm a sensible adult with realistic expectations.
I know from years of studying sex and love that the human brain and body aren't designed for (and actually aren't capable of) sustaining the type of sex and love we all seem to think is possible long-term.
We want the throw-each-other-around-the-bedroom in a frothy, lust-fuelled state to last forever.
It doesn't and it won't.
Our current perceptions on long-term love and sex are more than a little 'Emperor's New Clothes'.
The odd couple boast about still being driven mad with lust 20 years in and people prick their ears up even though there's never any proof.
It's rubbish.
I don't know any couple who are ripping the clothes off each other's bodies ten years in (and don't bother writing to tell me you 're the exception because I simply won't believe you!)
Tracey says that in order to avoid affairs we need to lower our expectations of what our sex lives should really be like
My theory on affairs is that we'd all be far less tempted to have them if we adjusted our expectations of long-term sex and made them more realistic and achievable.
If we'd accept that sex with the same person over time necessarily changes into something that's less frenetic, quieter and (by the way), often more efficient, those 'This isn't what it's supposed to be like! It must mean I don't fancy my partner' niggles would stop.
If we knew leaving one partner because we 'don't fancy them anymore' for someone wildly exciting is pointless, because we're only going to end up at the same place again, wouldn't we be less tempted to do it?
Listen, no-one's denying the fierce, heart-palpitating, loin-burning feeling you get when you first meet and sleep with someone isn't achingly delicious.
But so is being in love and happy with someone you have history with, someone who knows you a nd cares for you and is going to be there for you no matter what.
No-one's denying there's a trade off. If you want monogamy, you both make a deal: 'In order to have this deep bond with you, I'm prepared to do without that thrill of the chase'.
But we do it anyway because while our bodies might embrace the concept of separating love and sex and acknowledge that having a brilliant long-term relationship and sneaking sex on the side is tempting, our hearts want something else.
Few people want to share someone they love physically with someone else.
So here's what you're really in for long-term.
Most long-term couples have sex about once or twice every two weeks. Sometimes it's gobsmackingly good (usually after lots of alcohol), often it's ordinary but satisfying, sometimes it's a chore and now and then absolutely the last thing you feel like doing.
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That's real sex.
Then you both either snuggle up or if it's the weekend, get up and wander into the kitchen to see what the kids are up to or to read the papers over lunch in the pub, have lots of lovely wine and fall asleep in front of the telly.
That's real love.
Let's stop chasing fairytales and give ourselves a chance at real happiness.
To read more from Tracey, visit her MailOnline blog here
For more of Tracey's view on sex and love, visit www.traceycox.com
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