https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6390281/50-years-Femail-confessed-virgin-51-Ive-got-sizzling-sex-life-62.html

Well, because I’d finally realised that something had been really wrong in my two marriages, and that my own fear of speaking honestly about sex had made things worse.

I’ve always been a reasonably attractive, successful woman, so people probably just assumed I had a decent sex life. But being a married virgin was my secret shame for years.

It took a lot of gumption to speak candidly in the paper. But I was tired of feeling ashamed, and I hoped that by telling my story I’d help other women, too.

The truth was that throughout my married life I never felt properly married, never loved as a real woman. So how did this happen to me, not once but twice?

I wonder if my mother’s dysfunctional attitude to intimacy skewed my understanding of relationships from the start.

As an adolescent she told me sex was to be endured, not enjoyed, and I heard my parents arguing about it late at night.

My first marriage at 20 was to a much older man, John. He was always respectful, never pushing me to become intimate before our wedding. I found his physical reticence appealing: it reassured me that he wasn’t just after me for sex.

He later told me that he was deeply religious and believed sex was only for procreating; and, as I didn’t want to start a family straight away, he left me alone.

By the time we filed for divorce we were living amicably as brother and sister and sleeping in separate bedrooms.

It seems extraordinary now, but given what I’d learned from my mother, I concluded I was having a lucky escape. It caused me surprisingly little sadness: because I’d never known passion, I didn’t have a clue what I was missing.

Then, in 1982, I met my second husband, Carol. At 47, he was 22 years my senior, married and the father of two daughters. He seemed to me the epitome of sophistication, with a good physique and a twinkle in his eye. I was smitten, and he awakened in me all those healthy sexual feelings that John never had.

And yet, our union, too, was ultimately limited by his total lack of interest in sex.

I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. Once or twice I put on sexy underwear and tried to seduce him. But he told me it wasn’t appropriate.

Feelings of shame and embarrassment began to consume me. I also worried that the chance to have children was passing me by, as Carol flatly refused even to try.

I thought about leaving him, but by then he was in very ill-health. Instead, we decided to move to France for a fresh start, and bought a home in Charente, near Bordeaux, where I retrained as an English teacher.

For a while, we were happy — but still, I’d spent decades never knowing what it was like to make love. I didn’t talk to anyone about it because I was convinced it was my fault. While I had achieved orgasm on my own, that rare pleasure came as a result of the novels I read.

My second marriage ended in 2008. Suddenly single for the first time in 30 years, I determined that I was going to have sex at last, and recklessly allowed myself to be seduced by a chap in the village.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4133442&forum_id=2#37235044)