Sexpert Louise Van Der Velde who advised Sun readers on threesomes and flings at work quits playing around for life of monogamy
SHE is the serial mistress who has had 80 affairs and blamed wives for their men straying, but sex therapist Louise Van Der Velde has had a change of heart after finding true love.
In a shock turnaround, the mum-of-two no longer believes “monogamy is dead” and is due to wed businessman Matthew Cook, 33, next year. Here Louise, 45, from Harrogate, North Yorks, tells why she has finally fallen out of love with having multiple lovers . . .
I WILL never forget the moment I started to question my polyamorous lifestyle. It was earlier this year and I had seen one of my lovers, I’ll call him Ben.
He’d wined and dined me before we spent the night together. We always had a wonderful time when we met — great conversation and even better sex.
I normally loved the casualness of our open relationship and relished our naughty liaisons. But this time, when he said, “See you next week”, and kissed me goodbye I felt a sudden pang of confusion. In that moment, I realised I didn’t want him to leave, I wanted him to stay.
What was wrong with me? This wasn’t the man-eating Louise people knew — and loved. Were casual encounters no longer working for me?
To my horror, it started to dawn on me that I was missing all the mundane things from a “normal” relationship, like cooking together, popping to the shops, going to the movies and waking up next to someone feeling loved.
My sudden change of heart took me by surprise. After all, I’d spent the past 15 years enjoying — and preaching about — the poly lifestyle.
It all started in my first marriage to my late husband Stephen. In the few years before he died, we decided on an open relationship to keep things exciting. After he died, I vowed to carry on with it.
I thought, “Life is too short to stick to sex with only one partner”.
What’s more, as a sex therapist, I helped curious couples explore free love and even taught my clients how to have threesomes.
I DIDN’T FEEL BAD ON THEIR WIVES
I’d spent so long preaching about the perks of polyamory, I didn’t want to acknowledge that I might actually be missing monogamy. I felt like a fraud.
In the past, I’d even gone as far as saying humans were incapable of being faithful. I believed people in committed relationships would eventually get bored, cheat or settle and remain unhappy.
I took a study that found sexual attraction to only last 18 months to three years as gospel truth, and believed humans weren’t designed to be with one person, just brainwashed into thinking we have to be.
After all, love is big business — companies make money out of Valentine’s Day, marriage and, of course, divorce.
At the time, I truly believed what I was saying. After all, my sex life was great.
Over the years I’d had many different lovers — some single, some married.
I didn’t feel bad about their wives, far from it. In fact, I felt like I was doing them a favour.
If I was a catalyst in their break-up, then they weren’t meant to be together anyway. And if our affair had made their marriage stronger, then it was a win-win situation.
I never wanted to take their husbands. I was just having fun.
When friends moaned about their lazy husbands or were distraught when their marriages broke down, I thought, “Thank God I don’t have to deal with any of this, I have the best of both worlds — great sex and freedom”.
I was having the time of my life — or so I thought.
But after Ben left that night I started to re-evaluate my life. If I’m honest, things had been creeping up on me for a while, little niggles which I would push to the corners of my mind.
When I saw loved-up couples laughing in the park or walking along hand in hand it made me miss being in a committed relationship.
I was 45 and my two beautiful children were growing up. Now, in their late teens, they were spending more time out and needed me less.
Instead of relishing that freedom and meeting up with my lovers, I started to rattle around the house trying to find things to busy myself.
If I’m honest, the causal relationships were leaving me unfulfilled — empty even. It was an emotion I hadn’t wanted to deal with, up until now.
But I knew it wasn’t about Ben, I didn’t actually want to be in a relationship with him.
I knew he wasn’t the love of my life but I also knew I did want to meet someone who was. A feeling that had become so alien to me over the years.
As the weeks rolled by, I continued to see three guys at once, but I was getting bored.
I was even starting to lose interest in being a sex therapist and wanted to focus on coaching people to find the right partner, instead of being unfulfilled.
In February I needed to get away and clear my head. I booked into a meditation retreat for five days and reconnected with myself.
What did I want in life? What would make me happy?
I started to concentrate on other business ventures as well as my sex therapy work, and trained to become a meditation teacher.
Over the past year I had started to take an interest in environmental issues, another surprise to me. So I decided to set up a new business called Earth Investments, matching investors with companies running planet-saving projects.
One week after setting it up, I spoke on the phone to a businessman in this field and he blew me away. I couldn’t get over how much we had in common and couldn’t stop thinking about him.
For the first time in years, I felt butterflies in my stomach. I hadn’t felt this excited about a man since my late husband Stephen. It felt like we were supposed to be.
Soon after, we met up in a hotel lobby and we didn’t stop talking for five hours straight.
He laughed about how he had told his girlfriend about me and when she looked me up online she wasn’t happy. “She thinks you’re a man-eater,” Matthew told me, blushing.
“Oh,” I replied, half amused, half embarrassed. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think you’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever met.” I later found out that he had left his girlfriend the day we spoke on the phone.
Despite the 12-year age gap between us, we connected on a deeper level.
We were hooked on each other and speaking up to three times a day for hours at once.
HE TICKS ALL THE RIGHT BOXES
The more we spoke the more I started to forget about my other lovers. The saucy liaisons had started to fizzle out and I didn’t even mind.
Incredibly, within one week of meeting he asked me to marry him. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a simple proposal and I loved it. For years I’d thought monogamy and marriage were dead and here I was agreeing to spend the rest of my life with one man. It was a complete whirlwind.
In February we will tie the knot on a beach in Bermuda surrounded by family and friends.
Everyone was shocked when I told them. When I uploaded pics on social media they thought it was a joke. But since meeting him they all agree he’s me in a male body, and a hot one at that.
Our journey over the past eight months has taught us both that love can overcome anything.
It has also shown me that one man really can tick all the right boxes.
Today I’m in a different phrase of my life. I have no regrets over how I’ve lived my life. After all, I’ve always encouraged people to be honest and to not settle — and I never did.
Matt is different to all the men I’ve met. He’s a combination of everything I want in somebody. I know him inside out.
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I really believe our paths were meant to cross. He makes me feel so much more loved and respected than I ever felt in any open relationship ever could.
We are sure we won’t meet anyone else because this love is like nothing either of us have ever experienced.
I have always flown the flag for free love — but now it’s a thing7 of the past for me.
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