Sex File: My wife's crush last year has improved our love life. Is this normal?

The fact you and your wife have survived for a year suggests this upset has helped you find your way back to each other

Mon, 09 Feb, 2026 - 11:56

Suzi Godson

Last year, my wife admitted to a serious crush on a colleague. Our sex life hadn't had much passion for a while. Her confession caused an argument and she spent a few nights in the spare room, but then we somehow started having more and better sex. Is this normal?

Normal is relative but intuitively it makes sense. When one partner threatens a relationship by developing feelings for a third party, it is a wake-up call. Couples in long-term relationships have a tendency to lose sight of each other. It's not intentional. Life starts to compete for the attention that was once directed towards each other. Relationships begin to function on autopilot and you forget to remind each other how much you are valued.

Once you start taking what you have for granted, it is easier to be seduced by relationships that feel shiny and new: the colleague who makes you laugh; the personal trainer who has abs of steel; the online friend who just gets you.

Although there is not a huge amount of academic research on the impact of a third-party infatuation on a relationship, the research that exists confirms your experience. In 2015, a Columbia University study explored women's experiences with feelings "for someone outside their primary relationship".

An anonymous survey was answered by 160 women who had experienced a crush during their long-term relationship. Most had been in their relationship for five to 10 years and the study found that, for a third of them, having a crush had no impact on their levels of sexual desire. However, for one in six, having a crush increased their desire for their primary partner.

The researchers theorised "women often funnelled increased sexual desire from a crush into their primary relationship". However, most of the women in the study did not disclose their crush, largely because they had no intention of acting on their feelings and did not want to jeopardise their relationships.

Your wife has been honest with you, which suggests her crush was indeed serious. Even though they didn't have sex, telling you about it can't have been easy and I suspect it may have been a way for your wife to burst the bubble and de-idealise her colleague. Either way, it must have been a jolt to your faith in her and the stability of your marriage.

Any disclosure of emotional or sexual betrayal leaves both partners feeling vulnerable. There is often anger and recrimination, but disclosure also forces both partners to see each other as autonomous individuals and that can be a good thing.

It makes the person who's had a crush realise what they have to lose. Similarly, the person who has been "betrayed" realises their partner has agency and can choose to leave if they want to.

If there is love there, that new sense of separateness can reignite passion, which is all the more intense because it is tempered by fear. In some couples, the sexual reunion is temporary, but the fact you and your wife have survived for a year suggests this upset has helped you find your way back to each other. Talking honestly about why this happened and what you have both learnt from the experience will further strengthen your connection.