The hell of being a feminine intercourse addict: Many girls dream of a extra passionate love life, however my insatiable want for my fiancé destroyed our relationship: REBECCA BARKER

When it gets to the time my husband normally returns from work, I find myself clock-watching avidly. I’m just as excited to see him as I was when we married nearly ten years ago.

The reason for my eagerness might surprise you. By this point in the day, I am usually longing to lure him into the bedroom.

Some may envy the fact I’m still so attracted to Jean-Marc that I’m desperate to make love the moment he walks through the door. But for me, this potent desire is tinged with fear.

After all, I am a recovering sex addict. And I’m terrified that I’ll return to the bad old days when my addiction had me pestering my then partner, Mark, to have sex five times a day, every day.

Crazy though it may sound, everything, and I mean everything, made me feel lustful, from the shape of a vase to the doughy texture of freshly baked bread. Though it wasn’t the reason for our subsequent split, I do appreciate I wasn’t easy to live with. He had a high libido, too, yet he would tell me: ‘There’s more to life than sex!’

In fact, I had to move in with my mother for the last couple of months of our relationship, in order to remove myself from the possibility of having sex at all.

Only this stifled my passion enough to be able to get on with normal life.

Now 45 and in perimenopause, received wisdom would have it that my libido should be on the wane. But far from it. Not that I’m in need of it right now, but I’ve heard HRT can kickstart the libido, which is the very last thing I need, or want.

Indeed, if I did start experiencing symptoms like brain fog or night sweats, I’d be scared to go on HRT in case it sparked a relapse back into uncontrollable need.

At 62, Jean-Marc is 17 years my senior. He’s the most laid-back man I’ve ever met and also happens to have a very healthy sex drive. I’m glad he’s unfazed but that doesn’t stop me worrying I’ll tip over into addiction again. Of course, with alcohol or drug addiction, the solution is to avoid them altogether, but no one would expect a sex addict to avoid all intimacy.

I guess that can make recovery more challenging. The key is to spot when desire might be turning into compulsion. From the inside, that can be a very difficult thing to judge, hence my anxiety whenever I feel overwhelming sexual urges.

I’ve always had a high sex drive and, growing up in North Yorkshire, lost my virginity at 15 to the father of my first two children, now 26 and 22. We had sex every day for years; however, with two young children, it was difficult making time for it and our relationship became increasingly tempestuous.

So much so that I left him, aged 24, and took the kids with me to move in with my mum, who was by then living in central France. There, I fell in love with fellow expat Mark.

Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he was muscular and tanned from all the physical, outdoor work he did on our farm. We lived and worked together, and when I wasn’t enticing him back into bed, I was seducing him in the fields. At this point, I was contentedly sated by our sex life – we made love most nights.

All that changed, however, when my addiction kicked in – something that, in hindsight, I realise didn’t happen entirely out of the blue.

I’d been depressed and on medication, under the supervision of a psychiatrist, for a couple of years and had always found sex a great way of lifting my mood.

Although Mark and I were engaged and had a daughter, who’s now 15, we lived separately for many years: him on his parents’ sheep farm and me a couple of miles down the road with my three children.

The arrangement suited me fine. After all, since leaving my first husband, I’d sworn off living with a man again. However, the long-term plan with Mark had been to build a house on his parents’ land.

Construction was underway when in early 2014, concerned that I was struggling to cope alone due to my depression, Mark installed a static caravan close to the building site so we could live together as a family.

Something about this change in circumstances triggered my sex addiction, and it took a terrifying hold. Being in such close proximity to Mark at all times stirred an intense need in me, which could only be satisfied through sex.

Mark was otherwise emotionally quite distant, and never one for physical affection, so sex felt like the only way of getting close to him.

I felt tense and distracted, and intimacy would bring temporary relief. Yet as soon as Mark wanted to roll over or get on with his day, I was flooded with feelings of rejection, and would try to seduce him all over again.

At first, he seemed to enjoy the novelty of us having access to one another whenever the urge struck, but before long he was getting into bed fully dressed and encouraging our daughter to sleep between us to block my advances.

The rejection left me feeling even more wretched and desperate for his attention.

You might be wondering why I couldn’t satisfy these urges myself. However, what I was seeking was not orgasm but the closest physical contact humans can experience.

Besides getting the children ready for school and nursery in the mornings, and making their dinner at night, for six agonising months I spent most of my time in bed: either having sex with Mark or in tears, waiting for him to come home and put me out of my misery.

I’ve since consulted a London-based psychosexual therapist, who says that my addiction, the clinical term for which is Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder, has parallels with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

He told me it is compulsive escapism, similar to substance addiction, in which people seek to simply dull sensations and block things out.

Although I wasn’t conscious of this at the time, it certainly makes sense. It has given me more understanding of other addicts who, like me, may struggle to explain why one drink, or fix, is never enough.

So tormenting were the relentless thoughts about sex – How could I make it happen? When would it happen? Where would it happen? How would it feel when he touched me like this or kissed me like that? – that they, quite literally, drove me crazy. I even contemplated suicide.

I didn’t want to leave Mark and the children, but death felt like the only way to escape this torture.

When I eventually confided in my mother – until then I’d felt too ashamed to discuss it with family or friends – she suggested the children and I move in with her, taking me away from Mark.

I know sex addiction is often synonymous with sleeping around but I only ever wanted to sleep with my partner.

I’ve always been monogamous and feel strongly that fidelity and honesty are essential ingredients in a relationship.

I’d find other men attractive, of course. But that didn’t make me want to sleep with them. Instead, I’d seek out my fiancé and beg him to have sex with me.

However, much as I loved Mark, I’m hugely relieved to say that the spell was somehow broken after I moved in with my mum.

I spent days in bed, weeping with the discomfort of my physical needs not being met, while Mum took care of my kids.

A short while later, I discovered that Mark was seeing another woman. I was heartbroken, crying and angry that he could betray me in this way. But then something shifted inside me. Instead of the Adonis he had become in my mind, this development somehow helped me realise he was just a human being with flaws like the rest of us.

Mum encouraged me to start dating again, hoping I’d discover I could have a normal relationship without the compulsion for sex.

Disillusioned, I stopped seeing my psychiatrist and weaned myself off the anti-anxiety and antidepressant medication. That’s when I began experiencing genuine feelings of happiness, about everything from a glorious sunset to a delicious steak.

I met a couple of men I liked, dating each of them for several months, and was relieved to find that although the intimacy was fun, I was just as content sitting with them, eating, drinking and chatting, in a bar or restaurant.

I was also happy focusing on my children and finding somewhere suitable for us to live, which is how I got to know Jean-Marc, who became my landlord.

Jean-Marc had cattle in a barn just behind our house and would often pop in and check that everything was running smoothly.

I was so unused to someone looking out for my needs in this way and found it really sweet.

About a month after we moved in, Jean-Marc asked, very casually: ‘Oh, I’m going down to the bar this weekend. Do you want to come out to dinner?’ We had a lovely time and have been pretty much inseparable since.

Over the next two years, Jean-Marc mostly stayed with us until we moved into his much grander farmhouse in 2017.

Never having wanted children of his own, he had been a confirmed bachelor before we met.

I think his family and friends were very surprised, though delighted for us, when we married, in 2018. Mine too, seeing how happy I finally was.

I told Jean-Marc early on in our relationship about my sex addiction and he seemed entirely unfazed. While most men just want to fix things when they go wrong, he will hold me and let me cry, kiss me on the forehead and ask if I’m OK. I don’t have to beg for his affection and it’s such a breath of fresh air.

During our first year together, we had sex three times every day. Jean-Marc was as keen as me and I never felt I was slipping back into addiction.

Unlike those months with Mark, I was more in control, and able to comfortably get on with working on the farm, cooking and keeping house.

Nowadays, we have sex four times a week, which I realise is still a lot more than most married couples our age.

There are times when I panic, fearing my passion may be crossing the line over into addiction. It’s mostly when I’ve been home alone all day, watching the clock until Jean-Marc finishes work.

I’ll feel this strong longing for his body, and that stirs up memories of me obsessing over Mark.

I notice it’s most likely to happen when I’m feeling a little down, a side effect of perimenopause.

My low mood is not enough for me to contemplate HRT at this stage, for obvious reasons.

Of course, I realise there may come a time with menopause when the drop in hormones leads to a fall in my libido anyway.

Who knows, I may end up only wanting sex a couple of times a week, which seems to be the norm for so many. Like any addict in recovery, I take it one day at a time and try not to look too far into the future.

However, far from what some may think, it’s certainly not a laughing matter. That’s why I’ve now written a memoir, including chapters about my sex addiction, because I’m determined to raise awareness.

I want people to understand that it can happen to anybody, men and women, and at any age.

Speaking out has its downsides though. I’ve had hundreds of sickening messages from men.

Much more gratifyingly, I’ve also had women reach out, saying they really appreciate me speaking about an addiction with which they suffer in silence.

While men may be patted on the back for their libidinous ways, in a society in which the ‘fairer sex’ used to be expected to ‘lie back and think of England’, sex addiction remains a taboo for women. But it’s one I’m determined to break.

Amazon.com/Echoes-Life-Memoir-Rebecca-Barker-ebook/dp/B0HHNLDJPG

As told to Helen Carroll