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Husky-voiced messages on the answerphone, another woman's lingerie in the laundry basket. Gail didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to guess her wealthy husband was having an affair. So why did she turn a blind eye? Double life: Gail's husband had a mistress for most of their marriage.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Sadie Nicholas

ARRIVING at the door of the sprawling four-bed house to hand over the keys to its new owners, the estate agent could barely conceal his confusion. For while he recognised Mike Roberts from an earlier viewing, the heavily pregnant woman by his side was not the Mrs Roberts he had met before.

The woman he had been expecting to greet, and who had originally viewed the house, was in fact Mike's mistress of five years. As Gail Roberts has since discovered, for the entire length of her marriage, her husband was living a double life.

But what is even more intriguing, Gail, now 54, admits that she had her suspicions all along. That day, she noticed the perplexed look on the estate agent's face and chose to ignore it. 'The ironic thing is, when I saw the house, I didn't really like it. But because I was pregnant with our second daughter, I didn't say anything and moved in.

'I had known for years that I wasn't the only woman in my husband's life. I had even met his mistress on several occasions, although both of us maintained the facade that I was his wife and she was an acquaintance.

'Call it female intuition, but I always suspected there was something more. There were other clues mysterious answerphone messages and so on. In the end, I couldn't ignore it, I was fed up living a lie. But I wasn't bitter then and I'm not bitter now.' It's a startling admission. For most women, the idea of sharing their husband with a mistress is unthinkable.

But Gail is convinced there are many women like her who are turning a blind eye to their husband's misdemeanors.

Only this month, top Leicestershire paediatrician Dr Alun Elias Jones, a father of four, found himself embroiled in a scandal when it was revealed that for...

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