Why aren’t mistresses a secret any more?

I was shocked at a party recently when a woman I hardly know announced to me and another guest that she was the ‘mistress’ of a certain man in the room.

I discussed it with my American friend in a local Italian afterwards. Holly took a robust view. ‘Since when does a mistress reveal herself publicly?’ she said, adding that the lover (married, we’d heard, to a third wife, not present that evening) should ‘kick the mistress to the kerb for not playing the role she signed up for’. She pointed out claims that George Bush Sr had a girlfriend, Jennifer Fitzgerald, for about 20 years who hardly anyone knew about. ‘Does a mistress nowadays even have her own “mistress” Instagram account?’ Holly wondered sarcastically.

My friend Vicky, long divorced, was a secret mistress for 12 years. Her lover’s wife had a long-term boyfriend but the status quo was maintained. Vicky was sure that part of her charm for her lover was the secrecy of their liaisons; he was very Boys’ Own about it, pretending to his family that he was going on archaeology digs when spending time with her. At a dinner in Mallorca, Vicky was disgusted when a guest announced to the male host, in front of her husband, that she had a lover. Vicky told me her own liaison had been ‘deeply private’ and she would have done anything not to divulge it. She added: ‘I liked having married lovers; they’re no trouble, easier to control, and they go away.’ She added that it was difficult to find single men who weren’t flawed; ‘Married men are generally quite normal.’ I pointed out that a mistress is probably taking unfair advantage of the hard work that a wife puts in to improve her husband.