For the eleven years I was with my husband, I was sexually invisible. Two weeks after he'd left, I was walking along lost in thought when a car that had just passed me, reversed back. "Can you tell me the way to xxxxx" asked the man inside. I'd never heard of the place. "To be honest, it was just an excuse to talk to you," he said. "You're lovely. Can I give you a lift?" Gobsmacked, I dispatched him, but more of the same soon followed. Without being aware of it, I was signalling availability. Last night a dear friend hitting sixty, came for dinner. Her husband is longterm ill. In recent months it's started to chafe. And in that time, four men have made moves on her. "I don't understand it," she said. "Why now after twenty-five years of nothing?" As many former spouses can testify, one isn't always looking for change when the opportunity presents. But, almost certainly, they've been letting off a signal that attracts predators. "I'm so tempted to give in to one of them," my friend said. "But I feel so bad. What should I do?" In youth, the happy-ever-after ideal feels so easy. In middle-age the complexities within a relationship create webs of insecurity and deceit. "If I were you, I'd go with the flow," I said.