After My Husband Died, I Tried Dating For The First Time. Yet A Mistake In The Bedroom Aged 63 Led To A Humiliating Situation I Never Saw Coming. This Is What All Late

Sitting in the brightly lit waiting room, I hung my head and prayed that the floor would swallow me whole.

All around me men shifted uncomfortably in their seats, many of them young enough to be my grandchildren.

‘How can this possibly be happening to me?’ I asked myself for the hundredth time. I had no idea that my humiliation was about to get even worse.

After being subjected to a raft of necessary but uncomfortable examinations and tests, I discovered that, aged 63, I have syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection traditionally associated with promiscuity and debauchery.

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As a semi-retired mother of seven and a grandmother of nine, I am the very last person you’d expect to have contracted an STI, let alone one with such sordid associations.

Raised as a good Catholic, I met my husband Richard as a teenager and from then on only had eyes for him. We were happily married for 36 years.

But this is no longer an infection that affects only the young and reckless. And it’s certainly not been consigned to the history books.

Increasing numbers of older divorcees – nearly three-quarters of women aged 40-69 are now sexually active, for example – combined with ignorance in older generations about the risks of STIs have contributed to rising diagnoses of syphilis.

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They were up 9.4 per cent between 2022 and 2023 in the UK, and research across 26 countries in 2022 revealed than one in three cases were in people aged 45 or older.

Still, back in 2014, when Richard died of liver cancer aged 63, I could never have dreamed that I’d be one of them.

In my mid-50s, he had been my only sexual partner and I couldn’t imagine wanting to date again.

But my friends encouraged me to join a local social group and this was how I met David the following year. Friends to begin with, we developed romantic feelings for each other and went on our first date three months later.

Initially I felt guilty that I was betraying Richard, that I was somehow being unfaithful to him. But eventually I came to enjoy the intimacy and I found being in a relationship helped with the loneliness of being a widow.

After eight years, however, David and I broke up, agreeing that things had run their course. Heartbroken and lost, I decided to make a change.

I wanted to live life to the full in all ways. After all, Richard’s death had taught me that we only have one life and it can end at any time.

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Perhaps it was also a belated rebellion against my Roman Catholic upbringing by my parents, who are still happily married aged 89 and 90. The expectation was that I wouldn’t have sex before marriage.

Here, finally, was my chance to go a bit wild – and it wasn’t as if I could get pregnant. ‘I want to be desired with no strings attached,’ I told my best friend Sarah. ‘No commitment or drama, I’m going to have sex just like a man would do.’

She looked at me sceptically. ‘Emily, you won’t enjoy that,’ she said. In fact, it felt terribly exciting and bold.

On Facebook I found a dating group, where I had a lot of interest. It was a huge confidence boost.

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I take care of myself, but I looked like a woman in her early 60s, so seeing how many messages I had from younger men was a lovely surprise.

I had two fabulous flings with men I met on there, one who was 12 years younger and the other 13 years younger.

Each only lasted a few weeks but they were both considerate. And while it was most definitely fun, it was just sex to me. It was liberating to know that I wouldn’t have my heart broken.

In fact, they were the ones who seemed to want commitment than me and were disappointed when I ended things.

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That said, I did make a big mistake. I didn’t discuss contraception with either of them – and neither did they mention it.

I was well past the age when pregnancy was a risk and using condoms just didn’t occur to me.

I honestly thought that STIs were something that only young people needed to worry about. Looking back, I see how hopelessly naive that was.

Then, in March 2023, aged 63, I met Peter on the same Facebook group.

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At 49, he was nearly 15 years younger than me and was very attractive and funny, a salesman with lots of confidence. Over the course of three months we met about once or twice a week.

The sex was incredible and, while we didn’t discuss it, I suspected that he was sleeping with other women. But I simply didn’t care; I felt young and desired, and that was all that mattered. But a month after we first met, by which point I’d seen him about eight times, I started to feel really sore.

Assuming it was just another symptom of being an older woman, especially one who was being sexually active than she had been in years, I ignored it.

But two months later, when the itching and pain became unbearable, I reluctantly dragged myself to the GP. When she said she was going to refer me to a sexual health clinic I was stunned.

She asked how many sexual partners I’d had in the past few months; it was incredibly embarrassing, not to mention shocking, to realise that whatever was wrong with me was due to the sex I’d been having.

I’d never had to talk to a doctor about something like this before and felt mortified.

A week later, I went to the clinic and made it through all the blood tests and swabs, the endless questions about my sexual partners and whether we’d used any contraception. It was shameful to hear myself explain what I’d been doing. How on earth could I have been so stupid?

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The two-week wait for results was excruciating. I stopped myself Googling STIs, terrified at what I might discover, and hid the truth from everyone. The thought of sharing what was happening to me was inconceivable.

When the clinic finally called with the diagnosis – syphilis – my legs almost gave way beneath me.

I clung to the fact it was treatable, but I’d need to return to the clinic every two weeks for swabs and wait another two-and-a-half months to hear if I’d caught anything else, including HIV.

In the week-long wait to begin treatment, which was two antibiotic injections a month apart, the shame almost overwhelmed me.

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All I’d wanted was some uncomplicated fun, to enjoy my body and explore desire after decades of being a ‘good girl’. Now I just felt dirty and disgusting.

The humiliating diagnosis, the nausea and exhaustion from the injections, and the terror that I might have caught HIV all felt like punishments from the Universe. I was a good person, so why had this happened to me?

Now I’m kinder to myself and see that, while I made a mistake, I don’t need to keep punishing myself for it.

As for Peter, I called him the same day I’d got my results. Hearing just how little he cared about what I was going through, or that he also had syphilis, I was suddenly furious.

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Had he known all along? Would he really tell his other partners the truth as he promised? In my rage, I hoped that his manhood would fall off!

I hid everything from my children. When they asked me to mind the grandchildren on a day I was due at the clinic, I made myself smile breezily and say I had a ‘routine’ appointment. I would rather have died than told them the truth.

While I didn’t plan on telling anyone, I did end up blurting out the whole sorry tale to my friend Sarah. But she didn’t judge me or say, ‘I told you so’.

She pointed out that this can happen to anyone who is sexually active. It was a tiny shard of comfort in a sea of self-recrimination.

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After three months, I finally got the all-clear for syphilis and HIV. But the impact of that awful experience didn’t just disappear.

In the past two years, I’ve been on a handful of first dates but am still too terrified to be intimate with anyone. Gone are the days of wanting meaningless flings.

Now I’d want any new man I slept with to have a full sexual check-up first, and few men want to do that – though it should be something we all do routinely.

I’m now scared of my body. Any twinge and I’m terrified that somehow the syphilis is back.

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At 65, I hope that one day I can relax and find joy in relationships again. Until then my advice to other women is clear. Use condoms, don’t rush into things and be aware of unusual symptoms.

Take it from someone who has sat in that chair in an STI clinic and never wants to be there again.

Emily Bolder is a pseudonym. All names and identifying details have been changed

AS TOLD TO KATE GRAHAM

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