Melbourne mum Kate Harvey talks ‘sexual awakening’ at 50 after husband’s affair

• Kate Harvey divorced her husband in 2019
• He no longer wants a monogamous relationship
• Ms Harvey said her daughters encouraged her to try sex toys

A single mother has revealed how her two daughters encouraged her to try sex toys after her 25-year marriage broke up – before she enjoyed a “year of fun” sleeping with up to a dozen different men.

Melbourne mother-of-three Kate Harvey, who owns two successful businesses, has spoken of her “mid-life sexual awakening” after separating from her husband of 25 years when she discovered he was having an affair.

Ms Harvey said frankly that her husband was the only person she had slept with at the age of 50, but she had several intimate partners in the past year.

She was on her way to work in 2019 when an unknown man called her to say her husband was having an affair with his partner – and sent her a screenshot of an email to prove it.

After initially believing it was a case of mistaken identity, Mrs Harvey searched her husband’s laptop and found he had set up an account on Ashley Madison – a dating website for married people – and was talking to a number of women.

“I found your profile.” He talked to hundreds of women and even dated some of them. She had a whole story about him, she told Mamma Mia.

Ms Harvey met her husband when he was 18 when he was working in the UK and said he “could have sworn black and blue” that he had never cheated on her.

The couple eventually divorced and her husband moved out in September 2019.

Ms. Harvey, now 51, spent the next two and a half years focusing on herself and helping her children through the trauma of her marriage’s breakup.

That’s when his daughters, who were 25 and 18, asked if he wanted to date again.

“And I said, ‘Look, I don’t really need a partner to make me feel better. I’m feeling better now.” They’re not on my favorites list,” Ms Harvey said.

Her daughters then suggested that she give him sex toys.

“They said, ‘Mum, you should try the games because it’s a lot more open with young people these days and we’re all talking about it, we’ve got them too, so you should give it a try.’

“That night they told me about their favorites and we surfed the internet a bit.”

Ms Harvey then slowly came around to the idea of ​​dating again and hit the raft of dating apps.

Speaking on SBS’s Insight this week, Ms Harvey revealed she no longer wanted monogamous relationships and enjoyed spending time with “friends with benefits”.

She said she slept with just one man last January – her husband – and by December that number had risen to between ten and 12.

“After a while, I stopped counting,” he said on the show.

While some of her “best friends” came from dating apps, she met others in real life.

“The youngest I slept with was 28 and the oldest was 48,” Harvey said.

“My sweet spot is 38-44 (years old).”

Ms Harvey said that because she had spent so much time on her own, she felt confident meeting new people and said she had been with men she had previously only “dreamed about”.

She said that while her sexual relationship with her husband was “fun and fulfilling at times,” she was now focusing on the things she wanted to explore.

“Things like rough play and role-playing, using games more often, and all these things that are difficult to talk about with someone you’re in a long-term relationship with,” he told Insight.

“The younger guys are pretty fit, so they can pick me up, push me against the wall, and throw me on the bed.”

“I’m in charge of my personal life and my professional life, so it’s great to give up that control and just be in control and in control.”

While not everyone was so open to Ms. Harvey’s lifestyle, the mother admitted she lost friends who weren’t as supportive.