Key findings

•  27% of members say the first thing they changed once the affair began was doing their own washing. The site calls it the dark wash.
• 20% started taking their phone into the bathroom. 14% keep a second aftershave or deodorant somewhere other than the bathroom cabinet.
• Only 2% got a second phone, which is the least common change on the list.
• 68% say their partner has never once asked why any of it changed.
• The results come from a poll of 1,340 members by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading extramarital dating site.

A man who has never once put a wash on does not suddenly start running a dark wash on a Tuesday night for no reason. Perfume that is not yours, hotel soap, a hair the wrong colour – it all ends up in the laundry basket, and the people having the affair work that out long before their partners do.

IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading extramarital dating site, asked 1,340 members what they started doing differently once the affair began, and a quarter of them said the washing, which made it the single most common change on a list of eight.

Almost everything on the list is housework. An affair creates evidence, on clothes and in cars and on phones, and the first instinct is to tidy it away. Others started taking their phone into the bathroom, or keeping a second aftershave where it will not be found.

Hardly anyone does the obvious thing. Only 2% had gone to the trouble of getting themselves a second phone.

The change looks different depending on who is making it. For men, it is often the first time they have used the machine at all. Women, who were mostly using it already, describe separating their own things from the family wash and putting them on the same night rather than leaving them in the basket.

Neil*, 48, from Derby, had to look the machine up. “I watched a video on my phone, standing in my own utility room, at forty-eight years old,” he says. “She thinks I’ve finally grown up. I just can’t have my shirts going in with everyone else’s.”

Bev*, 45, from Coventry, joined the site eighteen months ago. “I’ve always done the washing, so nobody was ever going to notice me doing more of it,” she says. “What changed is that my stuff goes in on its own now, the same night, and it comes straight back out. Before that it’d sit in the basket for days like everybody else’s.”

68% say their partner has never once asked why any of it changed. When anyone did ask, it was almost always about why the car was so clean – not about who had suddenly started doing the washing.

Jessica Leoni, sex and relationships expert for IllicitEncounters.com, said: “People think an affair starts with a big lie. It doesn’t, it starts with a load of washing. Nobody’s sat down and planned any of this. They’ve realised the shirt they had on smells of somebody who isn’t their wife, they’ve dealt with it, and once you’ve done that once you carry on doing it.”

She added: “It works as a warning sign precisely because it’s so boring. Nobody’s looking for a second phone, because hardly anybody has the energy for a second phone. What they’ve got is a husband who has developed a sudden interest in the fabric conditioner, and that would be a much harder thing to explain than a text message, if anybody ever asked.”

Results

What changed first once the affair began (one answer only)

What changed first	% who named it
Doing their own washing	27%
Taking the phone into the bathroom	20%
A second aftershave or deodorant kept elsewhere	14%
Keeping the car unusually clean	13%
Showering the moment they get in	11%
Changing the bedding more often	8%
Parking further from the house	5%
Getting a second phone	2%

*Names have been changed.

About Illicit Encounters

IllicitEncounters.com is the UK’s largest and longest-running extramarital dating site, established in 2004. The site has over one million UK members and publishes regular research on modern infidelity and relationships in Britain, with expert commentary from sex and relationships expert Jessica Leoni.

Press contact: [email protected]