* Friday 5th December is ‘Unfaithful Friday’, the most popular day in the winter for having an affair.
* Extramarital dating site IllicitEncounters.com reported a 31% increase in activity among members in the leadup to ‘Unfaithful Friday’.
* 77% of married people declared they’ve made plans to meet up with their lovers on ‘Unfaithful Friday’, with the largest number of rendezvous (59%) scheduled for this evening.
Today marks ‘Unfaithful Friday’, the busiest day of the year for secret winter affairs – and new data from IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s biggest extramarital dating site, shows just how sharply cheating activity spikes before the chaos of Christmas begins.
The first Friday of December, known to adulterers as ‘Cheatmas’, historically sees married Brits rush to squeeze in one last secret meet-up before family festivities kick in.
Figures show a 31% spike in activity across the whole of the UK on the site in the run-up to the notorious ‘Unfaithful Friday’.
It comes as thousands of married Brits take advantage of the last quiet weekend before the Christmas chaos of office parties, school plays, family gatherings and endless shopping trips.
In a survey conducted by the UK’s leading married dating site involving 2,400 members, a whopping 77% declared they’ve made plans to meet up with their lovers on ‘Unfaithful Friday’. Of those, 59% will be meeting this evening, 28% will be having an afternoon rendezvous and 13% will begin their day by spending time with their lovers.
Sex and relationships expert Jessica Leoni, of IllicitEncounters.com, said, “People are grabbing one last dose of excitement before entering what for many is a marathon of familial performance art.
The excuses are almost foolproof at this time of year – no one questions a late-night work drink in December or an afternoon lost in the shops. It’s the perfect alibi for a day that has become the annual peak of secret intimacy in Britain.”
One member, Lisa*, 37, from Bristol – who has made plans to meet her lover today – says, “From next week, my diary is insane – I’ll be going to my husband’s work do, there’s the kids’ nativity, and we’ll also be hosting his family on Boxing Day. Today is my one window.
“I’ve told him I’m doing a big Christmas shop with a girlfriend. In reality, I’ll be having a long lunch and a few hours of proper conversation with someone who actually listens to me. It’s about feeling like myself again before I have to be ‘mum’, ‘host’ and ‘wife’ for the next three weeks straight.”
Leoni adds a warning for suspicious partners: “If your other half is suddenly ‘unavailable’ today, unusually keen on a solo shopping trip, or has a strangely detailed story about helping a friend, your intuition might be ringing for a reason. ‘Cheatmas’ is the day when the secret world and the real world collide under the cover of tinsel and goodwill.”
*Name has been changed
