Is it ever OK to get hot with an old flame?

As high-profile flings with former flames grab the headlines, Michelle Davies takes a closer look at the dangers of getting hooked on the ex factor…

When rumours began to circulate last year that Jeremy Clarkson had taken out an injunction, everyone wondered what could possibly have forced the normally combative Top Gear presenter to seek refuge behind the law. When he withdrew the injunction in October (even he realised the futility of paying thousands to keep a secret everyone was discussing openly on Twitter),
the path was cleared for his first wife, Alex Hall, to have her say.

Alex, 46, who had been married to Jeremy for less than a year in 1989 before she took up with one of his friends, painted a picture of a complicated relationship with her ex that, in her mind at least, never really ended. She claimed they continued sleeping together even after Jeremy, 51, married his second wife Frances, and did so on and off for ten years.

Rather than a passionate affair, however, Alex likened her ex to ‘comfy slippers’. She claimed their trysts sometimes took place in his London flat, on an old sofa bed they once owned together, and usually involved a takeaway first. ‘It was just like the old times, like we’d never been apart,’ she said. Quite what the current Mrs Clarkson makes of Alex’s claims isn’t clear, and he denies any wrongdoing.

Alex admits she still loves Jeremy, whom she met when she was 17 and he was 22, and wishes she’d never left him. She said, ‘I don’t feel we committed adultery during the affair because he was my husband.’ As for Jeremy’s motives, she claims that he was driven by an inability to get over their break-up, and even sent her a text in 2009 on what would have been their 20th wedding anniversary. She added, ‘That is not somebody who has forgotten and moved on.’

According to Relate, one person in four says that they regret their divorce. So how many of them find themselves back in their ex’s arms, even when one or both parties have supposedly moved on?
Sex with the ex is not as uncommon as you might think. It’s a dilemma that crops up regularly in the postbag of YOU’s relationships columnist Zelda West-Meads, with both men and women seeking
clarity over whether to pursue an old flame. ‘What comes up a lot is people longing to get the person back and not being able to move on, and that’s why they end up having sex with their ex,’ she says.