Martin loved and was loved just as much. A lot. And often. Above all, he spent years looking for himself. Interview with a man who has finally found himself. Literally.
It’s because our man, well into his 60s, who arranged to meet us in a lively little café on this early morning in July, arrived from Europe with his parents at the age of 10. Her story, which is first one of multiple loves, is also one of immigration. “It’s a trip that answered a lot of my questions,” he says straight away and barely seated.
It took him years to adapt. “It was very difficult. Time did its work and Martin ended up making his life here. A life that he tells us in detail, for more than an hour and a half, before coming to his final conclusions. We will come to that.
His first “great love” was the woman he married. “She was also an immigrant,” he says, albeit from a different country in Europe than he is. “Me, seeing her, I fell in love right away. Their marriage lasted almost 30 years.
Sexually? “It was good,” he summed up, “but it wasn’t the frequency I was craving at that point in my life. For his part, Martin sees sex as a “pleasant” and “gratuitous” activity: “I was tempted! ” She ? Less: “once every two weeks” was enough for him. “Relationships were satisfying, but I wish she showed me more desire. For me, there was a lack at this level. »
If he cheated on her? Affirmative, he nods. “That lack made me vulnerable,” he explains. It wasn’t hell back home, but I was living hell…”
His first prank was after 10 years of marriage and after the birth of children that it happened. “It wasn’t so much the sex,” he says, “it was someone listening to me. Who was there. »
Yes, there were others. A handful. “But not significant,” he says. Looking back, there’s not one I would have spent my life with, but it filled a void…”
If he felt guilty? ” Absolutely ! I was not well! But I didn’t want to separate. It was my valve. And a big mistake,” he blurts out.
A big mistake, explains Martin, because when his marriage dissolves, he dates yet another woman, with whom he is in love this time. Solid. “She was the one who gave me the push I needed to separate. “Except that the children get wind of the affair and judge him bitterly. Him like her, it should be specified. “I have been branded as the man who cheated. As for the wife, his “Sophia Loren”, as he describes her, as the one “because of whom” the marriage was destroyed. “But in my head, that’s not it at all. Still, “The kids never wanted to know about her.” And Martin couldn’t stand it. Even though in bed, it was the foot (“oh my god, the best, she’s the only woman in all my relationships where I’ve experienced orgasms together, every time!”), he ends up letting her . “I had my demons,” he says. I was getting out of a marriage, I was in debt, and there was something else…”
What ? This famous “void” which does not leave him, and which he has only recently gotten rid of, after years of quest, introspection and other therapies. Without forgetting all the women encountered along the way.
Martin is 50 years old. In the years that followed, he met several women. These, finally, “communicate their desire” to be with him. “What I didn’t have with my wife!” “, he slips. Stories that last a few months, a year, maximum. In bed ? “Still good, satisfying, but I was looking for something!” There was this void, I was not well! »
In the lot, he saw, in his mid-fifties, his very first fetish experience. “There was no taboo! “, he recalls. Yes, “that was fun!” “, but the case does not last.
At the time, Martin began to think that he should settle down again. Coincidence? He meets a friend of a friend, from the same native country as him. “It was flowing, he summarizes, I was not in love, but there was a comfort. He is aware of this, but nevertheless marries. Their marriage lasted 10 years, a decade marked by illness and deep depression. “I wasn’t well,” Martin repeats. I was stuck…” He feels it and he knows it.
We spare you the details, but Madame ends up offering him a plane ticket to Europe. It is not invented, the day before his return to the country, he meets a new woman there. “It wasn’t sexual, we had a connection!” »
What had to happen happens: back here, Martin separates, but no, the story does not continue with his last “connection”. Nevertheless, our man, who has since retired, has the bug, and some time later (after the pandemic), he takes a flight to Europe again. Not halfway. You follow ? “I wanted to do a reset,” he smiled suddenly.
It almost seems too good to be true. “I felt for the first time that the void was disappearing. Shit, it can’t be! I was fulfilled. How, exactly? Here we are finally. “I found myself at home, he analyzes, a lot of therapies in support. The market in the morning, the church bell, the chirping of birds, the sun, the blue sky, the human warmth! […] And, of course, culture. […] I started to say to myself: what is stopping me? “We understand that he intends to settle there for good. Because he has come full circle, in a way. And found what he was looking for.
He radiates. That’s not all. ” I met someone ! “, he adds, in a big burst of laughter. “Surprise, surprise!” »
