Paloma Faith wishes she’d had more casual sex.
The ‘Stone Cold Sober’ singer – who was previously married to chef Rian Haynes for eight months in 2005 and has a 14-month-old child with partner Leyman Lahcine – has been in a lot of "useless" long-term relationships because she never felt she should date anyone without a long-term plan of marriage.
Writing for Red magazine, she said: "When I was younger, I always confused desire for love.
"I had my first relationship at 13 but we didn’t have sex.
"We dated until we were 16 and then split up.
"That relationship typifies an unhealthy pattern I established when I was young and only recently broke.
"My mother educated me to associate sex with love – and I’m so thankful for that – but I took it too far.
"I thought fancying someone meant you were in love and it had to end in marriage – which meant I often saw relationships as something they weren’t.
"I’d never sleep with a guy I wasn’t in a relationship with.
"In hindsight, I probably should have just slept with them.
"Getting sex out of my system might have meant I didn’t end up in long-term relationships with men who were so bloody useless."
The 36-year-old singer eventually sought therapy to break her unhealthy approach to relationships.
She explained: "I started therapy about six years ago and it changed my outlook on love.
"I told the therapist I was there because I really wanted a family, but I couldn’t stay with anyone long enough to do that.
"I was a serial monogamist who, every two years, would jump into another relationship.
A therapist helped me see I had a co-dependency issue when it came to love. That meant I’d rather go out with the wrong person than wait for the right man to come along.
"In those days, in my mind, it was better to be with someone I didn’t like that much than be on my own. It sounds strange now, but back then I thought I could make myself love anyone. But you can’t."
Paloma then took a break from dating and thinks that really made a "difference" when she met Leyman.
She said: "[A dating break] sparked a kind of evolution in my romantic choices.
"I met my partner after this and I feel taking time out from dating really made a difference to our relationship…
"I realised that when you meet the right person, it’s so easy."
Paloma Faith’s sex confession
