WITH SOMEONE TERRIFICALLY GOOD-LOOKING

James Lutman, 24, married Hayley Hunt, the face of Scottish Widows, in July. James is a trainee fireman

I’ve known Hayley since we were 11. We were in the same year at school, and we were always friends. She was easily the prettiest girl and always had a lot of male admirers. I liked the fact that she was athletic, like me, and laughed at my stupid jokes. I thought she looked like Teri Hatcher. I asked her to be my girlfriend outside the sports block when we were 16.

Just after we started going out, she went to Clothes Show Live in Birmingham and got spotted by a model agency. It was nice to be able to say: “Oh, yeah, my girlfriend’s a model.” Other boys would say: “Shut up, that’s not true, you’re not going out with a model.” They wouldn’t believe me, but when they saw her, they’d be, like: “Whoa.”

I was probably most jealous when she appeared as a lingerie model on the packaging of Virgin underwear. I was 18, and I remember thinking: “She’s my girlfriend – I should be the only one to see her in her underwear.”

Now I’m a little older, I don’t get so jealous. Most blokes say: “Well done, mate.” But I can’t imagine that any of my friends would say no to going out with a model. Hayley’s always the centre of attention. Everyone looks at her – boys and girls. Every now and then, I hear someone say: “Look at her.” Nobody has ever recognised her as the Scottish Widow – it’s just because she’s pretty.

She doesn’t get many men coming up to talk to her – they just watch her. Nobody has ever tried to chat her up in front of me. I think men find her intimidating. You get used to the attention, and I’ve started to play on it. If I see lads looking, I’ll put my arm around her to wind them up. When Daniel Bedingfield picked Hayley to play his love interest in a music video, they would go out in the evenings, but I just thought it was brilliant. I thought: “Right, even pop stars fancy my girlfriend.”

I’m training to be a fireman so we have an income when her modelling days finish. She will always be beautiful to me, even when she’s old.

WITH SOMEONE MUCH OLDER THAN YOU

Nikki Heydon, 33, a healthcare assistant, has been dating 70-year-old Pete Perry, a retired horticulturalist, for five years

I was amazed to find myself attracted to someone 37 years older than me, with six children, 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Pete often reminisces about the war, while I was born in 1974.

I’d never dated anybody much older before, but past experience has taught me that you can be with a good-looking young man with no personality at all. When I first met Pete, I had just been through a heartbreaking divorce. I desperately wanted to talk to someone wise. A friend suggested her father, because he was a good listener. Pete was patient, kind and attentive, and we hit it off straightaway.

I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but I was attracted to Pete’s personality. He’s not your average 70-year-old – he’s very bubbly and outgoing. We go to gigs together. I realised we had a lot in common, and I thought: “This is really weird.” After a year of friendship, Pete asked me how I felt about him and I blurted out all my feelings – how I felt so strongly, but the age gap made me worry.

My friends and family were shocked at first. My parents, who are a decade younger than Pete, weren’t overly thrilled, but now they enjoy chatting with him about the Beatles era.

Pete has told me he feels very lucky, especially when he sees other guys looking at me. We have been mistaken for father and daughter at parties and in restaurants, and even for grandfather and granddaughter. We just crack up laughing and explain we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, and the other person is usually more embarrassed than we are.

Some people have said nice things; some haven’t. When my friend, Pete’s daughter, found out we were in a relationship, she wasn’t happy at all. I felt so awkward about the whole thing.

Pete has had a couple of heart attacks. The most recent one brought the age difference home to me. I’m very aware that I’m going to outlive him, but you can’t help who you fall in love with. I could have five years with him or 20. I’m making the most of it.

We have discussed starting a family, but Pete has had a vasectomy, his youngest child is 30, and he doesn’t really want to go through it again. I accept that I’m not going to have children. I just don’t think it’s meant to be.

I never wish Pete was younger. I think older men are more gentlemanly. Pete respects me completely, and he’s romantic. He writes “I love you” in steam on the bathroom mirror, and sends me to work with little love notes. For a woman, it means a lot.

WITH SOMEONE WHO USED TO BE FAMOUS

Reece Hill, 39, an electrical engineer, is engaged to Claire Richards, 30, a former member of the pop group Steps

I never thought I would be with a pop star, even though I was in the music business for 15 years. I worked with everyone from Madonna to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and I would be lying if I said there weren’t members of female pop groups to whom I was attracted. But all pop stars are pretty much the same: attention-seeking, fame-hungry, egotistical megalomaniacs. Then I met my Claire, my soul mate. She was one of the few normal stars: she never wanted someone to pick out the yellow M&Ms.

We met when I was assigned to promote her band, Steps. I was 30 and Claire was 20, quiet, naive, unassuming and still living at home with her parents. Gradually, we became attracted to each other. We got together, but, after a couple of years, we split, because Steps were so busy travelling the world.

Eventually, I left the music industry to become an electrical engineer. Claire married Mark Webb, a dancer for Steps. She left the group to make an album with her fellow band member H – it didn’t do as well as they had hoped, and Claire decided to take a back seat for a while. She had worked at such a pace for so many years. She then realised she and Mark weren’t soul mates, and they got divorced. Three years ago, Claire and I decided to meet for coffee. I knew straightaway that I wanted to be with her again. We bought a house and got engaged.

Now we’ve had Charlie, Claire’s a full-time mum. People in the media still contact me for interviews, and I find myself acting as a manager, but I’m happy to be out of it. I would be 100% supportive if she were a star again, because that’s what I think she wants to be eventually, and I want her to be happy. But it doesn’t matter.

My friends are window-cleaners and ambulance drivers; Claire’s friends include Shaznay Lewis from All Saints and the other former members of Steps. We’re used to hanging out with couples where one person is famous and the other isn’t.

I enjoy the fringe benefits of being with someone who was famous – we’re lucky that money isn’t a problem – but I look upon it as normal. Every now and then, we get asked to a special event, but Claire’s not one to ask for preferential treatment, so we drive ourselves and she does her own hair and make-up.

I adore the fact that people love my fiancée. She isn’t stopped in the street as much now, but it’s great to watch her face light up when someone comes up to her for an autograph and says they love her voice. At the end of the day, everyone was a fan of Steps.

I’ve never really looked at Claire as being famous – we just have a normal, honest relationship. And we still play Steps in the car.

WITH SOMEONE SEXUALLY UNDECIDED

Jennifer Longmore, 33, married Jim, 43, five years ago. They have three children

I met Jim in a club seven years ago, and he seemed like a normal guy. The first time I went to his house, I saw a black-and-white photo of a pair of woman’s feet in his hallway. “Okay, it’s art,” I thought.

Then I went into the kitchen and saw that Jim was barefoot, with painted black toenails. I just thought: “All right, he’s a bit of a metrosexual trendsetter – some posh guys wear sarongs.”

It wasn’t long into our relationship that Jim put on his first pair of my pants. I had a gorgeous pair of tight raspberry boy pants and he paraded around in them, asking: “Aren’t I sexy?” He’s also worn one of my basques and dressed up like Britney Spears in my bra, a pleated school skirt and high heels. It was just a ha-ha-ha thing, but I knew there was something serious going on.

His camp behaviour didn’t put me off or make him less masculine or attractive. In my opinion, he’s the hardest man in Wakefield – he’s a Yorkshire lad, from a rough part of Doncaster, and, growing up, he was never a pansy.

For my birthday last year, he took me to a lap-dancing club in London and paid a girl to give me a dance. I went through with it, but I sat there thinking: “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here.” Back in our hotel room, Jim admitted he wouldn’t have taken me to a male strip club, but he said if either of us fooled around with someone of the same gender, it was okay to get turned on.

If he did sleep with a man, I don’t think it would change anything for me. If it became a habit, though, it might be a problem – I'd feel threatened and would have to draw the line.

I’m open-minded about him experimenting. After all, why is it okay to think it’s the hottest thing on the planet to see two women together, but that it’s terribly unnatural for two men to do it? Wanting to explore what it would be like doesn’t make my husband homosexual, it just makes him intrigued.

WITH SOMEONE WHO NEARLY DIED

Dogan Halil, 44, a cameraman, married Sally Bee, 40, a television presenter, 11 years ago. They have three children

Sally had always seemed healthy. She looked amazing – the last person I’d have expected to get ill. She didn’t smoke, drink alcohol or coffee, or eat fatty foods. So it was a shock when, at a children’s party three years ago, Sally collapsed with chest pains. She was rushed to hospital, where they said she probably had acid reflux, gave her some Gaviscon and sent her home.

Three days later, Sally said she felt “wonky”. She lay down while I called an ambulance. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was sure it was nothing too bad.

In hospital, the doctors did a blood test and found she had actually had two heart attacks. Things started to spiral out of control. Sally had a third, huge heart attack and was taken to intensive care. A camera was put into an artery – a horrific procedure. By now, I was terrified.

The cardiologist told me there was absolutely nothing they could do. Sally’s main artery had disintegrated. It was an extremely rare condition and she had probably been born with a defect. I asked: “Is she going to die?” “Most probably,” the doctor replied.

I was led into the operating theatre in shock. Sally was semiconscious, pumped full of dye, with monitors everywhere. I was there to say goodbye.

I broke down in tears. She was in a lot of pain, and had only enough energy to breathe. I could see she was at the point of closing her eyes and letting go. I remember only the dramatically sterile environment, the horrible grey lights. I thought: “She's going to die in my arms.” This was the end.

I wondered how I would break the news to the children and console them. There wasn’t enough time to say the things I wanted to. All I could say was: “I love you.” The only thing she said was: “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”

When she said those words, somehow I believed her. She pushed through that night, and the next and the next. Her monitor kept going crazy, bells were always ringing, crash teams running in. Death was always on my mind. I thought what life would be like without her – how I would work, how I would deal with three young kids, how I would never see her smile again.

But Sally survived. The doctors had never seen someone with so much heart damage live. A week after her final heart attack, she was well enough to be sent home.

To me and to the doctors, it’s a miracle. Sally is writing a book about cooking with wholesome foods – Mood Food for a Healthy Heart, Body and Soul – and I think there’s no reason she can’t live to a ripe old age. Maybe she won’t get to be as old as she could have. I think 70 is achievable.

We now have an insight into what’s important – family and friends, not the rat race or being successful. The chance to learn this has been a greater gift to us than winning the lottery.

WITH SOMEONE WHO CHEATED

Natasha L’aiguille, 32, a PR manager, has been with Nigel, 34, a warehouse manager, for 11 years. They married two years ago

I met Nigel through family. He got married at 20, when his girlfriend became pregnant. He tried to support her and do the right thing, but it was a disaster and their marriage ended.

Nigel told me he’d had his eye on me before the wedding, so I knew he was a bit of a scoundrel. I hoped that I could turn him around. I saw a vulnerable, complex person who had had childhood problems.

It was a funny, crazy love between us. In our first few years, there were times I never saw him and didn’t know where he was. When we moved in together, he totally changed. He became a new person: reliable, stable, mature. He did things the average man wouldn’t – cooking, cleaning. He started to treat me like a queen. I was impressed and we got married.

A few months ago, I found an anonymous letter addressed to me in our letter box. The envelope was white: it could have been from a friend; it could have been a bill. I opened it and it told me that Nigel had had “relations” with another woman five years ago, and they had a five-year-old child.

I felt everything you could possibly feel as a woman: anger, hurt, betrayal. I called Nigel at work. He admitted his past had caught up with him, that it was a one-night stand that happened before we had moved in together.

I wanted to throw myself off a bridge, and even thought about which bridge it should be. Knowing Nigel had a child with someone else, I felt disgusted, humiliated and extremely hurt.

When Nigel came home that night, he said he was sorry and begged me not to leave. “No effing way,” I said, and went to stay with my mum. Nigel awaited my decision. I wrote a pros and cons list, and realised our marriage did have some positives. We had to move forward and continue with our plan.

It was a hard decision to make. A lot of my friends didn’t think he’d changed. Yes, he should have told me he’d cheated, but the truth is, if he had told me before the wedding, I probably would have left him. But it’s different when you’re married.

It’s still recent and raw. There are times when I look at Nigel and think: “You effing, blinding blah-blah.” I tell him how I feel and he is prepared to take it on the chin because he knows he deserves it.

He just says: “You’re absolutely right.” He’s trying so hard to make it up to me.

I refuse to acknowledge his child with the other woman. I don’t know if Nigel has seen the child – I don’t want to know.

It will take years to trust him again, but we’ve been together a long time and done so much work on our relationship. Nigel appreciates and admires me, and that’s worth a lot. Nobody is ever going to get to know me inside out, the way he does.

I like to think that what happened is never going to happen again, and hope to forgive him completely.

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