Having recently returned from a glorious summer in France, the first thing friends and family asked me was: ‘Did you fall in love with a Frenchman?’

Well, yes… but it’s complicated.

French men have an innate charm. While I sometimes think their Australian and American counterparts would happily revert to the Cave Age if it meant that they could club you over the head and drag you back to their place, French men have mastered the art of seduction.

They enjoy the chase, the wining and dining.

I met a tall (6-foot-2, jackpot!) dark and handsome Frenchman through a mutual friend. He whisked me to hidden rooftop bars, showered me with compliments and, one afternoon, over wine, removed my sunglasses just because he wanted to ‘look into my eyes’ as he told me how much he adored me.

I’d known him barely three weeks, but if he had proposed there and then I’d have said yes.

Then, came the record scratch.

When I went to post a photo of our cocktails against a Parisian skyline, he asked me not to tag him. He claimed he was a private person, wary of my job as a columnist. My gut knew better.

A quick message to the mutual friend confirmed it: he had a partner and a child.

‘But he’s French,’ my friend countered, as though infidelity was just another charming quirk of the French, like smoking or hyphenated first names.

Sigh. I was the walking cliché: the mistress.

When I confronted him, he gave me the classic script. She’d fallen pregnant early. They hadn’t had sex in years. They were ‘practically separated.’ Blah, blah, blah – a tale as old as time.

I boarded a plane home, a little heartbroken, but also curious. After all, while his partner was at home with their child, he was showering me with romance.

Which begs the uncomfortable question: when it comes to relationships, do mistresses get the best part of the deal?

To find out, I spoke to the mistresses who’ve lived it.

In truth, their situation is a very common affair (pun intended). With most formerly-available men married, single women in their late thirties and early forties lower their standards a little.

One told me she’d been with her married lover for over a year and swore she’d never been happier. ‘I get all his sweetness, without the serious chats about mortgage rates, and “have you taken the trash out” nagging,’ she said.

‘The dates are like something out of an erotic fiction novel. The hotel rooms, the sex. Once, he slipped away from his son’s soccer game just to meet me in a bathroom stall at a steakhouse.’

According to this gal, ‘It was like living in a constant state of foreplay. I never had to see him unshaven in sweatpants complaining about bills. He saves his best self for me. His wife gets the grumpy leftovers.’

Another described her affair as, ‘pure escapism.’ After 20 years of marriage, her husband left her for a younger model. So, she, too, found a willing accomplice in a married work colleague.

Every couple of months, they’d check into a rented Airbnb on a ‘work trip.’ They’d cook together, make love all afternoon, then have a long bath together.

‘I honestly think he loves me more than her,’ she said. ‘And I get off on the power of knowing I could destroy his life in seconds. I never will, but I like holding that card.

‘Plus, I like that he chooses me. He has to sneak away, risk everything, just for a few hours. That kind of intensity makes you feel irresistible.’

Sounds delightful… for about 15 minutes.

The truth is – as much as I wanted to believe that these extra-curricular frolics were fulfilling – the more I heard, the less convinced I became.

Finally, another friend of mine admitted reality – the secrecy gnawed at her.

She said: ‘This sounds lame, but what upset me most was that I couldn’t just hold his hand in public. It stopped being sexy and I began to feel like his dirty little secret.

‘Plus, I became his confessional. He’d sit in my bed and whinge about his wife. I started to feel like his unpaid therapist with benefits.’

And that’s the catch, isn’t it?

Mistresses might get the romance, but they also get the silences.

They get the birthdays spent alone, the dinners canceled at the last minute and unintentional glimpse of the Instagram photo of the ‘happy family’ that stings like salt in a wound.

They’re constantly on edge, fearing an angry phone call from a disgruntled wife, who has just discovered a message or saucy photo.

And yet, the fantasy endures.

Affairs are as old as marriage itself. Maybe because in a world of routine and responsibility, the mistress becomes the embodiment of freedom and desire.

She gets the version of him that still wants to impress, while the wife gets the version who farts in his sleep.

A mistress will never be a princess.

She’ll never be the main character in his story, just the subplot he’ll deny if anyone asks.

That’s not enough for me.