MELBOURNE mum Kim Bayne says Fifty Shades of Grey saved her marriage.

Four years ago, Bayne, 40, was suffering post-natal depression, had lost interest in sex and was regularly arguing with her husband.

Though medical treatment helped, she saw her husband’s lament about the loss of sex and intimacy in their relationship as just another demand.

“I had a couple of friends who had read Fifty Shades of Grey and were going, ‘I love it, I love it, I love it’. And I thought, ‘I’m not getting on that bandwagon’. And then I went, ‘You know what? I’m curious, I’m going to read it.’”

“It took me back to the first few weeks where you can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you’re just so excited that you’ve met someone and you are connecting with them. It’s like, ‘Wow, what’s going on here?’” Bayne says.

“I recognised that in the book. The guy (Christian Grey) is so madly in love with her (Anastasia Steele) that he can’t function. I remember being like that. It’s kind of sad when it wears off.”

Bayne met her husband when they were in their late 20s and they both had children from previous relationships. They married 18 months later and in 2007 welcomed a son into their blended brood of four children.

Bayne, who works as an accounts officer, says it’s easy to let your marriage fall apart.

“You become complacent. It almost creeps up on you,” she says. “You have to consciously work on it.”

She says many people assume Fifty Shades of Grey, with its exploration of bondage and domination, has encouraged couples to be more kinky in the bedroom.

“None of my friends that I know of have become interested in trying that angle at all,” she says. “It didn’t make me go, ‘Let’s try this’. It was the relationship underneath it all, the intimate connection. It was fun to read, but it was fantasy.”

Nor did she read more erotic fiction.

Bayne will see the Fifty Shades of Grey movie starring Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson with three friends this week.

“I’m going in without huge expectations. From the trailers I think Jamie Dornan is going to do a great job.”

Source: news.com.au

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