I’m cheating on my boyfriend . . . with a secret boxset binge

HIDDEN away in the bedroom, I feel panicked, guilty, my heart racing. I know what I’m doing is wrong and the ramifications of being caught could ruin my relationship. Because I’m cheating on my boyfriend.

No, not that kind of cheating. This is much worse; I’m watching an episode of survival drama The Last Of Us without him.

We usually watch it together for, as any couple knows, a long period of cohabitation inevitably leads to your TV schedules synching.

The one thing every woman should ask for on a first date is a detailed inventory of her suitor’s viewing habits. Do they bingewatch? Is it documentaries or nothing? Are subtitles a dealbreaker? Because the answer is integral to your future.

I’ve been with Adam for more than a decade and, having exhausted almost every other topic of conversation, I can tell you that discussing the minutiae of the latest episode of Below Deck is a godsend.

SO I KNOW there really is no worse offence than watching an episode (or two) of our joint favourite show behind his back. It’s not just the act of betrayal itself, but what it says about the relationship. A friend of mine dumped her partner for this crime as it alerted her that her ex was pretty selfish, that he lacked patience and didn’t respect her.

I first ‘cheated’ on my boyfriend just one month into our relationship, watching Doctor Who when he was at the library and I was bored. But rather than admit what I had done, I watched the episode again with him later that day as if for the first time (although I did flinch slightly too early at one scary moment, almost giving the game away).

I also now semi-cheat by keeping some shows all to myself, telling him he won’t like them, that they’ve had bad reviews... and then watching them while he’s out or at the gym.

What, you might ask, drove me to such duplicity? To be honest, it has nothing to do with what we watch together, but how we watch it.

Adam is a TV multi-tasker. If I’d known this before we got together, I might have reconsidered the second date. He’s always looking at his phone during the tense moments, then asking me what happened seconds later.

Yet he has one habit so deeply infuriating, so incompatible with my own viewing preferences, that it’s impossible not to cheat on him: he doesn’t believe in binge-watching.

He will watch a single episode, one that ends on the world’s biggest cliffhanger, and just say: ‘Ooh, can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow.’ As if the whole season isn’t just sitting there on demand, the next episode one click away, taunting me as it pops up in a little box in the corner, the seconds counting down until it automatically rolls over.

According to him, this is the more enjoyable way to savour a good show, making it last longer. To him, my binge-watching habit is ‘like stuffing your face with a giant cake until you’re sick’.

To binge or not to binge is currently a hot topic, with a renaissance of appointment viewing brought on by shows with whopping scheduled finales, such as Happy Valley and Line Of Duty.

Personally, I prefer to blitz my favourites in one go.

I once watched the entire second season of Grey’s Anatomy alone in my room over a weekend. That’s 27 episodes.

I didn’t shower, ate only junk food, slept at random hours as if night and day meant nothing to me and sobbed over the death of my favourite character. It was glorious.

I don’t believe Adam has ever experienced the same joy. He would feel like he’d ‘wasted’ a weekend. Oh, Adam, you don’t know what you’re missing.