SINGAPOREAN wife Alice Tan (not her real name) was at work earlier this year when she got a call from a woman in China.

The woman claimed to be her husband's mistress. Madam Tan was stunned. Till then, she had no idea that her husband was cheating on her.

What followed was even more shocking: a torrent of bitter and hateful words.

And the reason for that? The mistress had just been dumped by her husband.

The woman said Madam Tan's husband could no longer pay the rent for her Shanghai apartment or give her a monthly allowance.

Anecdotal evidence from relationship counsellors show that mistresses have become another casualty of the economic downturn, as their sugar daddies can no longer afford to keep them.

For Madam Tan, an admin manager in her 30s, there was one more shock to come.

She confronted her husband, a bank manager in his 40s, who travelled frequently for work.

That's when he dropped another bombshell - he had lost his job. That was why he could no longer afford the other woman.

For the sake of their 5-year-old daughter, the couple are staying together.

Madam Tan, who toyed with the idea of getting her own back on her husband, is seeking help to try to forgive him. She told The New Paper on Sunday of the irony of the situation. 'If not for the recession, I wouldn't have known all this,' she said.

Her husband is still looking for work.

Madam Tan went to relationship counsellor Lydia Gan, co-founder of LoveAgain.sg.

Ms Gan said she has also encountered cases of men leaving their mistresses because of pay cuts, and expats who have had to return home, leaving their local lovers behind.

In a letter to the website Stomp, she wrote: 'In a downturn, men are finding it increasingly harder to support mistresses on the side.'

Ms Ho Shee Wai, director and registered psychologist at The Counselling Place, said: 'Because of the uncertainty of the current economic climate, people become more financially conservative and cautious. They rethink... I'd better look at what's stable in my life and focus on my wife'.'

Just an excuse?

And those who haven't been financially affected may simply be using it as an excuse.

Dr Adrian Wang, a consultant psychiatrist at Gleneagles Medical Centre, said: 'Most people who have extra-marital affairs feel guilty about it. If they want to reconcile with their wives, they need a stimulus to do that. If the financial crisis is an incentive to go back, or a disincentive to maintain your mistress, so be it.'

The downturn may also be discouraging divorce.

Said Ms Ho: 'There are financial consequences, like splitting of assets. So people are less likely to make rash decisions.'

But even where there is a clean break in one relationship, the future may be messy and complicated for the one that remains.

Ms Ho recounted a case she saw earlier this year, involving a European expat couple in their 40s, who have two school going children.

Unknown to the man's wife, he kept a mistress, a Singaporean woman in her 30s, for six months, and paid for her further studies.

Then his company told him to either accept a switch to local terms, which meant losing all his perks as an expat, or to go back.

He decided to leave. That's when he confessed the affair to his wife, who, Ms Ho said, struggled with this thought: Did he choose me, or was he forced to come back to me?

'It's different when the husband returns to his wife because he is no longer interested in (the other woman), rather than circumstances forcing him to give her up,' Ms Ho said. 'There might still be an emotional bond.'

In this case, Ms Ho said that if he had not left Singapore, the affair might have gone on.

Then there's the other side - the jilted mistress.

'Some of them feel lost. They are so used to being kept,' said Ms Gan.

They seldom have friends to turn to. 'You don't go around telling people you are a kept mistress.'

Ms Gan brought up another case - a Singaporean mistress in her 30s, who was with a married man for about three years. He was one of her clients when she was working in a KTV lounge.

When he lost his job and couldn't find a new one, and his wife of 20 years became the main breadwinner at home, he felt it was time to end the affair.

'It would be a disaster if the wife found out and divorced him. He would lose everything,' she said.

When he left, the woman fell apart and sought help with Ms Gan. 'She felt totally lost and nervous without him, though she was never really happy in the relationship,' Ms Gan said.

In the expat couple's case, she spoke to both sides. She said: 'After the couple had their counselling and went back, he gave my contact to the mistress. She needed help to cope. There was hope - she thought he would choose her.'

Dr Wang said: 'When you see people in a love triangle, all three are in pain. Seek help if you find you cannot control your emotions.'

For Madam Tan, it was the China mistress' words over the phone that haunted her.

Mistress calls her 'auntie'

'She said very hurtful things. Being yelled at was one thing. She said I'm sad, I look like an auntie, I look like crap, that's why my husband had an affair with her,' said Madam Tan.

'It really cut me to the bone.'

She said that before seeking help, she could not face her husband. 'Whenever I saw him, anger surfaced and I ended up scolding him. He was apologetic and kept asking me what could he do to salvage the marriage. I was lost for words...

'Bad thoughts and emotions consumed me, I thought of sleeping with other guys to spite him.'

Said Ms Ho: 'We (counsellors) believe an affair is symptomatic of what's going wrong in a marriage. They might not be meeting each other's needs, have intimacy issues, or the wife may be too focused on looking after the kids. In the case of expats, there may be adjustment issues.'

Madam Tan said that after seeing Ms Gan, she realised she had been working too long hours and focused too hard on raising her daughter.

She said: 'I realised I didn't take care of myself, I let myself go after marriage. I need to love myself more, take care of myself.'

The mistress, too, can be helped to explore what caused her to decide to be a third party.

Said Ms Gan: 'My advice to those lost folks out there - please learn to love yourselves. Do not settle for relationships that are doomed to fail.'

This article was first published in The New Paper