AFL star Lachie Neale is reportedly dating advertising professional Emma Field, months after his marriage to wife Jules collapsed amid an alleged affair with her best friend, Tess Crosley, according to Daily Mail columnist Jana Hocking.
Hocking, who writes a dating column, said she has had a front-row seat to countless affairs over the years, not because she has had them but because people confess things to her they would not tell their closest friends.
She said she once had to pause her weekly "saucy secret" confessional series on Instagram after being flooded with so many cheating stories that she became "a little bummed out" by the whole thing.
A pattern in married men's affairs
After listening to countless stories about married men and the women they sleep with, Hocking said she has noticed the same pattern play out repeatedly: the other woman becomes convinced the man will leave his wife for her, usually because he has spent months promising he will.
But Hocking said the affair almost always ends one of two ways: either the married man breaks it off and returns to his wife, or the marriage collapses and he still does not end up with the other woman. Stories of men riding off into the sunset with their mistresses, she said, are becoming "vanishingly rare."
Instead, Hocking said, the man typically "dusts himself off" after the separation and starts afresh with an entirely different woman.
Lachie Neale and Tess Crosley
Hocking pointed to Neale as a "timely example." Following his alleged affair with Crosley, the former Brisbane Lions captain now appears to have moved on with someone new, without the baggage of last year's messy marriage breakdown.
Neale played as captain of the Brisbane Lions, one of the Australian Football League's most high-profile clubs. The AFL is Australia's premier professional competition for Australian rules football, and its players are frequently the subject of tabloid interest off the field.
Hocking said Crosley must be "absolutely spewing," having blown up her own marriage to husband Ben and betrayed her friend Jules, in Jules's own words, only to not end up with Neale in the end.
New romance with Emma Field
Neale is now rumoured to be dating Field, whom Hocking described as a glamorous brunette bearing a striking resemblance to Crosley, minus the association with football's messiest marriage breakdown.
One image already circulating, taken at last year's AFL Grand Final at the height of the alleged affair, has become a well-known image linked to the scandal.
Photographs show Neale and Field looking cosy at Brisbane Airport after flying back from Melbourne, where Field had reportedly been spotted cheering him on from the stands at several games.
Neale has never publicly confirmed the alleged affair with Crosley, nor has he denied it. He has, however, admitted that he "let his family down" and apologised for his actions following the collapse of his marriage.
Crosley's family has cryptically alluded to there being "two sides to the story," though Hocking said it is clear Neale wants the saga behind him.
Hocking said Neale is "out of there. Done. See ya later. New phone, who dis?" He is not, she said, playing happy families with Crosley or trying to "make an honest woman of her."
She warned anyone involved with a married man that they may believe they are auditioning to become the next girlfriend, but could end up as "a stepping stone" on the way to someone else.
A warning from a former mistress
Hocking also recounted being told by a former mistress that her married lover could barely stand to look at her once their affair came to light.
As his divorce grew increasingly ugly, the man began drinking more and blaming her for the consequences of his own actions, before their relationship finally collapsed, Hocking said.
He reportedly screamed at her: "You're the reason my wife got the holiday house!"
Hocking said the woman had spent the affair believing they were building a future together, only to become the person he blamed once dismantling his marriage grew expensive.
That, Hocking said, is where many affairs come unstuck: while the mistress associates her lover with excitement and the promise of a new life, he begins to associate her with legal bills and fraught family matters.
Advice for the next girlfriend
Hocking warned that if a new partner's last relationship ended over infidelity, a woman should "go in with your eyes wide open." His past does not guarantee he would repeat it, she said, but it offers "useful intel" about what he is capable of.
For a famous footballer, she added, temptation is unlikely to be in short supply.
Hocking said she has heard enough confessions over the years to know the mistress always believes she will be the exception, and suspects the new girlfriend probably thinks the same.
