Former Miss Ireland Collette McBarron has claimed that on the night she slept over at love rat Ashley Cole's house they did nothing but talk about his marriage to Cheryl and why he cheated on her.

McBarron, 26, who insists she did not have sex with Cole, 30, but admits to sharing his bed, said that the footballer laid the blame on, among other things, "the pressure" of being married and the weight of "responsibility" on Cheryl.

The Chelsea defender laid bare his feelings about why his four-year marriage went so terribly wrong, ending in divorce last September, and McBarron revealed Cole referred to Cheryl as only "that person".

"What is it actually like being married?" the Daily Mail quoted McBarron as asking Cole that night.

"At first he just said, 'It's hard'.

"He wasn't very forthcoming but he didn't seem angry, just to be struggling to find the right words.

"So I asked him, 'What happened? What changed'?

"He said, 'Things change when you get married. You go from being someone's boyfriend to being their husband, it changes quite a lot of things. When you're someone's boyfriend, you don't feel so much responsibility towards that person.

"'You know when you're dating, you're out partying, you're out having a laugh with the boys. That changes when you're a husband. Once you're a husband you can't act in a way that you would have done if you were a boyfriend,'" she recalled.

McBarron also remembered how Cole responded when she asked him why he cheated on Cheryl, 28.

"I asked him, 'Why did you do it?' meaning why did you cheat on Cheryl. He didn't really answer. He sighed," she revealed.

"It seemed like he didn't really know the answer.

"I thought it was odd he didn't mention Cheryl by name. That conversation was the only time he talked about her during all the time we spent together and he referred to her only as 'that person'," she added.

McBarron also believes that Cole was never serious about getting Cheryl back, otherwise he would not have taken the risks like he did with her by spending a night together.

"The truth is I don't think even Ashley knows what he wants. Part of him wants the domesticity of married life and the other part wants to be this Jack-the-lad footballer," she added.