• slirpuff said on Aug 29, 2007....

  I think your Mum heat it on the head. If you
  feel uncomfortable telling your partner about
  it, it's probably wrong.
  However, where do you draw the line on a little
  fantasizing on line or looking at a porn site.
  EVERYONE fantisizes no matter what they say..
  You see a hot good looking person of the opposite
  sex walking down the street and take another look...
  I wonder what she'd look naked... am I cheating in my
  heart... I say no !  As my wife says, I can get my appetite
  any where I want, I just have to eat at home...
  Steve
   

• beyondtheveil said on Aug 29, 2007....

  Both my wife and I feel there are areas in a relationship that are off limits for anyone but the two of us. Any problems we have had are for the two of us to work out together. If either one of us were to go to another person, especially one of the opposite sex, to discuss our life together it would be considered a betrayal.
  
  We do not ever discuss our romantic relationship with anyone except to say it is good in a general way. That information is sacred between us and is for no one else's ears. We have not had any large problems in twenty-five years and I believe this attitude is a part of the reason why.
  
  If either of us did what was expressed in your example and the other found out, it wouldn't be the end for us but would be devastating to the one talked about. It is a breech of trust and an emotional involvement- the worst kind.
  

• silverphoenix said on Aug 29, 2007....

  Slirpuff - lol about 'appetite'... I never get that with people on the street, but I've had it with movie stars occasionally!
  
  beyondtheveil - I think it's impressive that your relationship is so secure, and you obviously have real openness with one another :) In my experience, there are times that talking to others can be useful tho - at the moment a good friend is missing his girlfriend while she's away on business. He was telling us last night that he's finding it  difficult not having her around but he wants to be happy for her. Once we'd talked it over and rationalised it a bit he felt better and said he felt he'd be able to be in a good mood when she called that night, not grumpy. Sometimes someone else's perspective can help out, but your system is obviously functioning great for you! :)
  

• exhibit_c said on Aug 29, 2007....

  The case in the article was featured because it was extreme. And if it was extreme, there were reasons. Chances are the woman felt that she had not been getting anything from the man emotionally for a long time, so the online 'affair' was the excuse, not the reason.

• slirpuff said on Aug 29, 2007....

  Sometimes it's great to have an impartial ear
  to bounce things off of before you talk to your s/o.
  Isn't that what S/C is ???? Getting feed back ...
  However, I agree that "totally" opening ones self
  up to another is dangerious and could be construded
  as out there looking to fill a need.
  At that point, it's usually time to sit down and have a
  face to face / heart to heart with your s/o to air the issues.
  If I can't talk to my bride about anything and everything,
  the honeymoon is over...
  Steve
   

• sweetsoul said on Aug 29, 2007....

  What I'm guessing may have happened is that in addition to sharing information about his relationship, he developed a close enough relationship with the othe woman online that he felt comfortable sharing details of his marriage with her. In addition there were possibly feelings between the two online friends. If not in this particular situation, it often happens this way. You start out chatting, become friends, share more, care more, and all of a sudden you're having an emotional affair. It happens.

   

  For the issue of whether an emotional or physical affair are worse...I think it depends oh your attitude towards sex. For those that can separate sex from emotions, I think they would think an emotional affair would be worse. If they (and their partner) don't separate sex from emotions...expecially love...then the physical affair would be considered worse (since both affairs were emotional but the physical also included sex).

• desertsienna2 said on Aug 29, 2007....

  Marriage is marriage.  Cheating is cheating.  I just finished answering a question from someone who decided to 'cure' her love for her ex-husband by marrying another man.  They were married a few months ago, I believe.  How can anyone do such a thing?  She is not in her early twenties, when I might understand.  The marriage was over before it began.  She should get an annulment or give him the option of divorce and pay off the wedding herself.  People need to take responsibility for their lives.  It irks that are pro-happy wedding society doesn't think of the marriage afterwards.  Single mothers are bashed for having kids out-of-wedlock and single people for not being married but it's better than going through divorce and remarriage.  What's better?  A young woman with two kids, a job, a steady boyfriend living at home with her parents while going to school and working part-time while providing a loving home or a mother who uses drugs, moves all the time, gets married and remarried, fights with the father and doesn't look after her kids...I have more respect for the responsible people in our society.  That's a different topic.

  
  It is much more forgivable when someone isn't married with children or at least doesn't have kids at the time.  Otherwise, it becomes your mess to sort out.  I wish people would learn from their mistakes.  People are not so quick to forgive these days but then again, some people do not come back and apologize and try to work out the relationship.

• slirpuff said on Aug 29, 2007....

  In our society the divorce rate is 50%...
  Kids & young people go into it thinking
  its a crap shoot... If it doesn't work out, oh well..
  Most of the young ones are really not in love
  but are in "LUST" and want that feeling to
  be with them 24/7...
  However lust fades and if love and maturity
  doesn't doersn't take over, well add another
  percent to the divorce rate...
  My bride was a councilor at a high school...
  75% of the girls who got knocked up didn't have
  a clue what they were in for. They looked at having
  a baby as something like getting a new puppy..
  You can't stop them from getting married of having
  children, but parents at least should try to educate
  them as to what their life is really going to be like..
   
   

• Eilan said on Aug 29, 2007....

  My husband's ex-wife cheated on him at least twice (that he knows of).  He was more hurt that she fell in love with the men she was sleeping with than he was with the idea of her having sex with them.  Other people's mileage, of course, may vary.

• Yaboyndot said on Aug 29, 2007....

  It is a little blurry because the person could just be simply trying to feel a need that he feels that he cannot get at home. I guess it is adultrey because currently I am the other guy in an affair and we do talk about his wife and kids and yes there is the sexual aspect of the relationship

• gingersoul said on Aug 29, 2007....

  Phoenix....I think the woman of the story is not extreme at all. Hurt to her bones, but understandable.

  I found more dangerous and more hurtful if my partner would share intimacy, feelings, thoughts, dreams with another woman than if he had sex with her. One night stand is easily forgettable, a shower and its done. The occasional lust of the body is something forgivable.

  But the bond that connects two people even if they never met is far deeper and dangerous. I consider it cheating. 

  Sex is not important at the end...what made that woman feel cheated were those words, the longing to talk, the shared intimacy, the intimate details of the life of her husband that he allowed another woman to know. We are not talking about conversations between friends of opposite sex...

  Asking a divorce based of this kind of online affair is a matter of how the woman is able not only to forgive his husband but to trust him again. 

• Expendable said on Aug 29, 2007....

  An online friend of mine was caught cheating online by his wife. It wasn't so much the sharing of personal details - it was the husband's suggestion that he and the other woman meet up for that one night stand. (and no, it wasn't with me)
   
  Her decision was to cut him off the internet. Completely. Otherwise she was out the door with the kids. I think she relented after six months but he's still restricted as to where he can go and what he can do.
   
  I think it's ok if you're talking. But when it starts getting intimate, that's when the trouble starts.

• lfbno7 said on Aug 30, 2007....

  I know you can fall in love with someone you only met online because it happened to me.  I wouldn't say I did it.  I said it happened to me.  It's not something I chose to do.  It's something that hit me like a hammer while I was just talking to people.
  
  If there is such a thing as penpal adultery, I've done it.  When you get right down to it, an online friend is a penpal.
  
  Is that something to end a marriage over?  I think it is something that can be used as an excuse for someone who wanted to end a marriage and was waiting for an excuse.  You don't leave a marriage if you don't want to.
  
  It also enables the spouse to point the finger of blame at you, while abandoning you.  But abandonment is a deeper cut than typing.
  
  Are spouses supposed to be thought police?  Are you ever free?  I have a suggestion.  How about adding to the marriage vows: I promise to never have a sexual thought about another person in my life.  I promise to never speak to anyone I find attractive, for the rest of my life.  I promise to never look at another woman's chest.  Hey, if you do those things, you're cheating, in your mind, and that is unacceptable, isn't it.
  
  Is it cheating to peek at someone's cleavage?  Is it cheating to dream of another woman while you are in bed with your own?  Is it cheating to type out a sexual fantasy with someone on a computer?  No, actually it is cheating to meet someone in a hotel and have sex with that person.  No contact, no sex.  Ogle and type all you want.
  
  Some people carry things to impossible extremes.  You're damn lucky if the only thing your spouse ever does, in the way of cheating, is type to someone.  Just how much absolute control do you insist on?  Maybe you should regulate what your spouse watches on tv.  I have a crush on Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles.  Is that cheating too?
  

• destinydiva said on Aug 30, 2007....

  this is a really interesting post, and a lot of things to think about from all the comments, I'm not awake enough to put my thoughts in to words, but I'm interested in everyone elses responses...   good post!! :-)
  Destiny xx
  
  

• Fire_01 said on Aug 30, 2007....

  Well....I've met the love of my life online. To be honest. If we met in flesh first and not emotionally as we did......who knows what would have happened?

  Thanks for emotional betrayels!!!!

• scipio said on Aug 30, 2007....

  Good Post and excellent responses.
   

• silverphoenix said on Aug 30, 2007....

  Ooh this is becoming really interesting! I'm glad I asked, lol... It's so fascinating to hear everyone's opinion... where the lines are drawn in your mind etc. Will respond properly later! Promise!

• kruuyai said on Aug 30, 2007....

  There are really some great comments here, and I agree with most of them, which is odd, because some of them are diametrically opposed.  Personally, I would be, and have been, much more devastated by  an emotional betrayal than a physical one, but the question is.. just what constitutes an emotional betrayal.  As some people have said, perhaps in not so many words, it isn't fair to expect our partner never to share any deep thoughts or feelings with another person.  It isn't realistic to expect one person to be all things to us.  And yet, clearly, some things are off limits.  I agree with beyondtheveil, that an agreement as to what stays within the confines of the relationship is necessary at some early point in the relationship.  Sometimes, it is necessary to get feedback from friends on certain aspects of our relationships from an unbiased party in order to help us evaluate how to react to a given situation that we face in our relationship, but in those cases, the person that we bounce those ideas off of should probably not be a potential sexual partner.  I think the woman in this article felt that the emotional sharing that was going on between her husband and his online pal was taking away from the emotional intimacy of her own relationship with him.  I know that I would be much more hurt if my partner fell in love with someone else than if he just had something sexual going on the side, but then again, if he really fell in love with someone else, that would be the test of my own love for him... to let him go and find his happiness, because he obviously wasn't getting it from me.  

• ZsuzsiO said on Aug 30, 2007....

  I totally agree with lfbno7. Even I couldn't say it any better.

  I'd only add that i think it is possible to find love on line, and once that happened than I think there is a reason to get mad. I mean, Imagine talking to some one oniline, sharing all your thoughts and telling all your secrets, but never actually meeting that person. It's almost like a diary. Only, it talks back.

  So I guess the question isn't that simple at all. I'd ask my spouse what kind of talks did they actually get into - did he ever felt like meeting that other person, did they share their sexual fantasies and agreed that they both like and want the same? Did they try online sex?

  I think that having a good friend online is actually safer than it is to have one in person. That way it really doesn't matter what sex we both are. Cause we never actually meet. We are just friends.

  The problem starts when these online friends start talking about their own intimacy together, as a couple, and play with the thought of what if...

  That could turn into real action, and IF, and I say it again I F there is a phisical click too, when they actually do meet, than that relationship is more of a cheating than a physical one nighter.

  People do get married from online relationships. I met my guy online. But i've met others too, whom I've had grait chemestry online, and absolutely non in person.

• silverwhisper said on Aug 30, 2007....

  personally: i think that an affair can be defined when a married person shares something w/ someone other than his/her spouse that ought to be reserved for his/her spouse.
  
  ed

• simplyklo said on Aug 31, 2007....

  I can understand the need to talk to others as I have found there are times in a relationship that communication can break down hence making things tougher.  Sometimes having an outside opinion or advice can help.  At the same time however I will admit that I can get jealous and if such intimacy continued and was hidden behind my back, I would feel that it was more than just reaching out for a friend and advice and be taken aback.  In the end though I think the important thing is what happens ... does the communication lead the person to communicating better and/or working through the issues or does it lead them to looking for this other person, the online friend, and making it into a physical relationship as well?  I think on the female side of things at least (and probably the male side too) we can get jealous and overly sensitive to things that should not bother us ...

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