Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love
There is now a new world which has welcomed over four million inhabitants in the last three years. Its name is Second Life and it’s accessed through the Internet. Here in this virtual world, each inhabitant is an entirely unique avatar, a fantasy creation that’s usually taller, stronger, fitter, and more attractive than the person controlling it on the other side of the screen…but Second Life isn’t a game, it’s a virtual life fueled by real wants and desires. And for some, when life and love are less than perfect, the escape it offers can be more seductive than the real world.
Documentary series about everyday dramas. Carolyn is a 37 year-old mother of four in the midst of a passionate affair. She's spending up to 18 hours a day with her lover online on Second Life, the website. She has never met him, but, to her husband of nine year's dismay, she is abandoning her family and flying 5,000 miles to London to start a new life with her lover, Elliot. What makes this website, which has three million members, so compelling?
This is an addiction. A monster that takes over. Turns a sane normal person who once had strong morals into something they dont recognise. These ones who are on these virtual reality sites, need understanding for what it is...a terrible insidious addiction. look up OLAG read it perhaps many of you will understand more
That's right. Emotional infidelity to the extreme. But it is worse when one is filming oneself naked and sharing. Web cam live sex too. Yeah, a portal to believe that relationships like that can become meaningful.
Hard to believe that a person can really care for the one committed to him/her by behaving this unfaithfully. Maybe being responsible in life has lost its lustre. If one enjoys being responsible in a relationship then this kind of infidelity will not likely happen.
But couples consent to this kind of behavior too. The man or woman in a face to face relationship having this kind of fun online. Taking advantage of the digital world. It is ruinous nonetheless. More evidence of how technology separates us from each other.
Second Life has been the bame of my marriage. My wife has been unfaithful online and it hurt me and our relationship as much as if it happened in real life.
Was that marriage worth saving??
Did you notice they didn't even look at each other while they were picnicking on Primrose Hill in London. (just like in the cyberworld) It was a farce from beginning to end. How could they expect to connect looking , and acting so differently from their avatars,with no background or history. Who would be fooled? The real question however is WHY. Poor kids and husband.
it would never work for me -- i like a small house, almost constant rain and grey skies, knitting, and conversation about philosophy, science, religion, and politics. i have a lot to say, but who would be interested? they're too busy flirting and having sex. yawn ...
I don't know how people have time for these make believe games
I have been on second life for three years but only use it occasionally.I am very selective who I talk with(I don't really chat with ppl much)and it's more an interest in what ppl create on there.I would NEVER regularly chat with someone else's husband or accept advances-ever.
If you allow yourself to use something like this to fill a void in your marriage....you are treading dangerous waters.Unfortuneatly I caught my husband talking with a woman on google+.and instead of being like Lee(the poor husband on the documentary)I took matters into my own hands.
I found out my husband had an email he didn't mention(he is not good at hiding things)I luckily entered with the password he uses for a lot of accounts.And found some chats and comments that were inappropriate.
It was obvious my husband was getting emotional about this woman who he said did not know he was married(who knows if that is true).I also got on his ipad and looked at the womans page and saw comments of a romantic nature.He left it wide open for me to catch.
So I got on his account and made comment on the womans page to make known he has a WIFE.My husband is angry with me(too bad)and the woman blocked him.He said he was about to end it himself but I doubt that.Had I not stepped in he would probably still be doing it and had threatened to try to contact her.He said I feared that contact...well,duh?I told him if I found out he did he would end up divorced(which would not bode well for him on many levels).He does not truly understand any contact with this woman would end our marriage or that what he was doing was emotional infidelity.
Make no mistake ppl, these online affairs can damage a marriage and end it because they get this fantasy in thier mind that it will be so much better than the real life relationship they have...and can also led to physical affairs in the flesh.This woman told my husband she wanted to meet him(states away).
Don't just sit there and do nothing ..like Lee...step in and put a stop to it and hope you can mend your marriage afterward.
I totally feel for the real life husband in the documentary. I have discovered my husband having a cyber affair on Second Life, and after a reasonable amount of investigation, I find that I feel violated, cheated upon and I do not know where to go next...confront him, or see a lawyer about a divorce, or seek marriage counseling or all of those. We've been married for 25+ years. His attachment to these cyber girlfiends does not seem to be a game, seems real.
good thing she's thinking of her family
Her husband is the perfect example of why nice guys always finish last.
That guy is the ultimate cuckolded husband. What the **** is he doing? I'd draw the line at having an online relationship with someone - let alone going out to meet them! If he had any balls he would divorce that b*tch straight up, proxy all communication with her through his solicitor and take custody of the children. Then he should find someone better to replace this selfish **** of a wife and help raise his kids.
Lee schould take a hammer and smash the computer to pieces!
He was in Love, then he saw her for real....
Man I cannot believe how weak people can be, can't be bothered to get off their butt and do something about their life. Oh well, the more they spend time in some virtual fantasy, the less competition in the real world.
Its funny, its obvious any one would want to live a life that was as easy as Second Life, but as we all know, its not real. It does n't even look good, the animations suck, and its limited in what you can do. Actually I think it would shell shock them if they could live in the Second Life world for a few hours, and find that things they take for granted in real life, would be missing, such as the five senses. In Second Life you wouldn't feel anything, since that isn't part of the program, no taste, when making love you would have no feeling what so ever, if the game even allows you to do that, seldomly you'd glitch and be bound to do anything the programmers wanted you to do.
LOL, I bet that guy thought that he was good at playing the piano
My and my girlfriend met in second life and we now live together in real life so i can relate.
Hi Michael,
Your last sentence is a bit of an open door and goes for anything you watch. We know that it’s always biased or even scripted.
Talking about the couple: I think it is very insulting of you to call a kind hearted man a milquetoast. You know as well as I do that even awesome guys and girls can lose their attraction for a partner and it is one of the challenges of a relationship (always bumpy!) to find each other back and move on, especially when kids are involved.
When you watch the last minutes of the documentary and see the man talking and the woman making scornful faces and showing her despise for him, it hurts me deeply. She has no idea how much he has held her high when talking about her “state” to the kids.
She’s one of the many second life addicts and has fallen into the virtual “real love”” trap. It happens to almost everybody in second life and is causing a lot of misery. Fortunately most people recognize the trap in time, but for many relationships in the real world too much damage has been done and they are beyond repair.
I wish this family all the best, and hope the kids will have 2 committed parents.
Sylvie
Final comment:This chick's husband really must love her. She's obviously psychotic, a fact Elliott recognized as soon as he clapped eyes on her, which is why he couldn't get rid of her fast enough. He implied that they didn't even have sex. Any person who is ready to abandon her kids for "even a 5% chance it might work out" would raise huge red flags with any sane guy. She's the most selfish, immature, obsessive/compulsive, narcissistic person I've seen in a while -- and how she inspired such devotion in her husband is quite beyond me. Her type will always cheat again and he's basically told her that he'll accept any bad behaviour on her part, but can you imagine the rage boiling up inside those kids?
Let me get something straight: these two are getting misty eyed looking at a book of computer graphics that memorialize an imaginary event that "took place" during a computer game and was "attended" by a bunch of other cartoons? That's what's happening here, right? Ok, just checking.
These people need professional psychiatric help.
Really strange
Most disturbing part for me was the comment attributed to the 13 year old son speaking to his mother that she would have been better off if he was never born. These children are being abandoned by their mother and I believe are at high risk of sucide in their teen years which we all know can be very difficult anyway. Putting her own "happiness" ahead of the mental health of her offspring is disgraceful.
STAND YOUR GROUND MAN! LEAVE THAT BITCH! Relationships are over rated anyway, just a pain in the ass