THE LONG TAIL OF CHEATING HEARTS

The illicit embrace from "Your Cheating Heart"

The advantage of running a blog for so long is that you can track readers' comments on stories that were written months or even years ago.  Mainly they're just opining on the post, but others treat them as a kind of anonymous confessional.  (The sins of an avatar, in other words, related through a real life pseudonym.) "Your Cheating Heart", my 2005 story of a man whose real life wife caught him in the arms of a gorgeous avatar, and exacted a humiliating revenge, has provoked that kind of response several times-- most recently (and wrenchingly) from someone known only as "A Reformed Adulterer":

... I met a woman online. We had a lot in common, this woman and me. The friendship just "clicked". And then it became serious. She'd opened up to me and let me know how strongly she felt about me, and I'd done the same. Before I knew it, we were both madly in love with each other.  Except that I was a married man "in the real world"... It wasn't until wedding officiants were asked and invited, and wedding dresses looked at, before reason began to take hold of my emotion, and I began to doubt my actions...

I'm talking serious guilt here. The kind of guilt that causes you to lose your appetite, and robs you of any chance at a decent's nights sleep. My real life behavior changed drastically. I distanced myself even further from family and my real life friends. I became evasive and defensive.The guilt I had to live with became so enormous that I told my spouse everything about the online relationship, putting my entire real life relationship at risk... It was the only way I could get my conscience to stop screaming at me.

And so it goes, in agonizing detail.  And to make it all the more plaintive, his comment quickly receives an equally anonymous reply-- from someone only known as "A Broken Heart":

You set yourself up for defeat - plain and simple. It's your own personal psychological problem whether in RL or SL... and you drag and hurt people along your way. I'm glad you're getting on with your RL, but wow did you handle things badly in SL (even after being forgiven time and time again). No wonder your RL marriage ran into trouble. And give this some thought. You never once asked me about my RL relationships. It was always about YOU...

I've seen and been around many happy people with both RL and SL relationships. And guess what... I've had a healthy RL relationship going for 14+ years now... and with no problems (even while with my SL significant other). It's clear to me that my relationship had problems... not because of the RL/SL distinction... but because my ex-partner made me believe they loved me, proposed to me and then disgracefully walked out on me...

And so it goes even further, another thread of evidence (as if we needed more) that in-world relationships are real, and that the debate over what constitutes cheating and fidelity has yet to be resolved.

Whoever they are, I hope the best for these two-- and that airing their nameless conflict here has left both the better for it.

Comments

[John Stracke]

What some of the "it's just bits in a computer" crowd don't seem to understand is that fidelity is an emotional stance, not just a physical one. If you enter into an emotional relationship, those emotions are real, regardless of whether there's real-world physical contact. You might as well excuse physical sex with "it's just quanta in spacetime". Either way, what matters is the mind, not the medium.

And, sure, for some people that works. Those people are polyamorous, even if they'd never consider a poly relationship that included physical sex; and the talent they need to make that work is the same talent needed to make physical-world poly relationships work.

[gary moore]

I had the same identity/emotional experience, being married, met a girl quite fast on the web (less than 30 min we were making SL love..) and than... a couple of days later I have to divulge my real identity... because I didn't sleep for days... but I know that the feeling at the other SL side was shared... And didn't want to put my RL in danger ... I like this women really well, she is my wife... the wife!

It is a dangerous game, and didn't know it could catch me like this.