Second Life: First Divorce?
For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, in…cyberspace?
Does the age-old marriage vow of fidelity need to be updated to make husbands and wives responsible for their behavior online?
Infidelity is “just as painful, whether it’s electronic or physical,” says an expert in how the internet affects relationships. “For awhile there was this impression that as long as it’s online, it doesn’t matter. But research has shown it’s not a separate world.”
In what is said to be the first case of its kind, a woman is now divorcing her husband after catching the animated character he created online having a fictional affair in a computer role-playing game with an animated online character created by a woman he’d never met.
“It’s cheating, as far as I’m concerned,” said the 28-year-old aggrieved wife.
The couple, married for three years and living in England, originally met online as fans of the cyberspace community Second Life, a game in which players create animated fantasy alter egos called avatars, and act out virtual lives with virtual relationships. It was in Second Life that the husband’s avatar strayed, though he says, “I don’t think I was really doing anything wrong.”
That one cartoon character cheating on another cartoon character could trigger a real-life divorce caught the attention of psychologists around the world. A British newspaper reported that counselors had found “an increasing number of people whose real-life relationships were falling apart because of what was happening in their parallel, unreal worlds.”
“If you travel in that territory,” warned a San Diego psychologist, “it is unmapped,
unchartered, unpoliced, unsupervised. Somebody’s going to get hurt…I don’t think that people are fully aware how deeply they can hurt one another with these types of games.”
Tell us what you think: Where does personal responsibility begin and end when it comes to the actions of fictional online characters? Should cheating with an avatar even be considered as grounds for divorce?
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TASHAUN HORSLEY | 3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Second Life Cheating ?
I think not….these are animated characters…in a game….Real Life is Real Life Second Life is a place for adult Role-play and not meant to be harmful…now lets say a couple who are partnered in SL, then meet in RL…and their married in RL to somebody else and engage in sexual activity then oh heck ya then your cheating! I say people are reading way too much into this, the problem begins when one loses sight of the difference between what is RL and what is just a virual world of fantasy.
AgoodSoul | 3 months, 2 weeks ago
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Mrs - soon to be ex
Absolutely ,it is cheating. My husband of 16 years had an affair with another woman in Second Life – he has left me and filed for a divorce so he could be with her, even though they had yet to have a face to face meeting. I have found lots of internet items on the subject….Second Life is a divorce trap.
delvia berry | 3 months, 1 week ago
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Mrs - soon to be ex
give me a break! If you had a Corvette and a warning light appeared on the dashboard would you drive the Vette to the junk yard or the repair shop? If you are not happy about ANYTHING in your marriage, get it fixed, work it out, and if things still are not right, then trade in the Vette for a VW. Trust me, after the divorce, a VW is all you can afford
delvia berry | 3 months, 1 week ago
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RE: its a game
I can’t buy the line that cheaters have came up with that “the marriage was in trouble or I won’t have cheated” == it is just that,,,a line to justify, to themselves, of why they acted that way. If a person is unhappy about something in the marriage, why don’t they talk to the spouse about it instead of another woman in Second Life? How is that suppose to help a marriage?
delvia berry | 3 months, 1 week ago
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cheating on second life
I think that those who don’t believe that having an affair on second life is harmful to a real life marriage have experienced the hurt that one can go through when they become emotionally reliant on that “just a game” avatar. I truly believe that going down that path has led to more than one divorce here in the “real” world. I should know I am one of the statistics. The emotional ties that people hold when they become involved are strong and the waters run deep, so I say think long and hard before you lt yourself become involved. Former SL avatar……
anonymous | 3 months, 1 week ago
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Agree
I agree that it doesn’t start out as cheating and Second life is Just a game, but I can see how it can easil move into the cheating arena.. I think if you are in a Onlnie relationship – you need to take a serious look at your RL relationship, your obviously missing something in your RL… TBH- I go to SL to ge away from the RL … It’s an escape from the mundane ad BS….
E Schoerner | 3 months, 1 week ago
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Avatar
I think thats totally nuts!!!!!!!! its only a avatar dressed up as a cartoon what harm can something like that do 2 a female? To me it really sounds like a woman thing and ur letting ur mind run away with u I really dont think its grounds for a divorce,just think about that 4 a moment.Just sleep on that 4 one night and u will see just how silly u have been,b4 u no it u2 will b back in each others arms again and realize just how silly that really was in the 1st place.
John Brand | 3 months, 1 week ago
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Second Life vs.Real Life
People do what people do. Some go to work in office buidings and don’t intend to do anything but work and draw a paycheck. Then one day, divorce court and alimony and REAL LIFE awakens them all because they went into a RL world different from babies and spouses and diapers and yuck.
Yes if you are missing emotional stability in your life…there is a wolf knocking at the door be it Real Life affairs or Second Life waiting to devour you. We all have needs unmet…how we choose to meet them is not the fault of Second Life or Real Life but the beast within ourselves.
Second life is a game and a place to meet people all over the world. The individual decides how to play the game…SL only provided the game board.
What the mind conceives the mind believes…or vice versa. It is a game first and foremost.
j.feld | 3 months ago
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Only a man
Only a man would comment as such. Firstly, sounds like you didn’t get the plot – it’s not a .gif the cheating partner is obsessed with, which is an animated cartoon picture. They are cheating with a “Cartoon” “avatar” which is controlled by another human being, thoughts typed in and emotions expressed. I am aware that Second Life has a voice chat service and I am not surprised if these cheaters use that as well as text. If a partner is looking for lust – comfort – sexual fantasies elsewhere involving another human being, either a dating site, phone, a chat channel or a virtual reality, then it’s cheating. #### is not cheating. Pictures aren’t either. Another human being is.
Amanda | 3 months ago
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