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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Comments
Mr.
If you step into the water, you are bound to get wet.
Dray Dillard | 1 month, 2 weeks ago
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mobsters cheats
none
josh white | 1 month ago
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hi
i want be here because i heard it asome
miriam guadalupe aguirre | 3 weeks, 6 days ago
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Right
I totally agree with you “Cheating”. I really would not consider this cheating but it is a reflection of what’s really going on.
January | 3 weeks, 5 days ago
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why
my husband cheated with,online name (fornicator) on counter strike game. we have sex at least 3 times a week. we went to a marriage councel 6yrs ago about online 3 somes. its been 2yrs. i still thank about it.but my point is. there was no sign.how could anyone with a cheating online spouse prevent this.i really dont thank i was to blame.
terina | 3 weeks, 5 days ago
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Woodsy
[CHEATING], [cheating], [ch eat ing], it seems no matter how you write it, it’s absolute cheating………. .
Ralph M Woods | 3 weeks, 3 days ago
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single
need to fond the one
jason | 3 weeks, 1 day ago
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2ndLife cheating
My husband spends 2-4 hours every night on second life – and everytime it ends in masturbation – now I call that cheating! The avatar has a ‘real’ person on the other end – and my husband knows it! Do you call that cheating??
P.L. | 3 weeks ago
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special forces online
free waller or cheats
knocktheyroll | 2 weeks, 3 days ago
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Justice
You can’t really call it one way or another except in the context of a particular relationship. “Cheating” to me isn’t about just having sex, it’s about violating the agreement of a relationship, whatever that agreement may be. You could have an open relationship, under certain conditions, say, both partners being present during any such activities. And, if one undertakes to have sex with another in violation of that agreed rule, then THAT, is cheating. Have communication. Discuss the boundaries of the relationship and if one or the other feels that such boundaries cannot be maintained, or do not agree on the boundaries, such as one or the other not seeing online activities as cheating, then that is where the source of the problem lies.
Kevin Vanderende | 1 week ago
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