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Home › Relationships

Relationships | 11/14/2008 9:00 am

Virtual Sex Results in Divorce

By The Staff at wowOwow.com
© Shutterstock

What counts as adultery? According to one British woman, virtual sex.

Twenty-eight-year-old Amy Pollard has filed for divorce after discovering that her husband, 40-year-old David Pollard, was having an "affair" with another woman in the online parallel world known as Second Life. The couple, who has been married for three years, actually met in Second Life, and decided to marry after meeting in the real world.

Things got sticky, however, when Mr. Pollard was caught with another virtual girl last year. The duo apparently worked it out, but Mrs. Pollard had enough after finding her husband in a "compromising position" with an online love. Said the heartbroken woman, "I caught him cuddling a woman on a sofa in the game. It looked really affectionate. I went mad — I was so hurt. I just couldn’t believe what he’d done. I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character. It’s cheating as far as I’m concerned." Mr. Pollard at first claimed he did not understand her fury, but then admitted that he no longer loved her and went so far as to say they never should have married. Ouch. 

This story struck us as odd at first, but apparently the Pollards aren’t the only people whose relationship has been brought down by Second Life. Britain’s Telegraph reports that at least one other couple called it quits after an online affair rocked their real-life romance. 

Read more about: Amy Pollard, David Pollard, Divorce, England, Marriage, News, Relationships, Second Life, Technology

7 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

MsDee1
This is a no-brainer for me. But then I’m fairly uncompromising with philandering on either side.
By MsDee1 on 11/14/2008 9:54 am
BelindaJoy
This is just silly. This is just another example of people losing themselves in what is unreal….losing perspective. Losing any semblance of reality. How sad. Amy may be filing for divorce, but the root cause is not because her husband’s virtual image made out with another virtual image. Somebody has some serious emotional problems and issues as it relates to communication, trust and the ability to relate on a human level.
By BelindaJoy on 11/14/2008 10:12 am
SandbeeFB54
They met first in this virtual world and then in real life. It sounds like it is more real to them than day to day living. Do they have jobs? Families? Friends? Or is this their entire life?
By SandbeeFB54 on 11/14/2008 10:35 am
AlessanO
Virtual reality is fantasy, it’s not real. Of course Amy ended up making it real, by meeting up with her now husband. I think her worry is that the fantasy her husband is having with a online person will become reality. So she doesn’t trust him, and maybe he couldn’t say that he wouldn’t want to meet his online friend someday. But it’s not affair if you don’t know the person, many married people have fantasys, it’s not new.
By AlessanO on 11/14/2008 10:58 am
kermieb
Fantasies are fine when you keep them to yourself, in your thoughts. But these reality games make them tangible, and visible to your loved one, and the other person with whom you are “cyber-cheating.” I think there is something to this. I would feel violated by a man who did this, I truly believe I would.
By kermieb on 11/14/2008 12:24 pm
SusanEasterday
The reality is that this cyber-romance is a way of “leaving the marriage” and is analogous to a porno addiction. I don’t think she should have left, but it sounds like they needed some serious counseling and he needed to come back to the romance in his marriage. Too many affairs have been started by online affairs; this may have been going in that direction.
By SusanEasterday on 11/14/2008 3:43 pm
HABIBI
Susan, I totally agree. If you have to assimulate sex in any way with another, It’s just plain cheating. And, as far as fantasy goes, it’s one thing to play act, i.e. You be the doctor and I’ll be the nurse, lol, is fine, but to fantascize about doing the do with another living being, that too IMO is also cheating. I feel that if I had to think of someone else during times of intimacy, I’m not really there for/with my partner and visa/versa. I for one couldn’t do that as I’d only be fooling myself as the fantasy man would not be the one eyes I’d be looking into, and am to much of a realist. It’s so important for couples to never lose the freshness of the first time as anything less means you open yourself up to the very real possibility for these/other situations to arise. Plus, a couple who truly loves each other and is mature, realizes that long term relationships, if they are working well, always grows to a deeper level, where the sexual intimacy in the relationship, is truly just frosting on the cake but not the whole cake.
By HABIBI on 11/14/2008 4:30 pm