Cheating and the Internet...A Wife's Perspective

Tagged as: Cheating, Marriage problems, Pornography

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Article - (30 January 2011)

9 Comments - (Newest, 22 April 2015)

A female age 41-50, Bentiwmdl writes:

Recently, I discovered that my husband had been looking at personal ads on the internet. And, not only was he looking, he was emailing responses. I’m sure you all know the ones I am talking about. The “casual encounters,” section of a popular add site, which is essentially a cheating site for free. My husband was responding to all sorts of sleazy ads for no strings attached discreet encounters. He was responding to men, women, transsexuals, groups, couples just about the gamut of online hook up possibilities. Upon discovering his “secret email account,” I confronted him of course. He told me that he had only responded, no one had ever gotten back, and it was just because he was bored and horny. I believe that he never actually cheated on me, mostly because any man, who is not smart enough to close out his email account on his computer, probably could not cover up an actual physical affair. However, it has created some trust issues in our marriage, and quite frankly I believe it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what these sites actually are. If more people realize that these ads are not the same thing as say, fantasy aids like pornography, than we might end this increasingly frequent phenomenon of men and women having easily accessible emotional cheating.

Before I begin my rant, permit me to give you some insight into what sort of emotional cheating I am talking about. I am not talking about pornography. Pornography is a fact of life, I am thankful for it to keep my husband from actually cheating when he needs to see or fantasize about something I cannot give him. For example, I have no problem with him looking at large women, or BBW’s as they are called. I am small and have smallish breasts. I cannot ever give him a pair of DD breasts, so if he wants to look at those so be it. I am also not talking about web cam girls/guys. These people are just live pornography as far as I am concerned, and I have absolutely no problem with my husband signing on every once in a while. So, as you see I am not a prudish wife who doesn’t understand fantasy. But, I have a big problem with the sort of sites that allow married individuals to hook up with others also looking to cheat.

If there was anything sacred about sex at all, it’s completely gone. Sex has been replaced from an essential part of marriage to a “fun time” that can be enjoyed by all, with anyone, regardless of rings on fingers. It has become a bonus, and it’s a bonus that apparently a lot of people feel should be provided by more than just their spouses. And so many people do this. When I was searching the internet looking for other women this has happened to, it made me sick almost to see how many women and men found these sexually explicit emails on their spouses’ computers and didn’t know what to do. Every single spouse stated that “nothing ever happened” and it was “just for fun.”

What these spouses don’t release is that it doesn’t take much to plant a seed of mistrust, and unfortunately these seeds are self-tending and can grow into large trees of doubt that suck up all of the happiness in a relationship. Now, I am in the position of not trusting my husband, and I cannot forget what happened. I have to forgive him, that or leave him and that is not an option. He is my best friend, my world and treats me like a queen. So, I have to now find a way to destroy the seeds so they don’t grow.

So, I ask all of you men and women out there who are responding to these ads for casual sex, whether or not you go through with it, to think about what you are doing before you post that you are interested in another person. This is not pornography, this is not webcam. This is attempting to make contact with someone, normally in your own town, who has no problem participating in adultery. If you make the distinction before you make the mistake, you can avoid your beautiful view of your future being obstructed by an ugly tree of doubt.

View related questions: affair, aids , best friend, breasts, cheated on me, horny, porn, the internet

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A female reader, scarias55 +, writes (22 April 2015):

I have to say that I wish I would have been suspicious of my husband when he would point out that he was reading these ads on craigslist 5 years ago. I just thought he was making fun of things because when I asked him, why are you looking at that, he would answer that it was funny like "goatsie" or websites that showed strange things. He and I were always very verbal about everything, best friends since we were 15, but when he discovered craigslist, everything changed. When he started mentioning that he and I should find people to do things with that is when I told him he needed to stop browsing that and because he was always kind and understanding with me, I thought he respected my request.

I was wrong.

I later found out that not only was he posting things four months after we were married, but that he met with at least 3 women over the course of our short marriage for a total of 6 confessed encounters and 2 posts I discovered. We had been together for 15 years, but only married 5 years.

The worst part is that I didn't learn until 2 years after he claimed he stopped and I learned this because I found pictures of him having sex with women.

When I asked him, he is ashamed and admits to just wanting the feeling of sex with no strings attached.

They met during lunches and even right after he dropped me off at work in the morning.

My life is shattered.

I feel like I don't know him and we are now separated. Our whole lives are completely intertwined.

I feel it is too easy for people to cheat with this technology and it is an epidemic within our society. I blame him, not craigslist, but it is difficult to think he would have been able to do this without the help of the internet since we always were together having a good time.

I feel compassion and sympathy for anyone who is going through something like this and I say beware, if this is something you are suspicious of, go straight away to counseling to get to the bottom of it.

Do not ignore it or laugh at it. Your partner means to cheat if they are searching through these ads. It is not curiosity, it is infidelity and many of us feel this is a deal breaker.