Stop Trolling!! Married Means M-A-R-R-I-E-D

(This gem was posted on Craigslist.com and was so good, we are reposting here for all the victims and spouses (even those in denial) of online cheaters &  cyberpaths - EOPC)

Married means married, Moron

It's getting to the point where I can't even read those stupid personal ads anymore, not even for fun.

They're loaded with married people, bitching about their spouses, and looking for something "better".

I've got a few things to tell you:

1. "She" is not the reason your marriage sucks. YOU are.

If you spent half as much time paying attention to your wife as you do trolling CraigsList (or other sites) for sex, your marriage would be a whole lot better.
2. Yeah, yeah, we've all heard it a thousand times. You're in a sexless marriage.

First of all, that's probably a lie, because most cheaters are liars too. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, pal- if your wife isn't interested in sex, it's because you're not offering sex that's interesting. Married guys get awfully boring after a while. They do the same boring thing the same boring way every single time and then -- they expect you to scream like a porn star.

Seriously, you come home from work, totally ignore her while she chases the kids around for 4 hours, makes dinner, does the laundry, blah blah blah, and then you expect her to roll over with her legs open for another session of same-old same-old? When are you idiots going to learn that the best foreplay in the world for a woman is watching you take care of the kids, vacuum the floor, pick up the dog poo in the backyard. Or how about just listening when she talks? You know, it's not that hard to stop thinking about yourself for five minutes and hear what she has to say.

Think about it - way back when, when you were getting your brains ****ed out on a regular basis - what were YOU doing differently than you're doing now? Planning dates, telling her she looked nice, acting like you're happy to be with her? A thousand dollars says if you do that stuff again you'll get the same result.

3. Spare us. Your kids are NOT the reason you're staying married. If you were THAT miserable, you'd leave whether you had kids or not. If you're not getting a divorce it's because YOU DON'T WANT TO. For whatever reason.

At least be honest and don't try to feed people that tired line about staying married for the kids. Contrary to what you think, it doesn't make you look like a poor suffering but honorable victim. You obviously don't care enough about your kids to treat their mother with enough respect not to cheat on her, and you don't care about them enough to spend time with THEM instead of some vulnerable woman who falls for your carefully constructed lies, so cut it out with that crap. (BTW - did you even BOTHER to tell her you're MARRIED with KIDS?)

There is absolutely nothing honorable about putting your **** ahead of your kids. If you really really cared about them, you would get offline put ALL your time and effort and money into saving the one thing that means most to them in the whole world - your marriage and their family. Otherwise you're full of crap.
4. We all know how bored you are. Poor you, someone should really come along to entertain you.

What are you, 12 years old? If you're bored with your marriage, it's because YOU'RE BORING, and have you ever stopped to think that if you're bored, she probably is too? But instead of throwing a temper tantrum like a 2 year old, she's at home cleaning out the lint trap on the dryer and washing kool-aid off the kitchen floor. Yeah, she's having a riot washing your underwear and cleaning up cat puke.

Marriage is hard work. Heck, life is hard work. Grow up and take some responsibility for yourself. You supposedly have a brain, USE it. Put some thought into your marriage and some effort into your life and stop blaming her and being a baby because life isn't fun.

5. You're looking for someone "younger."

Sure you are. You think you look the same as you did when you got married? I'd bet not. Even if you do, you haven't spent the last 10 years having babies (the ones YOU wanted) and sacrificing your body for them. The next time you have to have someone stitch your ***hole together because you just pushed a watermelon out of your butt, then you can squawk. If you ever spend 9 months with your belly stretched to obscene proportions, and manage to look exactly the same as you used to 6 weeks later, then you can whine about how "she's not attractive anymore." Until then, shut the **** up.

You have no concept of what she has sacrificed to give you the children you "claim" to love. You really think she wants varicose veins and stretch marks and a distended belly and saggy boobs? Get real. What she wants is a man who understands and values WHY she has varicose veins and stretch marks and a distended belly and saggy boobs. She wants a man who loves her because she was willing to make those sacrifices with her own body because she loves HIM. Instead, you criticize and go running off with the first perky 25 year old who gives you the time of day. (or the first vulnerable woman who's being ignored by her man or is vulnerable enough in some way that her b.s. radar is damaged while you put the NLP whamma-jamma on her and say "I love you" just get her to spread her legs for you.) Ugh.

6. And finally, if you're cheating on your wife, there's something wrong with YOU.

If you're not happy with your marriage, exactly how do you think screwing some sl*t you barely know is going to fix that? Exactly how is that going to make anyone happy? Have you ever actually heard of adultery or an online affair working out really well for everyone involved? Are you actually stupid enough to think that you're going to be the exception to that rule? If so, you are delusional and you need professional help.

Affairs are disasters - not some of the time; not most of the time; ALL OF THE TIME. Your guilt and trying to cover your tracks will drive you crazy. Someone WILL find out. You will NOT be able to keep up the lies and the deception. And it will all lead up to a disaster of epic proportions, which leads me to Lucky #7.

7. Here‘s what you can expect in the wake of your little ****-fest:

Divorce - this is where you lose everything- your wife, your house, half your income and possessions, possibly your job if you're stupid enough to be screwing around with a co-worker, your kids - EVERYTHING. You will LOSE IT ALL.

Exposure - this is where everyone finds out what a scumbag you are. And they WILL find out. Your boss, your co-workers, your friends, your family, HER family, your neighbors, the parents of your kids‘ friends, everyone at your church. They WILL find out. Why? Because your now ex-wife and/ or ex-girlfriend(s) will tell them. She will probably tell everyone she knows, and everyone you know, and she will feel good doing it. Consider yourself lucky if she doesn't rent a billboard.

Oh, and DON'T try to paint yourself as the 'victim' of jealous or obsessed or scorned women. We all know that's a lie, too.

You lied to your wife and your probably lying to all your girlfriends as well as lying about one to the other. Otherwise, all bets are off. Be prepared.

Your Kids - this is where you totally lose the respect of your kids, and you deserve to lose it. They will realize in pretty short order that you didn't care enough about them to keep your pants on. They will see their mother cry and they will hate you for it. They will end up shuttling back and forth between their home and your apartment, and they will hate you for it. Every time they have to tell someone that their parents are divorced, they will hate you for it.

And God forbid you decide to "introduce" them to your shiny new soulmate/ ****buddy; they will REALLY hate you for that. If your kids are really young, you have a little time before all this hits the fan, but be warned, it's coming. They will forever see you as the moron who broke up or disrupted their family. Even if you stick around - they will know that you can't be trusted, that you are weak and immoral and selfish. And they'll figure it out all by themselves, even if you never talk to them about it. Because your kids are smarter than you are at this point.

And when your new "soulmate" figures out your real agenda, bend over and kiss it goodbye. If all she does is "expose you" after she finds out you ripped her heart out at the root - you should thank her not smear her. It's nothing less than what you asked for.

So, go ahead and whine your pathetic nonsense about how you're a victim and your wife is a horrible shrew. Do your best to convince yourself and everyone around you that you didn't have any choice and your wife "drove you to it." Start with the rationalizations and justifications now; you're going to need a lot of them.

Remember that the best defense is a good offense and start a mental list of all the ways your wife is deficient. Make sure to re-write the history of your marriage so that you can say that you were miserable from the first day. You should have married that OTHER girl (who probably dumped your sorry ***)

Be sure to tell your wife that you love her, you're just not "in love" with her anymore. Deal with your guilt by lashing out at everyone around you.

Above all, take ZERO responsibility for any problems YOU may have that caused you to be such a spineless loser in the first place.

Congratulations, you've just joined the Adulterers Club!

CYBER CHEATING - A growing cause for Divorce

Cyber-cheating a growing cause of divorce;
online surveillance increases as result.
By Jeffrey Cottrill

Not only has the Internet made it easy to meet other people without leaving your own home, it has also provided spouses with a new instrument for starting (and carrying out) extramarital affairs. Whether the perpetrators are unhappy in their marriages, bored with their married sex lives, or merely flirting, "cyber-cheating" is now a common element in cases of marital breakdown.

"It can happen in three or four different ways," explains Dallas attorney Mike McCurley, a past-president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), who says that cyber-affairs are increasingly a cause of divorce.

"First, spouses can develop relationships with somebody they already know from work or somewhere else. It's easy to communicate with someone secretively on the computer, as opposed to on the phone.

Secondly, people actually meet through the web and form relationships that way.

Third, there's the pornography area, which has every kind of invitation you could imagine."

Chicago lawyer Paul Feinstein, also an AAML member, says he hasn't yet seen many cases involving cyber-affairs, but the new phenomenon doesn't surprise him. "The Internet provides one more diversion -- something people can do separately from their spouses," he says. "But is it a cause of marital breakdown or is it a symptom? That's the age-old debate."

As a result, many websites now sell electronic surveillance software designed to catch spouses who cheat "virtually". For example, Infidelity.com offers a program that secretly sends you a copy of every e-mail your spouse sends. Software available from other sites allows you to track each website and chatroom your spouse visits. Some programs even record every key stroke in real time.

"The benefit is that you can monitor their sites and e-mails," says Anthony DeLorenzo, the founder of Infidelity.com and a former private investigator specializing in extramarital affairs. "I don't see any drawbacks. We send them the software, and if they find out that their spouse is meeting the other person somewhere, they can follow and possibly videotape them."

The market for this kind of software is not happily married couples: if you've reached the stage where you feel the need to spy on your spouse, you know your relationship is in serious trouble.

"There are very few instances where 'spying' can improve a relationship," admits John LaSage, who founded ChatCheaters.com after his wife of 23 years left him for a man in New Zealand that she'd met on the web. "But surveillance products could be useful as a last resort, after all other options have been exhausted. For some, it can be difficult to believe what their heart and brain is telling them about the person that they've trusted the most. Right or wrong, they want physical proof." Many people feel more comfortable handling the situation by themselves than approaching a P.I., adds LaSage. "Infidelity can be a private issue they won't even discuss with friends or family."

However, because of the obvious privacy issues, the legality of surveillance software is highly questionable.

"The laws concerning this aren't yet fully determined," says McCurley, "but my best advice is: 'don't do that.' It's a risk you don't want to take -- whether through a computer or a telephone. There are many legal ways to find out whether your spouse is cheating that involve using a private investigator or an attorney. There are federal and state laws concerning eavesdropping and wiretapping."

Feinstein agrees.

"In about 90% of cases, cyber-cheating really doesn't matter, because fault is deemed irrelevant in most states anyway," he adds. "In some cases, I've received some intercepted e-mails with varying relevance; how the clients got them is beyond me."

Both DeLorenzo and LaSage agree that, with or without do-it-yourself surveillance, the best way to handle cyber-adultery is to confront your spouse directly. "If your spouse is cheating, there's obviously a problem with the marriage," says DeLorenzo. "You need to confront the person about it, and then either go to therapy to get help or to an attorney to get a divorce. There's no middle ground here."

LaSage says that many web affairs grow unexpectedly out of innocent surfing and chatting. "In many cases, people do not set out on the Internet intending to cheat. They start out thinking it's okay to do a little flirting because they feel they're in control of the relationship. They can remain anonymous, they can stop the communication anytime they choose, and they believe, as I have heard countless times on my website, 'it's not cheating if there's no touching.'

"The most important recommendation I can give is to not ignore the issue," LaSage adds. "It seems a natural response for people discovering an affair to deny what they're feeling."

Virtual State of Affairs

A better way to cheat: One kiss leads to the next and she finds herself at the Hilton

By Sandy Lawrence Edry

On a chilly morning, Robin rushes to get ready for work as usual, though today she reminds herself not to put on pantyhose -- she has never figured out a way to remove them "sexily." Then she kisses her husband goodbye, drives her 15-month-old daughter to daycare, and heads to her secretarial job in suburban Philadelphia.

BUT WHEN SHE GETS TO HER OFFICE, she ignores the papers piled on her desk and clicks the icon on her computer screen to launch America Online, which connects her to another, secret life. She sees on her buddy list that today's breakfast date has already signed on, and they confirm their rendezvous point: a deli near the airport. It's safe because it's public -- the man is a stranger, after all, despite their 4-week cyber-relationship -- and because it's decidedly unromantic. No one would suspect her real reasons for being there.

Cloaked behind the anonymity of screen names and dial-up connections, a housewife can now participate in an evanescent universe that is one part interactive Harlequin romance, one part sex-as- sport.

An hour or so after making an excuse for leaving work (something about her daughter feeling ill), she sits at a table in the back of the deli, preparing for the last step in what she jokingly refers to as her "interviewing" process. Today's applicant, a 31-year-old married commodities broker, has already passed two crucial tests: His opening message didn't start with, "Hey baby, what are you wearing?" and the first time they "cybersexed," the words he typed exhibited both sensuality and attentiveness.

When he walks through the door, Robin is relieved. He matches the description he e-mailed earlier: about 5-foot-8, nicely built with dark hair and eyes, a goatee and an olive complexion. He does not appear disappointed with the way Robin looks, either: five feet tall and 36 years old with short, curly brown hair and a body she describes as "a little chubby." Online, she usually tells men her measurements right away: 38D-29-40.

After a hastily eaten meal, Robin and her new friend return to her car, where a momentary silence precedes an awkward first kiss. One kiss leads to the next and soon she finds herself driving to the airport Hilton. At the end of an afternoon she later describes as "OK," she checks her makeup in the dashboard mirror before returning home, expecting to feel some guilt. After all, this is her first affair since she got married, five years ago.

Instead, she says several weeks later, "I now understand what men usually say. I believe now that it can be only about sex. I went home that night, kissed my husband and said, 'Hi, how are you.'" As if nothing had happened.

CLOAKED BEHIND THE ANONYMITY of screen names and dial-up connections, a housewife can now participate in an evanescent universe that is one part interactive Harlequin romance, one part sex-as-sport. With a computer, a modem and a subscription to an Internet service provider such as AOL, she can meet someone new from the comfort of her own home while her unknowing husband watches television in the next room.

Even if they never cross the virtual boundary -- as many never do -- cyber-affairs can ruin a marriage. "People are more hurt by emotional intimacy because it undermines the very fabric of the marriage," says Dr. Lana Staheli, a Seattle-based counsellor and author of Affair-Proof Your Marriage. "It takes away from the partner."

Cybersex is not the only Internet diversion on offer. Increasingly, flirtations are moving from anonymous chat rooms to real-world hotel rooms, though it's unclear just how many Internet affairs move offline. After all, it has proven nearly impossible to determine the number of low-tech affairs; some studies report that 60% of married Americans have committed adultery, while others put the number as low as 15%.

What is known is that Internet affairs have been blamed for divorces in many American states and almost all provinces. "I suppose at any one time, we might have six to 10 cases where relationships have formed that way," says Malcolm Kronby, counsel for the Toronto family law boutique, Epstein Cole. "We've got one going now where the relationship formed between a woman in Toronto and a man in the U.S. Midwest who met in a chat room."

Dr. Ann Evans, president of the British Columbia section of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, says the issue has also become a serious topic of discussion at therapist conferences, including her organization's most recent convention in Denver, Colo. "At first, people were making jokes about it, but that stage has passed," she says. "We are all aware that this has become a serious thing."

The best place to gauge the extent of online affairs is, of course, online. To be more specific, in AOL's chat rooms, where the Internet service provider's 25 million members spend more than 56 million hours each month. There are other chat services, such as those on Yahoo! and MSN, but AOL's chat rooms, which have evolved to an unparalleled level of specificity and ease-of-use, are the top choice for most would-be U.S. adulterers.

Getting to them is as easy as clicking the People Connection icon at the bottom of the main AOL screen, which leads both to thematically grouped rooms created by the ISP's staff -- the Town Square has pleasantly titled rooms such as Sunday Brunch and The Breakfast Club -- and more than 300 bizarro rooms created by members themselves.

The member-chat Romance category houses the heaviest concentration of rooms catering to married people, from Michigan Affairs to Married Buxom BBW Babes. (BBW stands for Big Beautiful Woman, the politically correct term for "large sized".)

At 9:30 on a typical Saturday night, more than 800 people are logged into 44 member-created chat rooms with something about married or affairs in the titles. Many rooms, like SoCalAffairs4Real, are filled to their capacity of 23 people (a limit imposed by AOL to minimize confusing crosstalk). Here the lonely, the curious and the just plain horny gather.

It is a favourite hangout of Bigredmg, a recent law school graduate and husband of 15 years who estimates that he has slept with about 20 AOL women from the Southern California area -- hence the "SoCal" in the room's name. "Fat women mostly," he says. To accomplish this feat, Bigredmg stays online five to eight hours a day. "I am trying to find the passion that I lost," he says, adding that his wife is a "good woman and I love her, but there is no fire."

Nell also spends several hours a day in front of her computer screen, mostly in NJOver30. A housewife from New Jersey, she has had two affairs with other AOL members since joining in 1996. Married to a man who, she says, "abused me physically a few times, and mentally, every day of my life," Nell is looking for a way out.

"I was the perfect wife for 15 years," she adds. "I gave up."

Life for the would-be Canadian adulterer is not quite as easy, since the AOL Canada section of the chat rooms is not nearly as well populated or geographically targeted. Still, on almost any night a steady stream of men and women with screen names like CharmedCdn float through rooms such as Married M 4 F (Married Male for Female) and Married not Dead.

But perhaps the best virtual locales for the affair-minded on this side of the border are Yahoo! clubs, which are easily reached through Sympatico, Rogers, Shaw or any other ISP. The clubs are message-board/chat-room hybrids where members post requests for affairs -- and sometimes even their own photos. Type "Married" and "Canada" into the club search engine, and 26 entries appear, ranging from Alberta sex on the side affairs (247 members) to Club marriedandlooking in ONT (838 members). Members seem every bit as forward as their American counterparts: On Nov. 29, for example, Twinklineyes00 announced to the ONT club that she was "Looking for a teddy bear type, big and hairy ... ;) to play with in the GTA area. Drop me a line if a bear out there wants to play!!"

IN THE AOL FIRMAMENT, the NNJ Married Affairs chat room has a unique place: The group's activities are not exclusively online. Every Friday night for more than three years, about 20 to 30 married men and women find an excuse to get out of the house and head to a Holiday Inn hotel bar called Ozzie's, in Wayne, N.J.

Ozzie's looks exactly as you'd expect: a dark space with a long, faux marble bar that occupies half the room. On a Friday night, club-goers shimmy and shake on a small dance floor to a mix of Top-40 and disco hits. By 8:30 p.m., about 25 AOLers, mostly in their 30s and 40s, have arrived. Some are still wearing their wedding rings; others have removed them for the evening. The regulars kiss each other hello while the newcomers cautiously ask everybody for their screen names.

Harriet, a regular attendee in her 40s who bears enough of a resemblance to Linda Tripp that the bartender gives her a free drink, refuses to disclose who has had affairs with whom. "There is a code between most of the regulars and we guard one another's privacy."

Robin has visited the room but not Ozzie's itself. Tonight, she is on AOL, where she's checking out MarriedWantsAffair but has to wait -- it is that crowded. When she finally manages to squeeze into the room, five women are holding court, discussing everything from lingerie to hair color. One asks the assembled men: "What do you think makes a woman sexy?" The men's responses range from "intelligence and passion" to "legs ... and a nice butt."

Robin prefers the one-on-one instant message-style of chat also available on AOL. But to let the men in the room know she's available for a sidebar, she must first announce her presence: "36F from Philadelphia," she types, followed by "Any PA/NJ/NY/DE men here?" She has just declared open season -- a woman who wants to chat trumps group discussions about lingerie every time. Within seconds, small IM windows pop up all over her screen.

None of the applicants make the cut. Some live too far away. Some are not her type. And one man makes the mistake of being too forward, too fast. After the customary chit-chat -- age, location and marital status -- he asks for Robin's description. When she includes her measurements as usual, he responds: "Hmmmmm ... god how I love a short woman ... with big" --Bzzzzzzzzz! Strike one.

He then asks her to describe what she's wearing. (Translation: "I hope you're naked.") Strike two. When he starts providing details on the way he likes to masturbate, Robin has had enough. She has become adept at spotting the ones who are only looking for cybersex. After all, for the first few months she was online, that was all she wanted, too.

Robin joined America Online in February, 1998, when a co-worker showed her how to use the site to conduct research for their boss, then detoured into one of the married chat rooms. "I was petrified," Robin says. "I was thinking, 'who are all these people out there?' and, 'can they see me?'"

But that weekend, while her husband was away on business, she took the office laptop home and had cybersex for the first time. "I thought it was so stimulating," she says. "I loved it." Over the next few weeks she began spending a few hours a day in the rooms. "I felt like a kid in the candy shop," she says.

The idea of actually meeting someone never even crossed her mind. At first. But her husband had always had a low sex drive -- even lower after the baby's birth -- and she began to feel that he "didn't want me, like maybe I wasn't attractive." She asked him to go to couples therapy but he refused. In the end, she was left with many evenings to explore her sexual needs online. And she was soon able to convince herself that she deserved a chance to meet some of the men she was chatting with so regularly.

ABOVE ALL, AMERICA ONLINE, YAHOO! and other chat areas provides instantaneous, round-the-clock access to massive numbers of people who self-select into easily recognizable groups. In these communities, whether the focus is gardening or sado-masochism, the possibility of meeting an affair partner increases exponentially. "There is already a basis of commonality," says Storm King, a Massachusetts doctoral candidate in psychology who has written extensively about Internet culture.

A different set of social norms undergirds these subcultures. Talking to strangers is encouraged; anonymity makes people less inhibited and more inclined to display secret sides of themselves. "Women clients say that men are so much more expressive about their feelings [online] and men say women are so much more adventurous and fun," says Dr. Staheli.

There's strength in numbers, too. "Certainly you wouldn't go to a neighbour and say, 'Oh gosh, I'm having an affair, how about you?'" says Dr. Debbie Layton-Tholl, a Del Ray Beach, Fla., psychologist who is conducting research into extramarital affairs. "But now you can go online and, literally, there is an unlimited number of people who will support you in what you are doing. So it becomes easier -- the guilt becomes lessened."

The human imagination also plays a significant role in helping online romances to flourish. "Your mind projects," says King, "and what you project depends a lot on what you want to see."

Robin, however, is no longer satisfied with her imagination. She also wants to see "the attention, the affirmation, the wanting to please and be pleased," in her partner's eyes. In the two and a half years since her first affair, she believes she has seen these things in the eyes of more than a dozen strangers with whom she has had intercourse or oral sex. Getting fired for downloading explicit pictures at work and the birth of a second child only slowed her down temporarily -- her most recent affair was less than a month ago. These encounters make her feel "sexy, wanted and needed."

Raised in a strict Roman Catholic home, she can't imagine getting a divorce. Besides, she says, her husband is "a good man, a good father, a good companion. Just one aspect isn't there."

"I can't see myself doing this forever," she says. But then she adds, "Do I see it continuing? Yes. I'm having fun."

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

(READERS - do YOU think this behavior is acceptable? We'd love your comments. - EOPC)

THE INFIDELITY INDUSTRY

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How Cheaters Use the Internet to Seek New Romance

Are you in a relationship? If you are, cheating may be a concern of yours. After all, cheating is an issue that many of us have become alto familiar with. You may have been cheated on in the past, you may have known someone else who has been, or you may have learned all about cheating from the television and movies.

If you suspect that your partner is cheating on you, they may be using the internet to do so. Why?

Because the internet has made it very easy for cheaters to seek new romance. Not only is the internet making online affairs easy and convenient, but many cheaters think the internet makes it harder to get caught.

Unfortunately for them and luckily for you, the computer often tells the tale.

As for how men and women use the internet to seek new romance online, there are a number of different approaches taken. One of those is social networking websites. Now, it is important to know that social networking sites, like MySpace, have increased in popularity over the past few years. Just because your partner uses a social networking website, it does not mean that they are cheating on you. They may truly just be interested in connecting with old friends.

Be cautious, however, of a profile that you cannot see or access or the appearance of old girlfriends.

Dating websites are also how many cheaters use the internet to seek new romance online. Unfortunately, dating websites are more risky than social networking websites. If your husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend uses an online dating site, they may have the intention of actually meeting the person at the other end of the computer. This is when an affair stops becoming just an emotional affair and often starts becoming a physical affair. If you ever find that your partner is using an online dating website, be aware because there is a good chance that they are cheating on you or intend to start soon.

As it was previously stated, the internet does make it easier for cheaters to start romances online, but it is also relatively easy to catch a cheater online. To get started, check your computer’s internet history.

To do so, open up a new Internet Explorer or Firefox window. Along the top of the page, you will see the history icon. Clicking on this will tell you all of the websites visited in the past few days.

Be suspicious of no information, as it may mean that the history was purposely cleared.

A keylogger program, also occasionally referred to as a keyword tracker, can also be installed on your computer. These programs work to capture each word that is typed on your computer. If you think that your partner is communicating with their sex partner or partners online through email or in chat room sessions, you may be able to see exactly what it is they are saying. These types of programs can be expensive, but they can also provide you with the proof that you need.

You can read more about KeyLogging here ...

You can also always take the direct approach. If your partner is using the computer and acting secretive, demand to see what they are looking at. Walk over to the computer immediately, request that they get up and you take their seat. View the computer’s internet history immediately. This allows you to see what they have been looking at online before giving a computer savvy cheater time to cover their tracks.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FOUND HERE

REVENGE.COM: HOW THE INTERNET FUELS THE BATTLE OF THE EXES

by Katy Guest
Famous people do it in the press, but the rest of us have always had to seek revenge on errant lovers in the courts, or by cutting up their clothes. Not any more. The internet is providing the perfect means for ordinary men and women to strike back at their exes.

Several websites have been set up to exploit the taste for vengeance, the latest of which is (now defunct) myexwifesabitch.com.

"Demonic, resentful and spiteful" is how one man describes his former partner during a lengthy rant about access to their daughter, who is named. He also describes his ex as "vindictive, malicious, mean and a cheat".

Most revenge sites are for women. But myexwifesabitch. com has been set up for men by Dave Schofield and Bryan Sibbald from Bristol.

"I went through a divorce and it ended up costing me over pounds 20,000," says Mr Schofield. "You end up financially stuffed and the worst thing is you are forced by law and by an angry ex-partner not to see your daughter.

"We wanted to help people get through the situation."

For a fee of pounds 25, members tell their own stories and look for friends in similar positions. "It's not anti-women," the site insists - although women may disagree. "In a world when the legal system penalises men and the world kowtows to women this is a great opportunity for men to stand up for themselves," it claims.

Mr Schofield is unrepentant about the name: "Every woman I have told the title to so far has laughed. My ex probably wouldn't, though."

Abused as she is, his ex-wife is at least allowed anonymity unlike the stars of www.cheated-on.com. The site was set up in June by Susan Hughes, 29, from Devon after she discovered that her dashing RAF pilot boyfriend had made like the hero of the song "Soldier, Soldier, Will You Marry Me?", and already had a wife.

So she got even, and created a forum for her fellow victims of infidelity. In the Cheats Gallery, devious exes are named and shamed. "For six quid for the bus fare he let my pet lizard lick Marmite from his nuts," writes one ex with admirable nonchalance, beside a named photo of the guilty man. "Revenge is a very natural human emotion," says Paula Hall, a relationship therapist with Relate. "How you decide to act on that varies. It can be constructive, very destructive or even illegal. But when it's done purely to hurt, one repercussion is the damage done to the self-esteem of the person doing the hurting."

Damaged self-esteem was not the only repercussion suffered by Paul Clarke when he took revenge on his unfaithful girlfriend. He created a website that showed videos of them making love, and told friends, family and colleagues. "I don't know who's seen this website," said his ex, Cara Whitehouse, in court. "My life is ruined." Clarke was jailed for three months.

So it may be worth thinking twice before visiting www.calastrology.com/spells and buying a "Retribution Spell" for your partner, or selling your "unwanted gift from a low-life rat" on eBay, like Sam Jones did when her partner denied paternity of her baby. But Thea Newcomb, of www.soyouvebeendumped.com thinks she has a better answer.

"SYBD is about positive revenge," she says. Since the site was set up, Ms Newcomb has helped dozens of cheated partners sell their stories to newspapers and magazines, and they have made a fortune.

"She went to university and from then on she started cheating on me. She is one of those girls that always gets her way and then gets away with all the bad things she has done. She even had sex with me after we broke up and was apparently in love with somebody else ... I can only imagine the stuff I haven't heard about her from my circle. Have I mentioned how much I hate her?"

A Welsh dumpee tells www.is-a-cheat.com about "Gemma":

"He had three long-term girlfriends (that we know of) at once, spanning three years. None of them knew about the existence of the others. Two lived with him at different times in his flat. He spoke of marriage and children with all three of us! His explanation for periods of separation was his dedication to looking after his elderly grandmother."

A member of (now defunct) cheated-on.com dishes the dirt on Jason from Hampshire:

GETTING EVEN
Laura Milnes, 40, above, from Maltby, south Yorkshire, became involved with a married man when they met up again through the website Friends Reunited. Earlier this year she found he was cheating on her with several different women he had met on internet dating sites. Laura went to see his wife. Together, they worked out the password to his email account and Laura forwarded his intimate emails to everyone in his address book.

"I had it all ready to send but I was scared at first. I felt like I'd wasted a whole year of my life, being devoted to him, and it was all a sham. I thought, nobody will write back, nobody will say anything. So I sent it. But then I got all these emails saying, `How awful for you' and `Good for you' for doing it. I just wanted them to see that he was not the honest, nice family man that they thought; he was actually a pig."He didn't get back in touch until a week later. He wasn't angry or anything, he just said, `Why did you do it?' I said, `Impulse. I was just so angry with you.'

"He says he doesn't hate me. But we're not in touch.

"I'm glad I did it because when somebody does something bad to you, you get all chewed up and angry and bitter and you've got to release it. It's like when you have a big argument; you clear the air.

"It's ironic how our relationship started on the internet, and that is also how I got my revenge. I think it's called poetic justice! I would recommend it, it's very satisfying."

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

CHECK: SAVE 'THE PSYCHO EX-WIFE AND THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT BATTLE

INFIDELITY ON THE INTERNET

Virtual Relationships and Real Betrayal

by Marlene M. Maheu, Rona Subotnik

From Publishers Weekly
"Cybering," slang for virtual sex online, appears to be the dark secret of the Internet, and it is creating havoc in the real world of relationships. The ease with which people can find partners for sex a quick computer search can yield hundreds of opportunities, in chat rooms or on porn sites and the apparent safety of anonymous encounters has tempted huge numbers of people to cheat on their mates.

According to mental health professionals Maheu and Subotnik (Surviving Infidelity), a large-scale study in 2000 reported that an estimated 20% of Internet users engage in online sexual activity, and two-thirds of them are married or in a committed relationship. The many cybersex practitioners given voice here demonstrate wide-ranging viewpoints about what constitutes infidelity. People cruise cyberspace for brief sex with strangers or for lengthy affairs.

Some believe cybersex is a harmless fantasy, while others acknowledge the harmful consequences that discovery brings and express profound regret. Testimonies of cybering adventures solicited through a self-help Web site elucidate the different motivations that drive people to have cybersex and the obsessive-compulsive behavior that can develop among habitual users.

Expressing zero tolerance for people who minimize the consequences of cyberinfidelity, the authors present a program for kicking the habit and rebuilding a damaged relationship after an online romance has been revealed. Although they allow for the possibility that in a climate of openness and honesty, extramarital cybering might be a nonthreatening, permissible form of Internet recreation, their argument that cyber-infidelity is often damaging and addictive is convincing.

Forecast: If cybering is as widespread as the authors suggest, the audience for this book could be sizable. But do cheaters actually purchase books on cheating?

original article here

Cybersex: The Electronic Homewrecker

Think an online rendezvous may involve physically 'safer' sex?
Find out what the consequences can be.
By Ian Mulgrew

The family computer - purchased to help the kids with their education, or to help a stay-at-home partner with his or her small business - is quickly becoming a conduit of temptation for the lonely, the unhappy, the bored and dissatisfied.

Among the estimated 90 million or so North Americans who log on daily, increasing numbers are actively exploring sexuality in ways that were unheard of until now. The workplace, where temptation is just a click away, is a particular hotbed of activity: recent data indicate that 70 per cent of the traffic to sexually explicit sites occurs between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. In fact, 20 per cent of men and 12 per cent of women online in the workplace use the Net for sexual pursuit.

Basically, cybersex is like phone sex: flirtation leading to arousal leading to masturbation. But with way more bells and whistles: there are chat rooms for every type of sexual proclivity, including "married but sinful," and cheap, digital see-you, see-me technology to satisfy the most ardent voyeur. You can do just about everything on the holodeck of online lust that you can do in person - send virtual flowers or a cyber-kiss, commit to each other in an electronic wedding, honeymoon in a cyber-dungeon in front of an e-family. In the works are full-immersion sex suits transmitting sensory information back and forth between or among partners. With new scent-emission technology, the online sexual experience will be heightened even further.

The new technologies have made it easier to find a date, begin an affair and engage in great sex. But what Hollywood has presented as a cute lure for attracting a mate - even Ally McBeal succumbed last year - also has a seamier side. Those who study and treat the survivors of adultery say the Internet is a breeding ground for cyber-infidelity. Online cheating is mentioned in a growing number of divorce cases, and therapists say the nature and scope of marital collapse are caused by virtual infidelity is greatly underestimated.

The powerful draw of online sexual relationships can easily scuttle a relationship drifting toward the shoals, but it also threatens stable marriages and people with no history of dysfunction. Women appear to be at the greatest risk because they've found a private, anonymous and safe place to look for company in the new millennium. They're trying all kinds of sexual behaviour that they would never engage in off-line. And those who find themselves online for more than 11 hours a week (the putative threshold for addiction) may face even greater risks than men do. Data suggest they are more likely to progress toward consummating the cyber-affair with an old-fashioned, off-line rendezvous.

Online romances can also lead to cybersex addiction. At first, only one or two people in a hundred were thought to be at risk, says Dr. Kimberly Young, founder of the Center for Online Addiction (www.netaddiction.com) in Bradford, Pa. But, she says, the most recent studies indicate a much higher figure: eight to 10 per cent, or maybe even more. "Whether or not this is a big phenomenon, whether or not there are hundreds of thousands of people involved and it's ruining lives - there's no question about that," says Dr. Alvin Cooper of Stanford University, Ca., who led the research team on the Net study. "We suspect that those numbers will only increase over time."

Dr. Jennifer Schneider, a physician and researcher based in Tucson, Ariz., recently conducted a survey among the partners of cybersex addicts. "I asked about what's the big deal with online sex - each person is sitting masturbating, talking online. Almost all the respondents to my survey said that's as much cheating as if they are having physical sex.
 

To women, at least, it's not the physical sex that matters, it's this relationship thing. It's the intimacy, spending time with somebody else. It isn't about sex, it's about the betrayal of intimacy."

The specialists say anyone contemplating a cyber-affair should remember that it can be much harder to survive than a conventional affair because it reaches into the home, perhaps even into the bedroom itself-while the partner lies sleeping.

If It's Online, Is It Cheating?

IS IT CHEATING?

In our technologically advanced world, computers and the Internet are becoming a part of life. We use the Internet for information, email and now even dating. With thousands of dating sites out there, it's easier than ever to hook up with someone across the country! The popularity of online dating has skyrocketed and the statistics are astounding.

With that comes the increased ability to cheat with anyone, anywhere. Married people all over the world are starting to use the internet to carry out full-blown affairs. The question is, is it really cheating? If you never see the person or have physical contact, should it be frowned upon? Those doing the act of cheating of course see nothing wrong with it, but those being cheated on have a different opinion.

As some background, online cheating is much more common than one may think with about 30 percent of visitors to online dating sites identifying themselves as married (the actual number of married people on online dating is probably much much higher). There are even online cheating sites specifically for married people which describes themselves as discreet dating sites for married people with no excuses and no explanations. Though many may not think of innocent chatting and cybersex as cheating, it usually leads to more. In an article written by David Koeppel, online cheaters describe it as "exciting and addicting." One person says,"Its power can be trance-inducing." These people use the internet as their outlet to escape from reality.
Again, the big question is, is it really cheating? John LaSage, a California man was left by his wife for an internet boyfriend. He says, "chatting is OK, cheating is not." That’s where he draws the line. However, there are others who may be hurt by chatting alone. If a spouse is online chatting day and night, it takes valuable time away from the spouse. One woman who has been cheated on says, "he swears he loves me but shows more emotion for these online women than me." This illustrates that even with the absence of physical contact, online cheating can still ruin the emotional factors in a marriage. Health, Beauty and Fitness magazine says, "we believe that sharing your emotions with anyone other than your current partner is adultery whether the relationship is physically consummated or not." The emotional aspects are often stronger and more important than the physical. This can lead to a very hurt spouse if he or she finds out about the affair. With this comes the other big reason why people think online affairs are easier, the ability to hide them.

Many see online cheating as the easy way out, but it may not be so easy. It's easier to chat online at work or have cybersex on the computer rather than in a hotel, however, everything can be traced on a computer. It's always lingering in cyberspace somewhere. Many businesses are starting to make a living off of tracing devices for the internet. They sell these packages to people that are suspicious of a loved one or family member and they allow them to view chat conversations and much more. Along the same lines with chatting and cheating online is the viewing of internet pornography. As people experiment with online dating sites, they are bound to come across pop-ups and links to pornography.
Internet pornography is of course another touchy subject with married couples. It leads the other spouse to feel inadequate and unimportant. But again, is that cheating? Nielsen Net ratings have found that 17.5 million people have visited pornography sites in their home each month. That's a very high number, so is there something wrong with it or is it normal? Dr. Phil has his opinion on this matter. For more, go to Dr. Phil's Homepage.

Of course everyone has their own opinion on internet dating, pornography and other related topics and no one will ever know for sure until they are put in the situation. However, anything as time consuming and personal as some of these online relationships seems to be as bad as cheating in real-life with a real person. Not to mention the fact that most online affairs develop into something else. As they say, once a cheater, always a cheater. So don't rule out the possibility that your spouse has an online lover. Many who aren't computer savy see it as the easy way out so it's becoming more and more common. But as for the question, is it cheating? I say it most definitely is. It makes the other partner feel lonely and unappealing just as in a real-life affair. So beware, the internet is becoming more and more dangerous.