[Lakerat]

There's a lot of good advice above me from many.....I am a little curious tho...how does he treat you in other areas of your marriage...Does he help you and do things to show that he cares? Does he see you as his partner or as something else? Is he controlling or caring? Not trying to upset you...but habits or addictions generally carryover in other parts of our life. And when we care for someone we don't always see things clearly (only what we want).

My personal opinion is that this is wrong on many different levels...Porn or erotica no big deal to me....to me this shows no respect for you ....or the woman that he is flirting/talking with...

I wonder ...if hes talking with them now....what will happen when he gets bored with that...

Good luck...wish you the best

[kms]

I'm curious about something you said - he stated that he's not actually doing any of this, his 'alter ego' is... got some red flags on this. Does he actually believe that his 'real' self is not involved? I wonder what other sorts of things he does and then justifies it by deciding that his 'real' self didn't do it. Some questions: does he have friends? Does he ever have hallucinations/delusions that you know of? Does he sometimes lose his train of thought? Depersonalize things? Have headaches, lose track of time...? I ask these questions because schizophrenia or diassociative identity disorder is coming to mind offhand...

Some have mentioned this as being possibly an 'addiction'... but to what? Talking to other women? Or is he masturbating somehow during any of this? Could be a sexual addiction in that case, although that terminology is highly debated...

Anyway, I wonder if a psychiatric evaluation might be the best next step to take... his behavior seems slightly strange to me and indicative that something is going on...

My second point is that he crossed the boundary into real life when he started talking to another woman on the phone. That is REAL and is no longer simply fantasy - hiding behind a computer screen and a username.

[rcoreyus]

Sorry, was typing in a hurry and wasn't clear.
People say wedding vows "to love and to cherish....forsaking all others...." etc. But the words mean different things to different people. "forsaking all others" - does that mean not having sex with others? Not looking at nude pictures of others? Not having erotic thoughts about others? Not being emotionally (but not sexually) close with others. Not being alone with others? Not talking to others? Wearing a Burka?

I am agreeing that it is OK to have explicit discussions with other people on the web, that is beyond what *I* consider reasonable. But it might not be beyond what some people think is reasonable.

I think that in this sort of disagreement it is important for both people to understand the others position. They don't need to agree, but at least make sure they know what the are arguing about.

I am not sure what you are saying rcoreyus.

[3afterme]

I can only speak to you based on what I know. Simply put This Is Cheating. A lot of men and I would assume women claim that this is not cheating because they do not see this person and are not having sexual contact. In truth this is considered professionally as marital cheating. I have learned that they get their sexual needs met by these interactions and a majority of men masturbate while in the act or at other times. It is also been stated that if there is a chance for the people doing this to meet they would and have probably at some point discussed this. Generally there are a lot of lies told so no one knows the real truth, you, your husband about the other women or the other women about your husband, but this is not always the case and really has no baring on what the issue is.
I question why you are asking if you are wrong in being upset about this when really you have every right to be throwing the computer out and him. Ask yourself: Would I be doing this if I were happy? Am I happy? What does marriage mean to me? Do I want to live my life being cheated on? Basically you need to ask yourself hard questions about you, your husband, his actions, your marriage, and what you want and where you want to go and lastly how do you get to where you want to be? This is not something that you let go, laugh off, or allow him to justify to you- there is no justification in cheating. Use this as a warning and figure out where you are at with all of this, allowing yourself to feel and find where you want to go...

[Lindy56]

When i first found out about all this i was so upset that i told him to pack and leave, but then then agreed that there would be no more sex talk with these women and admitted that he went to far ringing them and that he was very sorry. So i thought ok he is welling to stop it so i bent over backward's to make sure he was happy with everything (if you know what i mean) which i found hard making advances to him all the time, as i was not used to it. I thought if i could keep him happy he would eventually give up the alter ego and just concentrate on us. But he won't give it up, i have asked him on several occasions to delete email and other pages he has on the internet in this other name, but he still insit's that he is not doing anything that should affect us.
I don't think there is anything wrong with him, he says it is an escape, what i want to know is from what? ME? or just life in general.
I am on my own where we live and have no family around me, so find it very hard to cope with this. He say's that i am blowing this out of poportion and it is just an excuse for me not to have sex with him. I personaly think he get's a kick out of all these other women telling him he is sexy and hansome etc although it is not the real person they are seeing.
I have thought about posting a message on one of his pages telling them that he is a fraud, but he said that if i do that we are truly over and he will leave. So not sure where to go from here.

[moya angel]

he's jus being selfish and if he gonna leave if u post a message that show that there is more going on than meets the eye

[WildChild]

It sounds like there have some sexual issues all along. The statement that you found it hard to make adavances to him because you weren't used to it seems to indicate that you have been sexually passive in the relationship? How much do you actually enjoy sex? You've talked about his behavior and all but haven't complained of a lack of sex. If you do it just to hold him, he knows it. Not to say his behavior is justified or acceptable. If he put the effort that goes into talking with others into your relationship, you'd both be better off.

It sounds like you are scared of losing him. Why? What is really good about the relationship? What works?

[Lindy56]

I am not scared of losing him as i am a very indepenant person but there is a teenager i have to consider. Sex between us as alway's been very good this is why i have never understood why he has the need for this fantasy life.
The only thing that he would like that i have refused on several occasions is a three some. I have alway's had a very low opinion of my self, steming from a previous marriage, so i would be worried that he would prefer the other women to me if this was to happen. We do experiment with other things and never let things get boring. We have been together for 18yrs. We have had our up's and down's like any other couple, but generaly we have alway's worked thing's out. I do wonder if he is bored with me, there are thing's i can't do anymore due to an accident which left me with a very bad back, so some thing's are hard.
I do love him and want to be able to move on from all this but find it impossible when he doesn't see the problem.

[Debra]

Yes, I'm not sure either. LOL

Lindy, hon, I'm so sorry. He needs to snap out of it...and he shouldn't be shocked to find out that you don't want to have sex with him when he's been parading around in cyberland like it's no big deal. Good on you! Stick to your guns and don't back down.

[Debra]

Sorry for my last post....I didn't see the other posts until just now. Weird!

My general opinion is that this whole issue has nothing to do with sex in a sense. He's built up and alter ego in order to escape reality. Why you ask? Because he's selfish. He wants constant attention given to him by these different women. No amount of sex you give him, or how often, or how arre the sex is will ever please him.

If I were you, I'd go ahead and post the real pictures up, address those women that this is the real him. If he leaves, then he left for those women, not for you. Be warned that he may very well leave. As for your teenager, do you think it's healthy for your son/daughter to see daddy talking with strange people on the internet when he could be talking with you or your son/daughter? Imagine the message that's being sent across: "Dad doesn't care about me because he'd rather talk to those women.' Address that issue with him, and if he's so blind and conceded and says that he's still not doing anything wrong, then do the 'reality check' with him. Post up the real picture of him.

It's a cruel lesson, but it's what I would do.