Second Life Adultery Leads to Real-Life Divorce

Ars Technica reports: For most people, catching your spouse in the act with another person is reason enough to get divorced. But for many, catching your spouse flirting with someone else online can be a gray area--at the very least, it usually results in a fight. But what if you caught your spouse's virtual character having sex--virtual sex, that is--with someone else's virtual character in a virtual bedroom? For two Brits, that was enough to result in divorce, and not the virtual sort.

The couple, Amy Taylor and David Pollard, originally met online themselves before moving in together in Newquay. Both Taylor and Pollard created avatars in Second Life, where Taylor liked to dress in "tight-fitting cowboy outfits," as noted by The Guardian.

Taylor woke up one day to find her boyfriend's Second Life character having sex with a virtual prostitute (side note: virtual prostitution = easiest sex work ever?). She then apparently ended her virtual relationship with Pollard while keeping the real-life relationship going.

Here's where things get a little too virtual-drama for us. Taylor set herself up as a new Second Life character in order to spy on her husband's virtual infidelities but discovered that Pollard could do nothing but talk about her. Lovestruck, Taylor found herself marrying Pollard--both in a lavish Second Life ceremony and in a slightly-less-lavish real life ceremony. However, she soon discovered that maybe she should have taken more time with Pollard, as she soon found him once again flirting in Second Life. She also learned that his previous affair had resulted in "real affection."

"It may have started on-line but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much," Taylor told The Guardian. "His was the ultimate betrayal. He had been lying to me." Needless to say, Taylor filed for divorce. In real life. And probably Second Life.

Predictably, Pollard insists that nothing was happening and that no cyber sex had occurred between him and his Second Life lady friends. "We weren't even having cyber sex or anything like that; we were just chatting and hanging out together. It was nothing really major. I don't think I was really doing anything wrong," he said.

Somehow, we get the feeling that these two probably should have kept their own relationship online and bypassed the whole marriage thing in the first place.

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