Is Having an Online Wife Adultery?
The thing is, in real life, Dutch Hoorenbeek is actually Ric Hoogestraat, a call-center operator making $14 an hour. He's also married to Sue Hoogestraat, not Tenaj Jackelope.
Confusing? It should be. Turns out that Ric and Sue's marriage is on the rocks. She contends that he spends more time online in Second Life, a virtual universe currently home to 30 million players, with his online wife. Sue spends her days in front of the television, while Ric is in the other room running a virtual night club and consorting with his online wife, sometimes for as long as 14 hours at a time on weekends.
Although Sue Hoogestraat has attended "gaming widow" support groups, she sees no way out. "Basically, the other person is widowed," she told the Wall St. Journal. "This other life is so wonderful; it's better than real life. Nobody gets fat, nobody gets gray. The person that's left can't compete with that."
Ric believes that what he's doing is harmless. "It's just a game," he says. Experts, however, have found most recently that feelings that people have online -- connections with other virtual characters, loss, friendship, and even love -- are in fact real emotions, and humans don't have the ability to switch off between what they feel on- and off-line.
Addiction to online gaming is a common thread these days. What appears to be on the rise, however, is a notion that people could be cheating on their real-life spouses in virtual worlds. While divorce courts don't currently consider such indiscretions adultery, lawyers appear ready to change their minds on that. Could the courts be far behind?
From The Wall St. Journal
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 24)
Nik said 2:50PM on 4-08-2008
I have a girlfriend, but when my online buddy (also a female comes sends me an IM), I let my girl know what I am doing. We don't discuss sex because that would be inappropriate and I really want to make my realtionship with this wonderful woman succeed. Gender does not apply when it comes to friends wishing friends good health, a good day, and happiness. If I chat with my online buddy behind her back, then it would be unethical on my part and probably some cause for distrust on her part. I consider myself very lucky to be surrounded by those who care about me. With each passing year, another friend or acquaintance dies and I don't want to make a fatal mistake of taking my loved ones for granted because once they are gone, they are gone for good. If I treat my flesh and blood as well as virtual buddies with respect, then I know that I have not failed them. That is my perspective, for I don't want to lose any more friends than I already have.
With this said, I bid you good health, joy, peace, and success on all points of the triangle. Love is the law, love under will...
--Nikolai Nikolayevich
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Another Mom said 10:17AM on 4-09-2008
According to the bible, if you have lust in your heart, its adultery.
But also the fact remains that this man is dedicating himself to 14 hrs out of 24 hrs to another person who is NOT his wife. Whether you believe its adultery or not - it is plain old wrong!
His wife should recognize that the man is trying to escape and just let him!!!!!
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Wolf said 12:02PM on 8-15-2007
I know from experience it is indeed cheating from playing in the online world. For example, I've known one woman make the excuse that her husband wasn't intimate enough. Another blatently cheated on her husband with many men online and even convinced them to meet in the real world. And I've seen a couple of marriages fall apart.
To say its just an game is nothing but an excuse. If your heart is set on your online companion and not your spouse that happens to be in the same house, it's cheating.
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Michael White said 12:14PM on 8-15-2007
Adulterylong ago it meant being unfaitlful to your spouse, and had a more sensual turn. Let us focus on being faithful.
You could say that spending time with your spouse, listening to him or her, doing things for him or her, being there for him or her could be deemed as faithful. Now, paying attention to something else, especially a "play" spouse, in ones mind, like it said, humans cannot make "play" feelings for play situations. All our feelings are on the same plane.
So, if the game is meaning that one partner is no longer there for the other, and we do promise for better and for worse, then they are being unfaithful. They are cheating their wife of time, time with them.
It can be called adultery, it has not so much to do with going out so see someone. When se are so accustomed to perfect online images, real life gets incredibly boring.
This is something the game creators know, in order to have more and more people getting into them, to make money.
It is just like the addiction to sugars, real life is never so sweet.
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Sara said 12:50PM on 8-15-2007
I met my husband while playing Ultima Online. We were friends for 2 years playing this game. We knew alot about each other. When I met some hard times he invited me to come stay with him at his house. He had a spare room for me and everything. The intent was to remain friends and be room mates... however shortly after living together we discovered we indeed had deeper feelings for each other than just friendship. So yeah, online "friends" can develop into more. People are actually more vulnerable as they'd say or do or open up more online than they would in person.
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Roy Smith said 2:24PM on 8-16-2007
Give me a break,who makes up these rules? Is it adultery if you are married but love a Martian? This is like the pharmacies who make drugs & then create a "disease" to fit the pill they are making. People create the cyber world & then they create "dilemmas" to worry our little heads off. Create the internet & then worry about identity theft,pedophiles,& online sexual predators,all created as "dilemmas" to make us all fearful & dependent on big government to protect us.
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jessica said 2:16PM on 8-16-2007
This article is talking about a fake spouse....not a prospective spouse to be made by speaking with new found friends while gaming. i don't think this guy's cheating, i think he needs professional help if he's that addicted to a VIDEO GAME where he'd rather spend more time at his computer than with his wife... an animated spouse....how pathetic!
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B said 2:17PM on 8-16-2007
Lost my husband this way... it stinks.
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fizzuckoff said 2:19PM on 8-16-2007
I have been with my boyfriend for almost a year, but for a month or two i was online talking to one of my co-workers (who i only saw maybe once or twice a month) and we would talk for 5-6 hours a day. after a few weeks i started to revert my feelings for my boyfriend onto this guy that i was talking to online. my boyfriend and i would fight alot, mostly because i was online (he didnt know i was talking to this guy) and towards the end i started to want to be with this guy more then my boyfriend, thats when i realized what i was doing. im one of those people that despises cheaters, and thats what i was, i was going down the path where i would have cheated on him. so dont say that its not cheating because it is, and its a horrible thing becuase you dont even realize how it hurts others. my boyfriend and i still fight about that guy, and to see the look in his eyes when he says his name kills me.
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Rosemarie Tactuk said 2:20PM on 8-16-2007
Get a life!!!!! A real one!
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JOHN said 2:19PM on 8-16-2007
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE DAYS OF SELF GRATIFICATION BETWEEN THE PAGES OF PLAYBOY OR A CHEESY 8MM "BLUE MOVIE"?
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Debbie said 2:25PM on 8-16-2007
Dungeon and Dragons, what? Don't people have anything better to do than sit in front of their computer playing idiotic games all day? Maybe this guy could have a job paying more than $14 hour if he got off his butt.
Oh, and what is her problem? She's a bigger fool for staying with him. Yeash!
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Chantelle said 2:27PM on 8-16-2007
I play WOW (World of Warcraft) with my fiancee and sometimes video games do take up a lot of time and time that could be used to be together. But either way, its all control. You must control yourself. Anyways, a virtual game with strip club and wife (can there be a husband?) what game is this? I'm trying to find an "adult" virtual life game where I can play with my fiancee. Anyone know of a game out there?
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Jenny said 2:23PM on 8-16-2007
Perhaps he should be looking for a career instead of spending 14 hours a day online while working at a dead end job at a call center for $14 an hour. He he doesn't have an education to get a better job than he could take some of that online time to work on schooling himself for a better job.
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Trevorgrunt said 2:25PM on 8-16-2007
Anyone who voted that having a wife on a VIDEO GAME is adultery is one hundred percent wrong. Adultery is the act of having secual intercoarse with some one other than your spouse. So therefore it is impossible to commit adultery with a VIDEO GAME wife. Now it may be wrong for this person to constantly play a video game and deprive his/her spouse of quality time together, especially since marriage is a union of two people for the rest of there lives. If a person's spouse is spending too much time playing a VIDEO GAME they must discuss this as adults and come to a reasonable decision on how to handle this issue.
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Deborah Norton said 2:25PM on 8-16-2007
I think that this woman needs to kick him to the curb and leave the little weasel there. She also needs to face reality,as he is not the only man left in the world!!! If she indeed needs a man at all . And as for the cyber wife? If he did it to his real wife there will come a time that he will do it to you. The REAL wife also needs to get a lawyer and take him to the cleaners!!!! Get a life lady, does a house have to fall on you before you get the picture???
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Chiaroscuro said 2:27PM on 8-16-2007
Both of these spouses need to commit to marriage counseling. You don't go into a marriage thinking that everything will be fine. You bring your baggage and people are more of what they are married than when they are single. They should work on saving their marriage rather than becoming the next divorce statistic. Get over your pride and get into counseling.
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JIM said 5:43PM on 8-16-2007
COME ON FOLKS, GET A GRIP. It's very difficult to get a disease from this type of activity. You chit chat, talk dirty and that's the end of it. People are putting too much importance on such a silly topic. What's going on with health insurance, the war in Iraq, the kids that go to bed hungary every night, they are important issues, not this other crap.................JIM
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thrax406 said 2:28PM on 8-16-2007
Thus is just stupid... the fact that people instantly think that creating a spouse on a video game counts as Adultery. So, married couples couldn't exactly play the Sims.. could they?
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SDM said 2:30PM on 8-16-2007
When you give yourself to someone other than your spouse it constitutes infidelity. Below is a brief story of someone in my own family who played online and let himself build a second life and it cost him dearly.
My father was in his late 70's when he began to play around on his computer building a second life in spite of 55 yrs of marriage. He interacted with multiple women younger than his own son(me) and created an online personna that gave women the image of him being a successful businessman when in fact he was retired and had too much time on his hands. This led to long distance phone calls and eventually out of town meetings which eventually caught up with him.
My parents divorced when my mother discovered that my father had arranged for a rendevous with one of his online women friends while she was visiting my wife and I in Florida.
In 2005 I received a call from my father's then live-in girlfriend telling me that I needed to travel to Tennessee and see my father who was in a local hospital after suffering from some health event. After arriving at the hospital I soon discovered that my father had slipped into a diabetic coma from which he never recovered. After consulting with several of his doctors I was advised that no further treatment could be made and that he needed to be removed from life support.
I was the only person with him as I watched him die and made the funeral arrangements including cremation. After his death I then faced the formidable challenge of dealing with his estate which has taken over 2 years to handle and is still not yet resolved but should be by year end.
Not only did my father commit "cyber adultery" but the initial game turned out to be an actual adulterous relationship. This choice made life difficult for not only my mother but for those left in the wake of his unbelievably poor and unwise choices.
In the end his choices cost him his life,his substance, his health and his possessions.
The old saying still holds true..." If you play you are gonna pay"
My question to all who read this is...IS IT WORTH GIVING UP EVERYTHING YOU HAVE JUST FOR THE SAKE OF PLAYING AROUND ?
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