Cheating
on
your
partner
Discussion
Work in
pairs
or small
groups.
Which
of the
following
do
you
consider to be cheating?
1.
Your partner flirting
with another person.
2. Your
partner
having fantasies
about a
friend
of
yours.
3.
Your partner
having fantasies
about a celebrity.
4. Your partner kissing
another person
after a few drinks at
a
party.
-5.
Your partner going
to bed with another
person
after a
fcw
drinks at a
party.
6. Your
partner
frequently
having
coffee with another
person
and sharing intimate thoughts and
dreams with
this
person.
What do
you
think of
internet
chatrooms? Are
they
just
fantasy
or are they
part
reality?
Reading
Read
the article and answer
this
question:
tMould
you
stdy
with
your
husband/wife/partner
if this
happened
to
you?
CYBER-CHEATS BEWARE
Soon after
getting
the
computer,
Jennifer's
husband,
Simon,
(not
their real names)
started using the
internet
nightly. At first,
she didn't worry. But soon he
was
spending more and more
time
in
the home
office, sitting at his
computer
long into
the night. He
stopped coming to
bed with her and sometimes
would
even sleep
on the office sofa. A few times
sne
even caught him sneaking
silently out of their bed in
the middle
of the night
to
go
to
the office computer.
At first
she thought he was
simply addicted to the
internet
or even browsing
through on-line
pornography.
But when
Simon started turning
down
sex,
Jennifer
got
suspicious.
"He'd
never not wanted
to have sex before,"
says
Jennifer.
"That
was
a
new
thing. And I
didn't think
it
was because he was
up all night visiting news
sites.
I knew
something was wrong."
With
suspicions
on
full
alert she
started
going
through
Simon's drawers
and trouser
pockets.
She
found
nothing. Then
she went to the
computer,
looked
through his files
and found the
answer:
Simon was having
an e-mail affair with
a
woman in
another
part
of the country.
"l
was
devastated," she admits.
"l
never imagined my
husband would ever cheat on
me."
But is'cyber-cheating'
still
cheating?
"Yes,
definitely," says one
marriage
guidance
counsellor.
"From
a
psychological
point
of
view, it
doesn't matter if it was real or
imagined
-
in
both
cases the
marriage has
been damaged
in the same
way."
Not
all
professionals
in
the
field of family
psychology
agree.
"lt's
ridiculous and dangerous to try and
monitor the thoughts and fantasies of
your partner,"
warns one
psychologist.
"We
are bombarded
with
images of
attractive
people
by the media on a daily
basis. lt's imoossible not to
fantasise. The internet is
a
place
for
people
to
carry out
those fantasies
in
a
safe
and
unharmful way. lf, as a result, there
is
a
crisis in the marriage following an episode of
internet
infidelity, then it is only a symptom of something that
was already wrong
in
the
relationship,
and
not
necessarily a direct result of the cyber affair."
This is, of course, of no comfort to
Jennifer,
who is
filing for
divorce.
"l
actually saw the
intimate things
he wrote to her. He really hurt me and I
know that I
will
never be able to trust him asain."
23
Cheating on
your
parTner
Taboos and
/ssues