Quote Originally Posted by NatalieD View Post
How is this not simple adultery/cheating? What am I missing about the relationships that makes this sort of thing acceptable?
It really depends on the nature of the relationship between the married couple as well as the one between the people involved.

In a clear-cut definition of the marriage vows, and and all actions outside the marriage are adulterous.

However there are situations where married couples have an open relationship and allow each other to seek out other adventures as long as they do not ignore each other's needs. Such as in the case where a person is really into a fetish that the partner is not. It may be agreed upon to allow the person to fulfill his fantasy since the partner is unable/unwilling to do so.

Other situations the couple can agree that cyber/virtual sex is nothing more than fantasy interactive masturbation and allows it to go on. The other person may know it's going on, but doesn't want to know the gory details...might not want to any of the details.

Or there are cases where when someone gets married, both partners understand that there are people that they used to do things with and they agree to let it continue. In the case of an online adventure, the other partner may once again, not know any of the details but is not concerned because they know that the other one will log off and will come to bed and they will fulfill each other.

In my marriage, my wife came to me and mentioned that she had a married couple as friends and that they used to do threesomes together. Once we were back in the area she was once again asked if she could come over to play. My wife showed me the e-mails, showed the part where the friends stated that if I wasn't comfortable with it they would understand, and asked me what my thoughts were.

Well since they were good friends of hers (keeping her sanity when her previous marriage was going down the crapper) and that she did give me the history and asked me first...I let her go and have playtime with her friends.

My take on it is that it's only cheating if the other partner is unaware of it and hasn't given their blessings to do it.

Mongo Skruddgemire