is it infidelity to use an adult chat room?

[postingatlast]

Hello everyone,

Been using this site for a while, only now been brave enough to post...

Something on my mind tonight and the subject line is pretty self-explanatory...

I am an extremely loyal and, I would like to think, good DH, with a young DD.

Sometimes, as a release from the day to day stresses, I visit some well known adult websites where, occasionally, I have some random chats with other adults - and yes, sometimes these conversations can turn a little steamy.

My rules are that I will strictly never meet, see or speak to these people, usually they are even on the other side of the world. It is a strictly virtual thing, not at all close to any reality. And sometimes it is really cool just having a random connection with someone sparky and interesting. It feels like a little bit of escapism, in the same way as porn can sometimes be, from the strains and stresses of day to day life...

But, as I say in the title, am I being unfaithful to my DW?

Please don't flame me for this, I want to hear your experiences and thoughts, not be killed on the board!!

Many thanks

that's very tough
a lot of people want someone else to satisfy their desires
they just don't do it and they find ways to be satisfied within the marriage
and credit to them

I personally do not think its all that bad. If you have ever been to a chat room or virtual worlds i think you would see it a bit more differently.
I have had the ocassional flirt online with someone i would NEVER meet and tbh its a bit of fun. If you take the online thing very seriously and think deep down oh i want that more then yes there is an issue. If its all light hearted and bit of chill out time then why the hell not?

As for 'hiding the secret from the wife' why dont you suggest or explore a bit more sexually with her? She is your wife and you love each other and sometimes a bit of fantasy in the relationship can open up more and wonderous doors for you both!!

Thanks for all your considered comments this morning, I think everyone is right in their different ways.

The one which resonates the most with me is that this is not infidelity as such but it is wrong. That sounds like a good middle ground to me.

But as Sapphier says, it can be a bit of fun - on the condition of not taking it seriously.

As someone also rightly said (sorry I do not have your name on my screen as I type this), chatting innocently to random people online is harmless. Perhaps I gave a slightly wrong impression at the beginning. On the occasions I have chatted like this (and as I said, this is neither systematic or regular), it has not always turned "adult". On the contrary, it has on occasion been anything but and the fact of chatting to someone totally anonymously can be quite liberating. No that does not mean that I am missing something in my friendships and my relationship. It just means that it can act as another outlet, not one which replaces all the real world tools we all have to communicate with.

At the end of that day, most of us, I feel, want to talk and be listened to and we cannot always find that in our own homes and friends and families, while being perfect 99% of the time, may not always be the ideal people to share with. The internet does provide a forum for openess in a safe and anonymous way. As notacheesemaker rightly points out however, the best route is to find satisfaction within the marriage, but this is not always realistically possible (time, fatigue) so finding other outlets to express oneself need not be totally wrong.

Bottom line, however, is that this particular outlet, while not a hanging offence is nevertheless not entirley right in the context of a relationship so, as I said last night, it is something I can easily do without, and will from now on, do without.

well nice one!
hope it works out
you should come on here more often and get your kicks that way
some seriously amusing blithering goes on on m-net i guarantee

oh flip -- sounds wrong considering some horrible things just happened on here between m and f m-netters

so don't do that!

I don't understand that last post, notacheesemaker. What was happening on here?

oh well i don't want to rake over old stuff but a dad and a mum met on here and were contacting each other in a not good way online and it was awful and turned out terribly in real life too.

ouch, that does sound messy. I guess there is nothing to stop couples meeting by chance on this website, in exactly the same way as you could bump into each other in Tesco!

it did cross my mind that this may have been started by a namechanging HD actually,.

I think this is one of those things thats difficult.

One of my hobbies is tandem writing with my girlfriends on the net, and in the process of our storylines, sometimes the writing gets sexual and very much pornographic.

There is no 'buzz' in it for me, i get nothing sexual from it, its just writing..
I dont see it as cheating, as it isn't me cybering with another guy.. its me and a girlfriend writing occasionally dirty stories together for a laugh.
however,i do try to be honest with my DH that i do this

Do you get pleasure from it? How would you feel if your wife was doing it?

Ask yourself that..

ok, my tpw is - and this is theoretical. I would be more upset if I thought dh had mentlly connecrted with someone else than if I found out he had just shagged someone. Theortically, a one-night-stand could be forgiven more than him chatting, connecting and expressing hopes,dreams, fantasies etc with someone else. Sex is sex, connecting is a relationship.

interesting point, filthymindedvixen, although the boundaries between physical and mental connection may not always be as clear cut as you suggest. I do believe you can also have a very non-connected chat, in the same way I imagine you could have a very connected one-night stand. Put it this way, I know which of the two I would feel a million times more guilty of.

Interesting post, Kaishay. I can see the difference between what you describe and the tennet of this thread. However, you say there is no buzz, you get nothing sexual from it and it's just writing but are you not still getting some release, some escapism, some outlet for your thoughts, even if that does not mean as such that you are getting sexual pleasure out of it? Clearly there is nothing deceitful in what you do because your DH is aware of it but does he not ask why you cannot create this erotic writing with him instead of with your friend?

Lol, no, he's got no interest in it, either erotic or otherwise.. i dont think he has a creative bone in his body.

Postingatlast: you'll get a wide range of opinions on this and on any subject here. Bera in mind that some of them will be from the extreme-monogamist viewpoint that couples actully own every single one of each other's thoughts and have a padlock on each other's genitals, and (a phrase which often comes up in this kind of discussion) men, in particular 'have no right to privacy'.
And reading some of your posts I get the impression that your online activities are less about cyberwanking than about chatting to people (male and female) which seems entirely reasonable to me. I wonder how hurt or betrayed some MNers partners would feel if they found out that their wives or girlfriends were having long discussions about their will ysize or sexual inadequacies on line?
I certianly don;t think it's remotely mentally healthy to expect that one individual ie the other half of a romantic couple shoudl meet all of another individual's needs for conversation, entertainment, friendship etc. COuples who try to merge into one unit with no separate thoughts, friends, activities or moments are either immature, inadequate or completely mental.

I have to say that last post resonates a lot with me, I think it is a very balanced view. Thank you for actually seeing where I was coming from. You are right, it is more about chatting than wanking (to quote!). As I have maintained all through this post, everyone needs somewhere where they can be open, not judged and get things off their chest. That is why a lot of people post here, I would imagaine, and yes, I see your point about what partners would think if they saw some of the stuff posted about them on here...

Loved the punchline to your last sentence by the way!

So how often do you wank during or after doing it postingatlast? It sounds like wanking is still a feature of it, even if you chat more than wanking.

I feel sorry for your wife. Not only do you talk dirty behind her back to strangers on the internet, you've got a smooth line in rationalisation that you use to justify everything you do. If you're having to keep sexual secrets from your wife you are hurting her, however you dress it up as not being infidelity.

Comparing Mumsnet to what you do is cute too. When people on here start masturbating to Mumsnet content, you'll have a point until then not so much.

Are you HD by the way?

Elizabeth, I genuinely have no idea who HD is. To illustrate the point, I went into the acronyms page to look up HD when it was first mentioned a few posts back, couldn't find it and decided it meant DH but the poster had written it the wrong way round. Now I read your post I can see that HD is actually a person. Anyway, I am certainly not him. Not sure what else I can say to prove that but I really honestly am not him.

Also, you refer to this HD guy in a tone which implies he is either bad or had caused problems here. I think I have remained very courteous in this whole thread, have listened to everyone's comments, thanked individuals for their contributions, even when they didn't portray me in a good light. I would like to think that for my first contribution to these forums I have been a polite citizen but if you think otherwise, so be it.

I was not directly comparing anything to Mumsnet, I was following on from what Madamez had said and then continued the thought process into saying that everyone needs different outlets to express themselves and there are many ways on the internet that people can do this without fear of being judged.

Also, you may not have read all the posts but I have made it clear that this is not a thread purely about sexual gratification. Madamez understood that perfectly.

I respect your point of view however, as I made clear earlier on.

I agree with Cash&carry - I think the interactive mutually particpatory nature of a chat-room makes it different from looking at mianstream newsagent porn, for e.g.

I hjhahve no problem with a partner masturbating, but whether you class it as 'infidelity' or not, if it isn't something your DW would be happy about, it is probably best not to do it.

I have not led a sheltered life, am not of a jealous nature, am not prudish...but I would have a fit if DH was in steamy chat rooms.

honestly I feel you are - and this is speaking from experience here, my XH spent hours online once DS & I were in bed. (obv we had other probs but a big thing was his online antics) he would 'talk' to god knows how many women and get sent god knows how many porn style pics - I can only guess he gave his mobile to them - whilst I don't think he met any of them as far as I am concerned why did he want to see pics of them when I was upstairs, I would have listened and talked to him etc.

so yes emotionally you are being unfaithful, but that's just a view and of course i'm bias against them.

HD is shorthand for the name of a male poster whose marriuage was ruined by inappropriate chatting offline to Mn posters.

(and tbh if I found out my XH had been wanking over the picks/cyber sex etc with other women then yes that's def cheating in my mind, the trust would ahve been gone and so would I. well am now so it doesn't matter! )

So what if it's not purely about sexual gratification, it's a large part of it, please correct me if I'm wrong, and it is something that I assume your wife would be pretty upset if she found out you were doing.

I believe you're not HD. HD was someone who used Mumsnet to find women to talk dirty to. One of them wasn't so happy at being used by him in the end though so she told his family what he was up to and the whole thing ended in a big mess. You are playing with real people's feelings here, yours, your wife's and the women you masturbate whilst talking to.

If you need your fantasies, like someone else said, have them in your bath on your own. That way you aren't hurting anyone else.

I don't think it's infidelity. I don't think it's the start of a slippery slope.
If I found out DH were doing what you are doing, I would think he was a wee bit lonely tbh, and see it as a symptom (but then, I know my DH, and that wouldn't fit for all men).

pal, hd is happydaddy. there are lots of allusions to what he's done, but i don't know what actually went on. farking annoying actually. could all be about nothing!

anyway, i think the crux of the matter is that you know your wife wouldn't be happy about it. i personally think you should discuss it with her and either come to some agreement ie. she'll look the other way, or perhaps you can do more to cater for each other's needs.

but this is clearly a big thing for you, and because of that i think you committing some kind of betrayal. if it were a take it or leave it activity and you didn't do it months on end, then i don't think it matters.

oh right -now i know what he did!